“Cutting Off Louisiana’s Nose To Spite Its Democrats:” House Dems And Black Caucus Respond To Speaker’s Committee Changes

Reps. Miller and James: “It is ridiculous to punish Democrats for the failure of a veto override session they actively tried to prevent.”
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2021
Contact: housedemsla@gmail.com
 
House Democratic Caucus Chair Sam Jenkins continues to mourn the sudden and tragic loss of his wife. See below for a joint statement from House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Dustin Miller and Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus Chair Ted James on the Speaker’s decision late on Friday to remove Democratic Reps. Brown, Pierre, and Johnson from committee assignments:
 
“When Rep. Schexnayder was campaigning for speaker, he told us he didn’t want the House to be a partisan institution focused on right-wing issues. He pledged to work with both parties, to listen and be fair to everyone. He pledged to be a Speaker for all of us. He broke that pledge last week by lashing out at Democrats for a failure that belongs to him alone.
 
His decision to remove Reps. Brown, Johnson and Pierre from their committee assignments is inexplicable and will weaken the House. It is ridiculous to punish Democrats for the failure of a veto override session they actively tried to prevent. It is ridiculous to punish Democrats for sticking together during a veto session that Republicans said was ‘really about whether or not the Democratic Party and the Governor are on trial.’ It increases partisanship while doing nothing to help the Speaker achieve his goals.
 
Every major piece of legislation the Speaker considers an accomplishment—including tax reform and infrastructure investments earlier this year—was passed with support from Democrats. The Speaker has made it much more difficult to build the kind of bipartisan coalition he needs to get his agenda and the agenda of his allies passed.
 
The Speaker’s decision amounted to cutting off Louisiana’s nose to spite its Democrats. Take Rep. Pierre, for example. As chair of the Transportation committee, he has traveled the state with Secretary Shawn Wilson and worked with our Republican colleagues to improve our infrastructure. He hoped to use his chairmanship and ties to the current presidential administration to maximize federal funding for our roads and bridges. Now he won’t be in the same position to do that. 
 
What will the Speaker even get out of this? Will he appease the hard-core partisans who will never trust him because Democrats helped elect him Speaker? Will he win over the extreme right-wing elected officials and activists who do nothing but threaten and deride him? Will he impress the folks that mere weeks ago were calling him ‘wrong way clay,’ ‘a person who sucks,’ and a RINO? The folks that secretly recorded meetings with him and tried to recall him?
 
We know the Speaker wants to be a man of strength and honor, a leader who builds bridges and reaches across the aisle to get things done. He didn’t live up to that last week. Hopefully he finds his way soon. It could decide the rest of the legislative term.”