For the last 12 years, political watchers at the Louisiana State Capitol have lamented the slow growth of a Washington D.C.-style partisan divide in state politics. Now, as political analyst Jeremy Alford writes in his latest column, that divide is here and is the new “political reality at the State Capitol.”
“Just a cursory glance north to Capitol Hill will show you how this mindset can take hold and never let go,” Alford writes. “In other words, the door state lawmakers have opened can never be shut again.”
Alford points to House hearings that were routinely delayed so Republican and Democrat leaders could meet separately to strategize and whip votes—a new normal that has been occurring more frequently the last three Legislative sessions.
But the divide along political ideology is not the only one in the State Capitol.
“Even more troubling is the fact that there seems to be as much of a split between the House and Senate this term as there is between the far corners of the Republican and Democratic parties,” Alford writes.
Compromises between the chambers fell apart, or nearly did, on a number of issues, Alford says. That’s worrisome, he adds, because with no real changes in leadership structure coming before the next sessions, this could continue to happen.
“The pressure from the last six months may have certainly played a role in the disagreements between the House and the Senate and between Republicans and Democrats,” Alford writes. “But we won’t know for sure until their next legislative outing. Either way a giant crack is forming in the marble of the Capitol building and it seems more permanent than ever. The best we can hope for now is that it doesn’t grow too wide to cross.”
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
