By voting with Democrats and unions to kill a measure important to state contractors, Republican Congressman Rodney Alexander has kicked over a political anthill that could result in his getting stung in next year’s election, if not in reapportionment this spring. “He stood up and stuck a stick in our eye and a knife in our back,” said contractor Lane Grigsby on the Moon Griffon show, about Alexander’s vote against a Republican amendment that would have banned federal agencies from requiring union contracts on construction jobs over $25 million. The amendment to the budget bill failed on a tie vote, 210-210, on which Alexander joined only 25 other Republicans voting against. The state’s other five GOP congressmen voted for the amendment, while Rep. Cedric Richmond and all House Democrats voted nay. Grigsby, who has financed independent expenditures in recent elections, answered “absolutely” when asked if one or more challengers would emerge. Grigsby says he will plead his case at the Associated Builders & Contractors state PAC meeting Monday.
— A political action committee formed by U.S. Sen. David Vitter was critical in Sen.-elect Jonathan Perry’s win in last week’s special election. The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority is now considered the strongest force in GOP politics, far more so than the state party. Director John Diez expects the organization to raise about $2.6 million to spend on Republican legislative candidates this year. LCRM is governed by an 18-member board, but Diez says of Vitter, “He’s our go-getter. … He’s the guy who brings everybody together.” Vitter fills a vacuum left by Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has not endorsed in recent elections and has seen his candidates lose when he did.
They said it: “We’re trying to learn, but we got bats.” —A McDonogh 35 student on bat infestation in the New Orleans school, in The Times-Picayune
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
