I have been watching the Louisiana Public Service Commission race between leading contenders Jean Paul Coussan and Julie Quinn with some interest lately.  The PSC is not the most exciting thing going, but with Trump’s victory in Louisiana a foregone conclusion, there isn’t a lot more on the ballot to draw my attention.  So, I have been digging into the PSC, and I have managed to find some meat on that bone.

At first glance, this race pits a sitting Republican senator (Coussan) against a former Republican State Senator (Quinn).  Oh, and there is a democrat in the race whose sole contribution will be to take the democratic vote in the primary and force a December run-off (and lose handily) against the republican candidate who draws the most votes from the right.  The comparison of the two Republicans is where you can find some interesting tidbits.  But Coussan is the one who has really drawn my attention.

On the surface, he seems to be a run-of-the-mill, establishment, boring candidate.  But when you dig a little deeper, you begin to see why he probably should not be elected to anything, much less being promoted from one of thirty five state senators to one of five public service commissioners.  His legislative record is not very conservative, but not the worst Republican in the senate either.  But when I started seeing his TV commercials, I realized that his PSC campaign message does not match up well with the reality of his record.

His commercials are totally based on protecting us from the Green New Deal.  Sounds good, but this guy has been one of the top supporters of Green New Deal legislation in his time in state government.  Coussan has never met a carbon capture deal that he didn’t like.  For him to now be plastering the airwaves with commercials telling us how committed he is to fighting against the Green New Deal seems more than a little disingenuous.  Check out this selection of obviously bad votes:

5/3/23 – Abstained from the vote on HB308 which would require an environmental impact statement for the carbon capture project that is happening in Lake Maurepas.  The bill died with a 6-6-1 vote.  Coussan’s vote would have passed the bill, which would have made that project more difficult and bought time for the citizens who were (and still are) fighting against that project.  Coussan was also the chairman of the committee.

5/2/23 – Voted against HB267 in committee which would place a moratorium on carbon capture projects in Lake Maurepas and the Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area.

5/15/23 – Voted against HB267 again when it was on the house floor, where the bill died for good.

5/15/23 – Coussan voted against HB120 by Nicholas Muscarello which would have prevented the state commissioner of conservation from issuing permits for the Maurepas project.

Many other bills intended to stop or control carbon capture died in the Natural Resources Committee that Coussan chaired as well.

Those bills were mostly authored by the representatives of the people impacted by this carbon capture project.  They were standing up for their people.  Coussan was voting against the people who were impacted by this project as well as the representatives from the impacted area.  It wasn’t even his area, yet he voted against the people who were there begging for help.  And now he wants us to believe that he is opposed to the Green New Deal?  Sorry, but I am not buying what you are selling.  His voting record does not look like someone who is opposed to the Green New Deal.  It looks more like someone who wants more tax dollars for the government to spend, no matter what the cost to the people.

Now, let’s revisit the Lafayette Republican Parish Executive Committee (RPEC) endorsement vote.  I first wrote about it here.

And sure enough, last Monday (October 14), it was leaked out that the Lafayette RPEC did indeed go back and switch their endorsement vote to give the endorsement to Coussan.  They tried to keep it quiet, but of course people found out.  Moon Griffon talked about it the very next day, and his information was not very flattering for the RPEC.  My original column was focused more on actions of the RPEC, but it seems pretty clear that they would not have stuck their necks out like this unless Coussan pushed it.  So clearly, he considers backroom deals to be acceptable means and methods to gain his office.  I think this may backfire on him, though.  It is patently obvious what went on here, and the voters will recognize this for what it is.  It makes Coussan and the RPEC members look bad, and rightfully so.

Finally, while I keep hearing about all of the support Coussan has, it seems to be completely based on an overwhelming desire to get him out of the senate.  No one is supporting Coussan because they think he will make a great public service commissioner.  His support is entirely made up of people who want to get him out of the senate so that they can get someone elected to that seat who is more conservative.  The prevailing thought seems to be that he will do less harm in the PSC than in the senate.  I am not a fan of voting for someone to put them in a position where they will do less damage to start with, but I don’t think that even applies here.  As I stated in the beginning of the column, that would put Coussan in a much larger district, representing a lot more people, in a position that actually has a major impact on our quality of life.

To sum it all up, we have a guy who claims to be against the Green New Deal, but votes for it every chance he gets; can’t get the endorsement of his home RPEC, but is willing to pull enough strings to have a legitimate endorsement vote overthrown, and he wants us to give him a promotion?  And all his co-workers want us to vote for him so that they don’t have to deal with him anymore?  I don’t think so…