Jefferson Parish boasts some of the most hotly contested elections in Louisiana. From Senate District 8 to Jefferson Parish’s Council District 4 election, severe mud-flinging and negative campaigning has taken front stage in Louisiana’s largest Republican-leaning Parish.

In the midst of all of this negative campaigning, I began doing a little digging into Jefferson Parish politics. Let’s face it – Jefferson has been a mess for a long time–from constant political scandals to harboring some of Louisiana’s most notorious RINOs (“Republicans-in-Name Only”). While nearby New Orleans is failing apart, Jefferson Parish is not stepping up to become the leading parish in Southeast Louisiana. Instead, Jefferson Parish remains bogged down by establishment-oriented, machine-style local politics.

Let’s remember that John Bel Edwards carried Jefferson in the past two gubernatorial elections, something nobody seems to believe when you tell them until you show them the results. But it’s true – Edwards beat David Vitter 51-49 in the 2015 runoff, and then in 2019, as if to prove that Vitter’s loss wasn’t just a voter rejection of his sometimes-caustic political style, Edwards absolutely clobbered Eddie Rispone in Jefferson by a 57-43 margin.

How does this happen in a suburban parish where virtually no Democrats can get elected to major office? There are lots of theories.

One theory can be found in the ongoing proxy war between two political “kingmakers” in Jefferson Parish politics: Greg Buisson and Sidney Torres.

For those who are unfamiliar, Greg Buisson runs a media advertising and political consulting agency in Metairie. His firm has supported hundreds of candidates in the Greater New Orleans area, and he has played a role in the elections of many local elected officials in Jefferson Parish politics.

On the flip side, Sidney Torres is a local businessman and founder of the local garbage disposal company IV Waste.

Buisson and Torres’s feud goes back to a disputed contract between Torres’s company IV Waste and the Kenner City government earlier this year. Kenner’s city government has strong ties to Buisson’s political consulting agency, and the city claims that IV Waste overbilled it under the previous Mayor of Kenner.

To sum up the situation, Buisson and Torres are backing opposing political candidates against each other —particularly in Jefferson Parish’s District 4 and Parish at-large elections.

There has been a lot of discussion about Buisson’s influence over the years. The fact is, though, while he’s a Republican consultant he’s worked for a wide variety of clients. For example, his firm has done some work for Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser, who’s certainly perceived as a moderate and who has without a doubt aligned himself with the Friendly-To-John-Bel-Edwards wing of the GOP. But one of Buisson’s oldest and most prominent clients is Eric Skrmetta, the public service commissioner for the New Orleans suburban district who has long been one of the staunchest conservatives in the state.

The most accurate thing you can say about Buisson is that his clients, particularly in Jefferson, usually win. What they do while in office can be a mixed bag, but that seems to have a lot more to do with Jefferson Parish than it does with Greg Buisson.

And Buisson has worked for candidates who have challenged the Jefferson power structure as well.

So while Torres and Buisson’s proxy war has received some news coverage, there is a more important story that no one is really talking about. Which is that Jefferson Parish might be Louisiana’s largest Republican-leaning parish, it boasts some of the most corrupt local politicians (which has always been true) and notorious RINOs in the State Legislature.

But why? The answer: Jefferson is a worst-case example of a place run by a local political machine even though it isn’t a Democrat stronghold.

Jefferson Parish machine politics has a long, sordid history–starting with the infamous mob boss Carlos Marcello continuing on through the Sheriff’s office in Harry Lee/Newell Normand. The current battle of the machine proxy war is nothing new as Newell Normand and Joe Yenni battled for control over the Jefferson Parish machine back in 2018.

As mentioned before, Jefferson Parish’s machine-based political culture has produced many corrupt, scandal-ridden politicians: including former Parish President Aaron Broussard, former Parish President Mike Yenni, former Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, former Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn, and many more.

Broussard went to prison. Yenni was forced to resign after scandal broke out over his personal conduct. Normand “retired” amid a federal investigation into his side business dealings while sheriff; he’s now a “conservative” talk host on WWL radio who continuously trashes conservative political candidates, and including Vitter and Rispone. Many other minor potentates on the Jefferson political scene have had run-ins with the law or the media over suspect conduct.

Why do Jefferson voters, most of whom are relatively upscale and who vote hard-core conservative in federal elections, choose such a corrupt status quo so often when local politics is on the table?

One key reason is that the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department has a reputation as perhaps the best crimefighting agency in the New Orleans area – mostly because the “JP’s” are relatively less “enlightened” in their handling of street criminals than is, for example, the New Orleans Police Department. Jefferson’s crime rates have thus been far lower than those of Orleans Parish, though in recent years Jefferson is less safe than ever.

Another is that Jefferson has managed to do a generally better job with drainage than has Orleans. That didn’t prevent the richest part of the parish and maybe the state, namely Old Metairie and the area around Metairie Country Club, from flooding after Hurricane Katrina, but on the whole there isn’t the customary flooding in the streets every time there’s a hard rain like Orleans residents commonly see.

These two factors are generally enough to placate voters who expect very little return on their tax dollar. Jefferson is a parish whose population swelled mostly with refugees from Orleans in the latter part of the 20th century, and that frame of reference doesn’t particularly carry high standards of expectations. The fact that so many Jeffersonians put their kids in private or Catholic schools means they don’t care that the parish’s public schools woefully underperform, and there doesn’t appear to be much angst that its business climate has been exceedingly sleepy for decades now when one would expect it to burgeon as New Orleans sinks.

More peculiar is the effect these local political quirks have on state politics in Jefferson.

Besides the corrupt local officials over the years, Jefferson Parish harbors three of Louisiana’s worst RINOs in the State Legislature: Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, Senator Pat Connick, and Rep. Joe Stagni.

Let’s look at the records of Jefferson Parish’s “RINO Trio”:

-Rep. Stephanie Hilferty

Back in 2021, RINO State Rep Stephanie Hilferty slandered State Representative Ray Garafolo by misrepresenting his comments during a Committee hearing about his anti-CRT legislation. Hilferty then went on to CNN to go brag about how anti-racist she is.

Just a few months ago, Hilferty helped kill multiple bills during the July Veto override session by casting a critical NO vote–including one bill which looked to limit radical transgender ideology in Louisiana public schools.

-Senator Pat Connick

The voting record of longtime politico Pat Connick is nothing to marvel at. As summed up by LACAG’s article in The Hayride last month, Conservative voters of his Senate District (#8) should be disappointed to see that he has voted against Constitutional carry, supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and voted for raising taxes back in 2018.

Fortunately, Connick faces a formidable opponent in his reelection campaign. Louisiana Freedom Caucus endorsed candidate and Lafitte mayor Tim Kerner Jr. So, let’s hope that Kerner Jr. can defeat one of Jefferson Parish’s longtime RINOs.

-Rep. Joe Stagni

Two months ago, I wrote a well-received article in The Hayride about Louisiana’s worst RINO: Rep. Joe Stagni. This article goes in-depth to Stagni’s abysmal voting record in the State Legislature, his absence at the 2023 Veto override session, and a personal scandal during his time as a Kenner city councilman. So, Joe Stagni is no friend to Conservatives in Jefferson Parish and Louisiana at-large.

You’d think a deeply Republican place like Jefferson would be ready to throw out RINOs like Hilferty, Connick and Stagni. But all three were endorsed by the Jefferson Republican Parish Executive Committee. It turns out that the PEC endorsements in Jefferson work differently than practically anywhere else, because of course they do – in Jefferson, the Republican incumbent elected officials get a vote on PEC endorsements, and they all vote for each other.

Which is a very nice, cozy little scam. The machine’s first rule is self-protection, after all.

The RINO trio of Hilferty, Connick, and Stagni are the results of Jefferson Parish’s current political machine and the jungle primary system. From my perspective, the solution to Jefferson Parish’s political woes is a closed primary. Implementing a closed primary system before Louisiana’s 2027 election cycle should likely weaken the power of JP’s political machine and its RINO counterparts. So, an early priority for the potential Landry administration has to concern the passage of a closed primary system in Louisiana elections.

On a broader note, Jefferson Parish has the potential to become a thriving, prosperous suburb–especially when one considers the struggles of its neighbor Orleans Parish. Yet, Jefferson Parish remains just as a bedroom community to New Orleans.

Jefferson Parish can, should, and must become the leading parish of Southeast Louisiana and the state at-large. However, the stuck-in-the-mud machine politics of yesteryear still plague Jefferson Parish and hold it back from becoming a booming suburb like the ones surrounding Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Nashville.

Personally, I love the Jefferson Parish area. It is my home, and I plan on raising a family here. That being said, we can only unlock the potential of Jefferson Parish once the current local political machine loses its grip on power.

For Election Day coming up, make sure to support candidates who are going to put the people of Jefferson Parish and Louisiana First! Only Louisiana First!

Nathan Koenig is a is a frequent contributor to RVIVR.com, a national conservative political site affiliated with The Hayride. Follow his writing on Twitter @ConservativeTin and on Instagram @tincanconservative. Email him here: thechristianmajority@gmail.com