(Feb. 10) The same Louisiana Republican Party that 30 years ago refused to censure former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke decided last Saturday to censure Sen. Mitt Romney.

The mind reels. The stomach sickens.

The Republican State Central Committee, the elected body that controls the internal governance of the state party, essentially said Romney for too long has been mean to poor, defenseless President Trump. The censure resolution blamed Romney for such transgressions as “allowing conservative spoiler candidate Evan McMullin to lease his 2012 campaign e-mail list,” writing an anti-Trump column for the Washington Post, and continuing “to deliver belligerent statements and comments about President Trump while largely ignoring far more egregious conduct and obnoxious rhetoric” by various Democrats.

The horror, the horror.

The resolution made no mention of Romney’s vote to convict Trump in the Senate trial that concluded last week, but resolution sponsor Mike Bayham admits it received “a lot more votes” at the RSCC because Romney broke ranks on impeachment. The resolution passed overwhelmingly by voice vote.

I’ve known Bayham for many years. He’s a good guy. I believe him when he told me he drafted his anti-Romney censure motion in May of 2019 and that the only reason he held it until now was that he was urged to wait, for party unity purposes, until after Louisiana’s race for governor ended in November. Bayham’s distaste for Romney runs deep. As a delegate to the 2012 national convention, Bayham insisted on voting for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum instead of Romney even though Santorum had already withdrawn.

Still, a censure in the political sense is a very formal action almost akin to the “shunning” practiced by various Christian denominations. It is a sanction often discussed but rarely effectuated….

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