While Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards recently urged business leaders at the Council for A Better Louisiana’s annual meeting to work with his new administration “to get this right,” Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister notes that Edwards also told the Louisiana Federation of Teachers in his first speech following his election that the organization is “going to have a partner in the Governor’s Office.”
“Is it really possible Edwards is courting both unions and business? Because we don’t allow polygamy in Louisiana,” McCollister writes in his latest column. “I suspect he is married to the unions—and he wants business as a friend. As soon as his budget, his bills and his appointments start coming out, that will be evident, and the honeymoon will be over.”
McCollister says he is amused by the fact that Edwards warned the CABL audience, “We can’t all go to our corner and start lobbing grenades at each other because then nothing will get fixed.”
“I wonder if Gov. Bobby Jindal would accuse Edwards and his seatmate, Rep. Sam Jones, of doing just that?” he writes, adding: “I hope he won’t fault Republicans for playing his old role.”
Most folks know little about the governor-elect except that he went to West Point, says McCollister.
“But usually you can tell a lot about politicians from the company they keep and who is talking in their ear,” he writes. “It certainly made many business folks and Republicans nervous when they saw and heard the names of those hanging at the election night victory party, and some thanked by the governor-elect, such as Edwin Edwards, Mary Landrieu, Claude ‘Buddy’ Leach, Karen Carter Peterson, Sam Jones and Linda Day. They’re baaaaacckkk!!”
Also in his latest column, McCollister responds to criticism from outgoing Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle, who took issue with a recent column by McCollister that questioned her pick—former Capital Area Transit System board president Isaiah Marshall—to fill her seat when she joins the Legislature next month. Marshall resigned from the board in July 2013 under a cloud of controversy.
“Marcelle objected to me opposing her appointment and discussing it with three Metro Council members, because I don’t live in her district. Like I should just butt out of her fiefdom. She is wrong,” McCollister writes. “All of us should be concerned about our parish and region—and state. Getting involved is good.”
McCollister says he finds it amusing that Marcelle now wants to use her district boundaries to keep others from having input, given that her recent campaign fundraising efforts certainly expanded beyond those boundaries.
“She has big donations from many living in other districts,” McCollister notes. “She also accused me of being politically motivated. For what? Are her donors ‘politically motivated?’ And did she ask each of them if they had done ‘any real work in [her] community’ before she took their money? Sounds hypocritical to me.”
McCollister also comments on the final chapter written by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, whose bid for the governor’s mansion was ended by Edwards.
“As for all the pundits and editorials trying to portray Edwards’ victory as some referendum on Bobby Jindal’s policies, with Vitter being the victim, they are full of it,” he writes. “Vitter blew this one all on his own—despite spending more than $10 million in a ‘red’ state.”
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