In Louisiana, a Democratic governor leans on vetoes to stall the conservative agenda
The Republican overwhelming majority in the Louisiana state legislature this year passed a bill banning gender transition care for minors, along with other legislation banning Covid vaccination requirements in schools and any classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation.
It was the kind of aggressive social policy agenda that has gained popularity in conservative states across the country. But unlike in most such states, where Republican bills pass into law, lawmakers in Louisiana had to return to the Capitol last week, more than a month after the session ended, to try to reclaim the legislation from the brink of failure.
The reason: John Bel Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South. He has used vetoes with some success as a bulwark against conservative legislation in a state where Republicans have controlled the legislature for more than a decade.
In Louisiana, governors have a history of successfully vetoing; most years, legislators haven’t even bothered to override them.
But this year, lawmakers decided to put that power to the test and met again to consider overriding more than two dozen vetoes at a time when Republicans have tightened their scrutiny of the legislature and when Mr. Edwards, who is completing his second term, is about to leave.
“You voted for this before,” State Representative Raymond J. Crews, a Republican, told his colleagues Tuesday when he asked them to override the veto of his bill, which would require schools to refer to transgender students by the names and genders on their birth certificates. “I hope you do that again.”
Mr. Crews did not get enough votes. By the time lawmakers adjourned late Tuesday, all but one of Mr Edwards’ vetoes were still in effect. The only exception was the ban on transitional care for minors, a bill that Republicans had devoted most of their energy and resources to resuscitating.
The outcome of the session, which lawmakers raced through on Tuesday, was a final demonstration of how Mr. Edwards, a governor who is leaving office for two terms next year, has managed to control the influence of Republican lawmakers to some extent.
“It’s kind of hard to be overly disappointed — we did indeed override the veto on a very important bill,” said State Representative Alan Seabaugh, a Republican who led a faction of some of the most conservative lawmakers.
Still, he admitted, Mr. Edwards was a formidable obstacle. “It really shows the influence a liberal Democratic governor has over Republican lawmakers,” Seabaugh said.
While many in the governor’s own party would dispute the portrayal of Mr. Edwards — an anti-abortion, pro-gun rights moderate — as a liberal, there was still widespread agreement that his departure in January could spark a significant shift in the state. political dynamics.
Many recognize a strong possibility of a Republican succeeding Mr. Edwards, paving the way for Louisiana to veer even more to the right after decades of the governorship flipping back and forth between the two parties.
The state has a “jungle primary” for all parties in October. Polls show Jeff Landry, the state’s very conservative attorney general, as the frontrunner, along with Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and former secretary of transportation and development.
In a state where former President Donald J. Trump won by a 20-point margin in 2016 and 2020, Mr. Edwards’s political survival hinges on the appeal of his biography—he is a West Point graduate and the son of a sheriff—as well as his blend of social conservatism and progressive achievements, including expanding Medicaid, which fits Louisiana’s unique political landscape.
He has angered many in his own party with his staunch opposition to abortion rights and his reluctance to criticize Trump, who went to great lengths as president to campaign against Edwards’ re-election.
Yet even Democrats critical of Mr. Edwards have seen him as a vital barrier to conservative policies that have easily penetrated neighboring states.
“I really think there is always room to be a more vocal ally and a more staunch ally of our community,” Quest Riggs, who helped found the Real Name Campaign, a New Orleans-based LGBTQ advocacy group, said of the governor. “But on the other hand, his vetoes have been a political tool needed to counter mobilization by the Louisiana evangelical right.”
Legislators last year managed to override a governor’s veto for the first time in three decades, a congressional map was reinstated that Mr. Edwards had objected to because it included only one district with a majority of black voters, despite the fact that one-third of the state’s population is black. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for a legal challenge to the card to move forward.
Also last year, Mr. Edwards passes a bill that would exclude transgender female students from school sports become law without his signaturepredicting that a veto would be overridden.
Mr Edwards said last week that in his eight years as governor he had vetoed 319 votes and 317 of those were supported. “Most of the time, we’ve been able to find common ground to move Louisiana forward,” he said.
On Tuesday, lawmakers blew through vetoed bills, including measures that denied the parole of dangerous offenders and prevented “foreign adversaries” from owning farmland.
Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both houses, and Republicans have a supermajority by a slim margin. Two Republican representatives from the state were absent Tuesday, and a few in the House and Senate crossed party lines to oppose some overrides, infuriating their more conservative colleagues.
When the ban on gender reassignment care went into effect, lawmakers described conflicting perceptions of what it means to protect children. Proponents of the bill said it would protect young people from treatments they claim are dangerous and untested, even though there is broad agreement among major medical associations in the United States that such care could be beneficial to many patients.
Critics of the ban argue that it would endanger a small, vulnerable group of young people by denying them medically necessary care. Most of the 20 other states that have passed similar legislation are facing lawsuits, and judges have already temporarily blocked some of the bans.
In the House, the vote to override the veto passed 76 to 23, with seven Democrats joining the Republicans. In the Senate it was 28 to 11. The Republicans took the only successful override as a victory.
“We sent a clear signal,” Mr. Landry, the attorney general and candidate for governor, said in a video posted online, “that liberal agendas that are destructive to children will not be tolerated in Louisiana.”
Lawmakers and observers pondered how the political climate would be different during next year’s legislative session, especially if Republicans retained their supermajority and won the gubernatorial race.
“What happens when they don’t have to hold back anymore?” said Robert E. Hogan, a political science professor at Louisiana State University, referring to Republican lawmakers if the Democrats lose the race for governor. “You will have a governor who is powerful and on your side.”
That prospect has sparked anxiety among some, especially within the LGBTQ community, but has fueled aspirations among conservatives.
Mr. Seabaugh, who is leaving the House due to term limits but is running for a seat in the Senate, envisions passing some of the same bills next year without the threat of a veto and overturning Mr. Edwards’ agenda. “I don’t think we can do it all in one year,” said Mr. Seabaugh, “but I’m definitely going to try.”