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Rolfe McCollister won’t be supporting congressional candidate Sen. Blake Miguez or as he describes him, “the carpetbagger from New Iberia. Let’s vote to send him home to New Iberia—not D.C.”
The Business Report columnist—a fellow Republican—notes in his latest column that he now lives in Congressional District 5 since Gov. Jeff Landry changed the maps and Miguez helped approve them.
Miguez lives in New Iberia, maybe 100 miles west of McCollister’s house, in Rep. Clay Higgins’ congressional district. He had announced he was running for the U.S. Senate and was raising money.
But then President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow, and things changed. As McCollister writes, speculation is that “Trump’s people” wanted to help Letlow and made a deal with Miguez to drop out and switch to the 5th District race, with Trump endorsing him.
And that, the columnist notes, is exactly what Miguez did at the 11th hour.
“Miguez had raised money for the U.S. Senate race, before he pulled a switcheroo, and some weren’t happy,” McCollister writes. “In fact, a couple prominent executives did call Miguez, demanding the return of their large donations—and got them back.”
McCollister argues that if Miguez had wanted to represent the 5th District, he should have announced his intentions from the start. “Instead, he was told by the ‘Trump team’ what he could run for and made a deal for the endorsement,” McCollister writes. “Some might say he was ‘bought and paid for,’ like 100% grade F beef.”
“Let me remind my friends and fans of Garret Graves, who live in East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes, that Miguez was right there in the mix, drawing the current race-based maps that ended our successful congressman’s tenure,” McCollister writes in his column. “Thanks a lot, Blake.”
McCollister also takes on East Baton Rouge Parish and Fred Raiford for failing to address the “dangerous intersection” at Pecue Lane and Highland Road sooner—before the new Pecue exit opened on I-10. And he weighs in on the multiple indictments handed down by the attorney general charging public officials with stealing money from CATS, including a Metro Council member. There’s also a look at how Baton Rouge’s population once outpaced Austin—and accolades for Paul Sawyer, a candidate for Louisiana House District 69.
Read the full column, and send comments to editor@businessreport.com.
