On April 12, 2016, Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a press release titled “Senate Approves the Louisiana Equal Pay Act.” But last week, as Jeremy Alford writes in his latest column, Edwards distributed another press release about the same body of legislators. The words two years later were far different: “Senate Votes Against Equal Pay Legislation.”
“Adding insult to injury, the Senate likewise rejected a minimum wage bill on the same day last week that, like equal pay, was a top policy priority for Edwards,” Alford writes. “The votes came after months of grumbling by mostly GOP senators about the presumption that the Senate has always been and will continue to be the backstop for the sitting governor.”
In private conversations, some senators have told Alford they can no longer be counted as guaranteed votes for the Edwards administration. Why? They don’t feel like they’ve gained anything by being in Edwards’ corner during the first half of the term.
Last week’s floor votes on the minimum wage and equal pay bills followed on the heels of the first special session of the year, which Alford notes hosted some minor but notable alterations to Senate politics.
For example, the Senate GOP delegation reorganized while the Black Caucus took some rather independent stances. Also, rank-and-file senators quietly complained about being excluded from high-level negotiations, Alford says, adding that one or two frustrated chairmen even threatened to go rogue by blowing up key House bills, which never showed up due to inaction in the House.
“These Senate-specific factors didn’t necessarily sway last week’s votes on minimum wage and equal pay,” Alford says. “But they may be part of a larger storyline—one that has corners of the Senate grasping for more independence and becoming anchored by ideology. Or, and this should surprise no one, maybe last week’s votes were fueled by election politics.”
What we may have witnessed was a handful of those senators switching their votes, from yes in 2016 to no earlier last week, in an effort to move further to the right, he says. This shift is significant because re-election season is right around the corner and special interest groups are tracking votes.
“The 2020-2024 term of the Louisiana Senate is going to be an eye-opener. Most politicos at the Capitol suspect the next term will deposit in the Senate many of the same challenges plaguing the House,” Alford writes.“There will likely be more Republican members that lean hard to the right, possibly a Senate president who’s elected independently of the governor’s wishes and senators staking out positions on the extreme ends of the political spectrum.”
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.
