What candidates are running in Louisiana 2023 governor race?

BY OLIVER BUTCHER @OliverButcher73

Louisiana’s governor race may be nine months away from election day, but it’s already begun to take shape with multiple candidates either declared or actively considering jumping into the race.

Louisiana operates under an open primary system, known as a jungle primary, in which every declared candidate is put on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. A candidate who gets the majority of votes wins, but if no candidate reaches that majority, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance into a runoff where whoever gets the most votes wins.

Louisiana is one of three states with a gubernatorial election this year and will be tasked with deciding who will replace the termlimited Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is the only Democratic governor in the Deep South.

Republicans appear eager to put an end to that Democratic irregularity, with a total of five GOP candidates declared for the race so far:

• Attorney General Jeff Landry

• State Senate Majority Leader Sharon Hewitt

• State Representative Richard Nelson

• State Treasurer John Schroder

• Businessman Xan John (who says he supports Landry and doesn’t expect to win)

Landry, who jumped into the race first in October, was quickly endorsed by the Louisiana Republican Party. He’s a Trump-aligned conservative who’s made headlines most recently for his push to restrict childrens’ access to certain library books.

Though he was swiftly endorsed by his party, not all within are backing Landry.

“The notion that a handful of

ARRESTS, from page 3 people could go into a back room and emerge with an endorsement of a candidate without ever considering others who are running or considering running is arrogant, ill-conceived and detrimental to the party,” Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, a Republican, said in a statement about Landry’s endorsement.

University-themed party as the two schools kicked off new semesters. Spokespeople for both LSU and Southern University told The Advocate that the event at the club that evening in Baton Rouge was not affiliated with either school.

In a social media post Friday, police said the investigation was ongoing and did not release any details beyond an announcement of the arrests.

Although the number of homicides in Baton Rouge decreased last year from 2021, Louisiana’s capital city has been plagued by gun violence. In October, an early-morning shooting near Southern University’s campus in Baton Rouge left nine people injured.

The Baton Rouge shooting occurred just hours after a gunman killed 11 people and wounded nine others at a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.

Nungesser opted to run for another term as lieutenant governor, putting more eyes on Congressman Garret Graves, a Republican from Baton Rouge, as another potential candidate.

Graves so far has been noncommittal about the race.

“Right now I’m 100% focused on my campaign and my job now in Congress,” Graves said when asked about his candidacy in an interview with the USA Today Network.

On the Democratic side, things are less clear, with only a LaSalle Parish teacher named Daniel Cole officially throwing his hat into the ring. State Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson may jump into the race still as a Democrat, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.

Katie Bernhardt, chair of the state Democratic Party, signaled interest in entering the race with a TV ad but opted not to run after facing widespread backlash from inside her party.

Hunter Lundy, an Independent and Lake Charles attorney, has also declared as a candidate.

It’s unclear how Gov. Edwards will be involved in the race.

“I just don’t know if Edwards is going to get involved this early,” said LSU political communication professor Robert Mann. “He may lay back and wait until the end to have the most impact…But I’m certain that he wants to support a candidate who will not undo his legacy, and if he can’t find that, publicly or not I think he’s going to be behind whoever’s running against Jeff Landry.” said, there was a “certain charm” about the former president that helped him get elected.

Though Trump leveled attacks at her, Parker said that as a real-estate developer and golf club owner, he was a natural host when he met with reporters privately. He would offer her a soda when she came to interview him and ask if she had been taken care of by the White House staff.

Trump even once left Bender alone in the Oval Office for 30 minutes.

One on one, “this was not someone who hated the press,” Bender said of Trump.

But that did not stop the public attacks, which helped damage the media’s credibility and insulate Trump from negative stories.

Parker recalled a campaign rally in 2016, when Trump called her out by name, asking if she was there.

Unlike other politicians’ rallies, Parker said Trump kept the press box in the middle of the crowd, making reporters part of the spectacle.

Trump’s aides had large name cards for the reporters that day, Parker said. She said she slowly slid hers under her laptop and looked around to pretend to search for the women everyone was jeering and hissing at.

Bender wrote a book called “‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.” Besides describing Trump’s administration and his 2020 campaign, he shares the stories of the self-proclaimed “Front Row Joes,” the supporters who attended dozens of Trump rallies over the years and camped out for days to be at the front.

Bender said he had a different relationship with the president than his wife did. He worked at

Horton shelved the bill last year but said she plans to bring it back again this session.

Fathers cover half of pregnancy-related medical expenses

State Rep. Lawrence “Larry”

Frieman, a Republican from Abita Springs, proposed a bill that would allow mothers to recoup half the costs of pregnancy-related medical expenses from the father of their child.

Under his law, House Bill 5, mothers could exercise this option “only after the paternity of the child has been proved by clear and convincing evidence.”

Frieman told BRProud it’s not fair women should cover pregnancy costs alone. His bill comes months after Louisiana instituted a near-total ban on abortions.

Paving the way for recreational marijuana in Louisiana

State Rep. Candace N. Newell, a Democrat from New Orleans, filed two bills that aim to decriminalize the possession and distribution of marijuana and pave the way for recreational facilities in Louisiana.

One of those laws, House Bill

The Wall Street Journal during the Trump administration, a publication the president liked. And he said Trump would almost always give him the benefit of the doubt.

But there was another quality of his that earned him the special attention of the president.

“He really liked my hair,” said Bender, who has wavy brown locks. “He constantly complimented it in front of other reporters.”

Bender recalled taking their 8-year-old daughter with him to the White House on Take Your

Kid to Work Day, where Trump greeted her warmly.

“Your dad’s a great reporter,” Trump told her. “He gets it right about 80% of the time.”

Bender said his relationship with Trump took a turn in the summer of 2021. The former president took issue with the parts of Bender’s book about Trump’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests. Trump sent out an email calling Bender a “third-rate reporter.”

Covering the Trump admin- istration also had other unique challenges in that the president often would make news late at night or early in the morning by posting tweets, the couple explained. “Trump burned through reporters … He was capable of creating news around the clock,” Bender said.

Trump’s aides were divided into different factions, Bender said. Before Trump’s administration, he had never seen multiple people be at the same meeting and have very different under- standings of what had happened inside.

While Trump was in office, this meant Bender would have to talk to every person inside to understand what happened.

Bender said he, Parker and other reporters took these extra steps to triple-check what they were hearing and be able to explain it to the public. “The only thing we have here is our credibility,” Bender said. “Once you lose that in this business, there’s nothing left.”

17, would allow up to 10 licenses for the cultivation and processing of marijuana and 40 licenses to sell it.

Newell filed a separate bill, House Bill 24, that would decriminalize the possession and distribution of marijuana on the contingent that the Legislature passes a regulatory system and sales tax on cannabis.

Newell has filed a similar bill twice in the past with opposition from her colleagues, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.

The law won’t prevent employers or schools from having drug policies that prohibit workers or students from using marijuana. It also wouldn’t impact the penalties for driving while intoxicated.

Louisiana may have accidentally legalized THC, according to

The Advocate, but officials are now trying to backtrack.

Taking the litter out of Mardi Gras season

Anyone who’s been in Louisiana around Mardi Gras season is well familiar with the beads swinging from trees and scattered along roadways. State Rep. Foy Bryan Gadberry, a Republican from West Monroe, proposed a law aiming to lessen the litter of the season.

His law, House Bill 23, would require local governments that issue permits for parades to require the parade organizations to have the litter cleaned up.

Parade organizations would have to do this within 24 hours of the parade. The law would require them to pay a deposit as security that they’ll follow through on the litter removal.