Our picks for the ‘Top Ten’ Louisiana political stories of 2021

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

At the conclusion of each year, The Louisiana Weekly strives to look back and determine the most important stories which will resonate into the coming months ahead. In other words, those developments in the dying year which will help form the relevant politics for our readers for the coming 12-months, and the years beyond. In truth, as our motto suggests, this newspaper seeks to assemble the local political stories which truly constitute “News that matters to us.”

They are in no particular order of importance — as all will impact us in some way in 2021.

1. Bill Cassidy as bipartisan leader (and potential gubernatorial candidate). The January 6 insurrection may have poisoned our politics further, but it had an unexpected serendipity. A group of GOP U.S. senators finally became interested in some bipartisan solutions. Bill Cassidy voted to convict Donald Trump, yet his most important contribution was leading a group of 17 Republicans into supporting an infrastructure bill championed by the Biden administration. Washington worked for once because Cassidy saw potential for his home state in the trillion dollar legislation. Louisiana’s senior Republican senator became one of the most powerful people on Capitol Hill as a result, and while he has pledged not to run again for the United States Senate, his moderate instincts could position him quite well to face off against AG Jeff Landry for governor. After all, the next three major stories of the year may come about directly because of Cassidy’s infrastructure bill.

2. Train Service to Baton Rouge. When Canadian National Rail lost its bid to acquire Kansas City Southern, many put the chances of a BR-NOLA daily train service at almost nonexistent. CN had promised to sell (at a very cheap price) a direct rail link between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to the state (to satisfy regulatory concerns). When rival Canadian Pacific succeeded in obtaining KCS, CEO Keith Creel promised that he would find a way to balance freight and rail service. By all accounts Creel succeeded. A passenger route looks likely to happen; also, thanks in part to $61 million allocated out of the federal infrastructure bill to rebuild a wood bridge over the Bonnie Carrie spillway. The current passenger rail proposal (which would have two round-trip services per day from the Capitol to the Crescent City) would also be subsidized by the infrastructure bill, making tickets between $10-$15. However, critics maintain that regular service requires at least four round-trip journeys per day, citing lines of similar length between Sacramento-San Francisco and Milwaukee-Chicago. Still, any regular train service would be a major step into linking BR-NOLA into a single metroplex, a major competitive need for the state to remain economically relevant.

3. $1.5 Billion for the Sewerage & Water Board. It is no secret why Orleans Parish streets collapse. Forty percent of the water pumped through our pipes leaks out. The low water pressure is part of the reason why Orleans Parish suffers under constant “boil water advisories.” Surprisingly, a small, yet significant, portion of the city’s pipes are still made out of cypress wood. Bill Cassidy managed to allocate $1.5 billion to rebuild the Orleans’ Sewerage & Water System in the aforementioned bill, and the senator’s cooperation went a long way in bolstering Cedric Richmond’s case that former Mayor Mitch Landrieu should be the “Czar” in charge of distributing the infrastructure dollars. Louisiana could not be in a better position of influence over the appropriations because of it.

4. Construction of the St. Bernard Port. Landrieu is also an advocate of creating a 1,000-acre container port facility across the parish line – for the Port of New Orleans. Large container ships from Asia cannot pass under the Mississippi River Bridge and reach the Napoleon Avenue wharves, so building a brand new facility downriver not only saves time, but allows the Pelican State to become competitive in the lucrative container trade. Despite opposition in Chalmette, La., the infrastructure bill allocates money to this purpose, and N.O. Port officials are excited to welcome container ships coming northwards from a widened Panama Canal within the next five years.

5. The Power of Women in Local Elections. Fifty-six percent of the electorate were females in Orleans Parish in the December 11 election, 54 percent in St. Tammany. To understand the stunning election results for sheriff, for council, or in the rejection of the Slidell casino, the gender gap explains much. Women tend to be anti-gambling and generally (though not universally) inclined to vote for female candidates. Another way to explain this is to cite that in New Orleans, more Black women voted than white men in the runoff.

6. Death of Gambling in St. Tammany. It seemed an electoral slam dunk. Casinos sit less than a 30 minute drive away, across the state line in Mississippi. Drew Brees promised a $35 million sports complex in Slidell as part of a new casino complex, to go along with a luxury hotel, marina and boardwalk. Jobs would abound, and money that was flowing to the Gulf Coast would stay in St. Tammany. Yet, Northshore voters, led by a sheriff deeply skeptical, saw the reconsideration of the gambling issue to be an invasion of their community’s quality of life. Women responded, in particular, to a particularly powerful ad about “broken promises,” and the Slidell casino was rejected by an unexpectedly large majority.

7. The Defeat of Incumbents — Nguyen, Banks, Gusman, and even Palmer. The December 11 runoff proved particularly unkind to incumbents. While Kristen Palmer failed in her at-large bid in the primary to a well-known term-limited state senator (and son of a former councilperson), the other aforementioned incumbents shouldn’t have failed before their challengers – each on paper far weaker than their eventual victories would suggest. Much of this upset can be attributed to the previously mentioned power of the women’s vote, but also to an undercurrent of discontent which pulsated in New Orleans’ electorate, an anger into which Oliver Thomas, Lesli Harris, Susan Hutson and JP Morrell tapped.

8. The Rise of Helena Moreno. Of course, the councilperson who won reelection easily has already been spoken of as the “mayor-in- waiting.” The former reporter-turned-politician has built a formidable public profile. Her challenges to Entergy after Hurricane Ida solidified her status as a politician to watch.

9. The Political Strength of Latoya Cantrell…(and her possible weakness). As The Louisiana Weekly noted in the aftermath of the November 11 primary, Mayor Cantrell achieved more than just winning reelection with nearly 2/3 of the vote. Strictly on her “say so,” Orleans Parish voters turned against the constitutional amendment to centralize sales tax collection on the state level. The electorate trusted Cantrell enough to radically reject what had been a relatively popular measure just two weeks before she spoke in opposition. That is the definition of political power. However, not facing a strong opponent, the mayor was actually reelected with more than 6,000 fewer votes than she won four years before in the same election. That translates into an undercurrent of opposition which just did not bother to vote – this time. This undercurrent of opposition has been well noted by some of the new council members and has fueled their ambitions to serve as a far less compliant legislative branch than the previous City Council.

10. City Hall Relocation Fight. A desperate need exists for a new City Hall. However, Cantrell is still haunted by the method by which she tried to claim the Municipal Auditorium (and its millions in FEMA dollars) as her solution. She managed to irritate the old and new council members alike. Matched with rising crime rates, trimmed carnival parade routes (because of far lower NOPD recruitment numbers), and a collapsing infrastructure problem, the mayor is in for a challenging term. A new City Hall may be the least of her problems.◊

This article originally published in the January 3, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.