With the partisan majority of the state Senate on the line, tomorrow’s special election in Acadiana looks to be too close to call. A poll done for the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority shows Rep. Jonathan Perry, R-Kaplan, with a two-point lead over Democratic businessman Nathan Granger of Erath, with 27% undecided. The Granger campaign did not release its latest internal polling numbers, but spokeswoman Marie Centanni says they show the Democrat leading.
— Former Sen. Cleo Fields’ representation of two plaintiffs suing to block the Board of Regents’ study of the proposed UNO-SUNO merger could mark his return to the political arena. There has been speculation that the former congressman will try to win back his state Senate seat in Baton Rouge this year. Or he might challenge U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond if redistricting places a large number of Baton Rouge and River Parishes blacks in the 2nd Congressional District. Win or lose, it helps Fields in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans to be seen leading the fight to save SUNO. For those in his base, his brand needs some rehabilitation after his brother Wilson failed in his attempt to unseat Court of Appeal Judge John Guidry last year.
They said it: “I’m trying to save them from themselves. … This is bad policy.” —PAR President Robert Travis Scott, on the organization’s call for an independent board to handle legislative reapportionment in 2020, in The Advocate
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
