(July 6) Parents worried about their children’s safety as they go to Parkway High School in Bossier City should be furious right now with Gov. Jeff Landry. So should parents who want tutoring in Crowley, and parents who expected a new athletic field at Fontainebleau High School in Mandeville, or new tennis and pickleball courts in Watson, near Denham Springs.
Families who want better parks in Coushatta, Martin, Hall Summit, Lacombe, Shreveport, Arabi, Benton and Metairie should be seething against Landry.
Residents with sewer problems in Minden should blame their drainage problems on Landry. Ditto for motorists who want a better bridge in Plain Dealing and better roads and economic development in Breaux Bridge.
In what can only be described as a combination of pettiness, bullying and an ego-driven power trip, Landry vetoed all these projects that were passed unanimously by both the state House and state Senate. These were not vetoes justifiable by budgetary concerns. These were not vetoes based on philosophical principles. These vetoes were entirely due to politics — politics of a most unsavory kind.
Residents of all these communities should hold Landry responsible for making them the victims when his selfish dispute is not with them but with local legislators. The ordinary citizens are the political equivalent of innocent bystanders of an attempted drive-by shooting that misses its intended targets.
Because of Landry, and only because of Landry, their quality of living will be diminished from what it otherwise would have been.
What happened was this: Of Landry’s 17 line-item vetoes of relatively inexpensive but much-needed construction projects, 16 just so happened to kill items sponsored by Republicans who dared oppose the governor on a completely unrelated bill. And even on that bill, Landry’s biggest obvious interest wasn’t good government, but political gamesmanship. In other words, the vetoes were a crass political power play rooted in an earlier crass political power play….. [The full column is at this link.]
