State Attorney General Jeff Landry needs to cool it. The man has stirred controversy since the first day he landed in office, and his public relations machine is working overtime to portray him as our chief protector and defender.
Landry’s continuing comments about the great job he is doing remind me of a radio show I used to listen to as a kid. It was called, “Mr. District Attorney.” I loved the announcer’s opening lines and the district attorney’s response, and both stuck with me over the years.
The announcer’s opening lines were, “Mr. District Attorney...Champion of the People...Defender of Truth...Guardian of our fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Landry sounds like the district attorney, who would respond: “And it shall be my duty as district attorney not only to prosecute to the limit of the law all persons accused of crimes perpetrated within this county, but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens.”
If you have been following Landry’s almost daily news releases since he took office, the response fits him perfectly.
The first Landry push for special status came during the regular legislative session when supporters of Landry in the House decided he should have total control over his own budget. Never mind that it has never been done that way and that other statewide officials hadn’t taken the issue that far.
Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, came up with the idea. It wasn’t surprising since his ultra-conservatism fits the Landry mold perfectly.
A majority in the House refused to kill the idea on the spot and voted 69-26 to send the issue to the Senate. As is often the case, the Senate came to the rescue. The Senate Finance Committee simply refused to hear the Henry bill.
Jay Dardenne, the state commissioner of administration, didn’t think Landry should be given special privileges, and that only stoked more Landry animosity. He and the state Republican Party have never forgiven Dardenne, a gubernatorial candidate, for endorsing Gov. John Bel Edwards in his runoff against U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie.
Vitter and Landry are bosom buddies and Landry has quickly become Mr. Conservative and the GOP’s favorite candidate for governor in 2019. Landry continues to deny he has plans to run, but he and the party aren’t fooling anyone.
Mark Ballard of The Advocate explained the GOP political plans well in a July column.
“Let the word go forth that the torch has passed to a new generation,” Ballard said. He was talking about Landry taking over the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority PAC started by Vitter that helped engineer the Republican takeover of government in Louisiana.
Ballard said control of that PAC gives Landry a boost in the 2019 challenge to Edwards’ re-election. “But the short -term benefit is the bigger hammer it gives Landry in the Legislature, where his agenda didn’t fare well earlier this year.”
The next controversy centered on Landry’s hiring of the daughter of the attorney general candidate who endorsed Landry in the runoff. The daughter has a criminal record, but only received a suspended sentence.
The Advocate wrote the story about the daughter’s record, but Landry chose to deflect his criticism to Edwards and Dardenne. It showed Landry’s true colors.
“I can only assume the media’s interest in falsely impugning my integrity, and that of Geri Baloney, is to distract from John Bel Edwards’ political payback hiring of Jay Dardenne following Dardenne’s endorsement of Edwards, which resulted in Dardenne cashing in with a huge salary boost, doubling his pay funded by the taxpayers, and dramatically increasing his likely pension take by hundreds of thousands of dollars in the middle of a financial crisis,” Landry said in a statement.
Now, that’s a mouthful of nonsense. Dardenne is eminently qualified for the job he holds and the salary he receives. The commissioner oversees daily operations of state government and is the governor’s budget chief. He and the governor have been doing a remarkable job, and it shows.
Next up was a spat over cars. Landry asked for state approval of both a car allowance of $700 per month and reimbursement for mileage. Dardenne rejected the request, calling it “double-dipping.”
True to his usual form, Landry couldn’t miss another opportunity to cast aspersions against both Edwards and Dardenne.
“It is obvious the governor and Jay are trying to distract the press from the largest tax and spend plan passed in the history of this state with suggested innuendos,” Landry said in another statement. “While I remain committed to fighting crime, corruption and abuse of Medicaid — they remain committed to liberal tax and spend policies.”
That sounds an awful lot like a political commercial for the next gubernatorial election. Voters shouldn’t have to endure another campaign for the next three years.
Unfortunately, Landry apparently doesn’t plan to give us any rest from his political pursuits. He asked the Edwards administration to justify why a felon should serve as legal counsel for the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. It voted unanimously to hire Larry Bankston, the attorney involved.
Bankston served 41 months in prison for a 1997 conviction on a video-poker related bribery scheme. However, the state Supreme Court in 2004 voted to allow Bankston to practice law again.
If Landry can hire a felon, why can’t the contractor board hire one, too?
As we said at the beginning, Landry needs to cool it.
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