What happened this past Friday in the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee was a complete embarrassment to our state.  But no one should be surprised, as everything that happened came straight out of the Democrat party playbook.  But that does not make it okay, and the people of Louisiana should not be willing to accept this type of behavior in the public forum.  What was on display Friday was a straightforward case of the Democrats being unable to defeat the arguments of their opponent, so they attempt to destroy their opponent as a person.  Character assassination, plain and simple.  We see this in action time and time again.

Senator Gary Carter was the first to resort to character assassination.  He did not approve of the congressional maps proposed by fellow Senator Jay Morris, so he accused him of racism.  Since Carter’s arguments against the maps ring completely hollow, one would only assume that accusations of racism seemed the best route to fight against the maps that he opposed.  None of Morris’ actions can possibly be attributed to racism.  But apparently Carter believes that the ends justify the means, and destroying a fellow Senator’s character and reputation is acceptable way to oppose legislation that he does not like.

Carter also brought up Morris’ legislation to eliminate the position of criminal clerk of court and numerous judges in New Orleans.  Those actions do not reflect racism.  What they do reflect is common sense and fairness.  New Orleans is the only place in Louisiana where you will find both a criminal and a civil clerk of court.  Every other parish in the state functions just fine with a single clerk of court.  New Orleans is simply being asked to adhere to the same standards that the rest of the state manages to live under, seemingly without issue.

Morris also proposed legislation to reduce the number of judgeships in New Orleans.  Again, this is simply common sense and is long overdue.  New Orleans is a shell of its former self, yet it is still staffed with judges for the pre-Katrina population level.  This is simply wasteful.

Senator Carter needs to understand that New Orleans is broken (probably hopelessly so), and the taxpayers who live outside of New Orleans are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars being used to feed the bottomless pit of corruption and waste that the city is and has been for many years.  Most Louisianians who live outside of the city would prefer that the state never send another dollar to the city of New Orleans and let the city reap what it has sown.  So far, the state senate has been one of the primary drivers in sending repeated bailouts to New Orleans.

If Carter treats his fellow senators this way, he may inadvertently help move the legislature towards cutting off the financial pipeline to New Orleans.  That would be a great day in this state.  We need to stop rewarding failure, and New Orleans is the poster child for that.

The next (and possibly worst) offender in Friday’s debacle was the executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party and current EBR school board member Dadrius Lanus.  He later came out with the accusation that Senator Morris told him to, “Shut up, boy”.  This has been debunked by pretty much everyone except Lanus and a couple of his minions.  Nor does the audio of the meeting back up his accusation.  But that doesn’t seem to matter to Lanus, as he continues to insist that it did take place.  The mainstream media outlets won’t even back him up, and it is common knowledge that they will take every opportunity to cast aspersions on any elected Republican.  The fact that they want no part of his story speaks volumes.  Senator Morris did tell Lanus and his group to shut up (understandably considering their complete lack of decorum).  That much is clearly heard on the audio.  But the insertion of the word ‘boy’ seems to have occurred only in Lanus’ mind.

If the LAGOP executive director were to behave the way Lanus has, he would likely be fired before he made it back to his office from the capital.

Lanus and Carter should both publicly apologize to Senator Jay Morris specifically and to the committee and the public who witnessed that debacle if they had any sense of propriety and conscience.  But don’t hold your breath for that to happen, because it has all taking place in accordance with the standard Democrat opposition plan.  Don’t expect apologies for intentional acts and faux outrage.

Republicans have a supermajority in both the house and the senate.  They can run the legislature however they see fit.  Yet they elected a democrat to the position of senate president pro tempore (the #2 spot in the senate).  Democrats are allowed to chair three different senate committees.  They are allowed to wield much more influence than they should, and Republicans have bent over backwards to allow them to serve as productive members of the legislature.  Those efforts should stop immediately.

Senator Caleb Kleinpeter chairs the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, and he went above and beyond in his attempts to allow the public to be heard.  He probably should have recognized that as a wasted effort and just had the chamber cleared by security as soon as showed how they intended to act in that meeting.  That would certainly have been justified.

It is long past time for Louisiana Republicans to realize that they can’t play nice with the Democrats.  The Democrats have clearly shown that they aren’t interested in playing nice.  Republicans need to relegate Democrats to the back corner.  There should not be a single Democrat in a position of leadership in either the house or the senate.  No chairmanships, no nothing.  And for the rest of his term, not a single piece of legislation from Gary Carter should see the light of day.

Republicans may think that they can work with Democrats if they are nice enough to them, but the reality is that as soon as the opportunity to inflame their base arises, Democrats will resort right back to character assassination.  And any Republican is fair game.

Some will say that Republicans should fight fire with fire and use the same tools against the Democrats.  A better route is to simply take away all their influence and leadership.  Making Democrats completely irrelevant at the capital would be the best way to deal with this type of behavior.  Because no one pays attention to you if you are irrelevant.

And one final point.  Carter, Lanus and the rest of the Louisiana Democrats did not seem to have a problem with redistricting in Virginia when Republicans were on the short end of the stick.  And the Republicans did not make it on the national news showing the world how big of a temper tantrum that they could throw when things didn’t go their way.  It seems that Senator Carter only opposes gerrymandering when Republicans are the ones doing it.