House Judiciary Chair Robby Carter, who has oversight of legislation in the lower chamber related to judges and courts, may be bowing out of politics.
Asked by LaPolitics Weekly if he plans to seek another office after his current term concludes, Carter said, “No. I will be 66 in another month. I’m pretty much retiring.”
As for whether he’ll get involved in the race to replace him in St. Helena Parish’s House District 72, he said that depends on who runs.
“There are a couple people that I don’t want to take over because their beliefs are way different from mine,” Carter said.
Carter, however, did offer some words of advice for anyone planning to fill his shoes.
“Make sure you vote for the right speaker,” Carter said. “I voted for the wrong one one time, and I didn’t get anything for four years. Always put the interests of your district first. No matter what the issue is, you’re elected to represent your district, and your district has got to come first. I would hope that whoever takes my place would continue to try to keep the funding coming in for my district, because my district’s always in the top five per capita of what they receive in state infrastructure funds. I would hope they would try to keep that. But it’s going to be hard. You’ve got to remember, one of the reasons I get so much is because of my seniority.”
Looking ahead to the 2027 regular session, Carter predicts carbon capture and data centers will be hot issues.
“They’re very controversial, and they’re going to stay controversial,” he says. “I think you’re going to see a lot of bills on carbon capture and data centers. It is a big issue everywhere because there are very few people who don’t have an opinion on it. Everyday working people have an opinion on whether we should inject this into the ground or not, and whether they want their parish taken over by a data center. Some parishes want it. Some parishes don’t. I can tell you I live in a parish, St. Helena, where we don’t want carbon capture or a data center. We want St. Helena to stay environmentally as perfect as it can be.”
— They said it: “Anybody that has EVER played under the lights in Tigah stadium, or at the Pistol Pete Assembly Center, or at Alex Box KNOWS there is no such thing as a ‘fair forum’ or a ‘neutral decision maker’ anywhere near Baton Rouge.” –Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on social media about the preliminary 19th JDC ruling that players who had previously left college football to try to play professionally can play for LSU
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
