Jeffrey “Jeff” Landry is the 57th governor of Louisiana, and the circumstances it took for him to get elected are shady at best. Not only did the Louisiana Democrats run one of the worst candidates possible, but the election was held on a Saturday.
Last year, on Oct. 14, there was also an LSU home game against Auburn, so it was a very big SEC game. Interestingly, the turnout for this election was a mere 36.3%. This is also attributed to further mistrust in the election process and tiredness of national-level politics, which provided the perfect conditions for a slimy, snake-like candidate such as Landry to emerge on top.
While my language may be harsh, I feel it is justified for the type of person Landry is. Landry was the Attorney General for Louisiana before he became the governor. During his stint at the Attorney General’s office, his department handled the fallout from the murder of Alton Sterling.
Sterling was an unarmed African-American man who was murdered at the hands of two white Baton Rouge Police Officers. Landry’s investigation found no guilt in the officers for his death. One officer was fired for this incident, while the other was given a 3-day unpaid leave.
What we see here is an example of his lack of empathy and true justice. Suppose Landry cannot get justice for one innocent African-American man in Louisiana. How can we trust him to seek justice and empathy for all African Americans (or anyone else for that matter) in Louisiana?
His failure to get justice for Sterling’s family isn’t the only failure Landry has had in his tenure as Attorney General. In fact, he decided to withhold flood infrastructure funding from New Orleans unless they criminalized abortion in the city.
Regardless of one’s stance on abortion, withholding funding from a hurricane-prone city to play a petty game of politics is messed up. In fact, it is a manipulative tactic that harms the citizens he is supposed to serve. This seems genuinely dangerous with the power he possesses now as governor.
God forbid, but imagine if there was a Katrina-like hurricane barreling towards New Orleans, and New Orleans needed funding. Perhaps Landry would refuse to call a state of emergency because New Orleans is a sanctuary city, weed is decriminalized or for any other reason.
We can see that Landry, as a person, is very manipulative and dangerous, especially when it comes to his political party. He will bend over backwards for his fellow Republicans instead of doing the morally right thing. He even sold out his gay brother just to get some political credit.
In 2016, Landry argued against an executive order by former Governor John Bel Edwards, which provided certain protections to LGBTQIA+ employees. Landry argued that these protections, which already exist for heterosexual employees, should not be in place for LGBTQIA+ employees.
Mind you, he argued that it should be done through the legislative process, which would’ve killed the bill in a Republican supermajority state senate and not as an executive order from the governor. Albeit, Landry says all this despite having a gay brother.
Nicholas Landry, Governor Landry’s brother, is openly gay. Unlike his brother, he is not big into politics but broke this policy to speak out against his brother’s hateful rhetoric. Seeing Landry sell out his brother just for a political party is alarming.
The fact that he is so vocally anti-LGBTQIA+ while having a gay brother is such an examination of his character. If he can’t put aside his political blinders, even regarding his own family, how can we trust him to lead all Louisianians?
Landry also has a history of homophobic rhetoric, dating back to 2012. Landry argued against his alma mater, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL), about including an LGBT history minor, claiming that it provided no educational benefit.
He furthers this homophobic rhetoric by claiming that LGBTQ+ existence and consists of such a small group of students that would go out for this minor that the university should not even bother offering it.
Landry’s moral compass is all out of whack. The fact that he puts his political party over his family shows that he only has one goal: to be the yes man of the Republican party. He even put his political party over God, considering that he supports the death penalty.
Landry claims to be Roman Catholic and pro-life. His policy regarding abortion does support this notion, but his policy on the death penalty tears apart his “pro-life” argument.
For starters, former Governor Edwards put a pause on the death penalty within the state, citing both a shortage in supplies and his own religious belief that the death penalty is wrong.
“The death penalty is so final,” he said. “When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death.”
However, as soon as Landry took office, he took away this pause on the death penalty. I find this quite ironic, as I distinctly remember during my education at Catholic High School that Catholics are against the death penalty.
His hypocrisy goes further, as he not only ended the pause on the death penalty but also added two new forms of the death penalty to be carried out. These being electrocution and the gas chamber.
Yes, you did read that right. The so-called “pro-life” Roman Catholic Governor Landry decided to legalize the use of nitrogen gas as a form of execution in the state of Louisiana. This feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen, considering the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which reads:
“The Eighth Amendment prohibits certain types of punishment: excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.”
The usage of nitrogen gas to kill offenders sounds something straight out of a dystopian novel, as the world saw in Alabama with the execution of Kenneth Smith, where witnesses reported seeing him convulsing, shaking and gasping for air for four minutes until he finally succumbed.
Regardless of one’s thoughts on the death penalty, the State should not have the right to kill its own citizens. The fact that Louisiana is using such a gruesome and painful method of execution should warrant a lawsuit.
He has no regard for those above him. Landry listens to nobody except for other Republicans. He will even ignore the Supreme Court, as seen earlier this year when he sent Louisiana National Guard members to the Mexico-USA border.
Sending armed guards to the border, a border that Louisiana does not even share is a show of force. Texas Governor Gregory Wayne Abbott, who fits the fascist moniker, put up razor wire on the border, along with sending the Texas National Guard to the border.
This show of force, especially to a nation that we are not at war with, is the definition of dictatorial on both Governor Abbott and Landry. Those two aren’t the only ones to send National Guard members to the border, with Governors Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Governor Ronald “Ron” DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Michael DeWine of Ohio, along with many other, notably Republican, governors.
All of these governors sent their National Guard members after The Supreme Court stated that it was illegal for Texas to put up a razor wire in the Rio Grande. And yet, all the governors mentioned blatantly ignored the Supreme Court in an act of dictatorial defiance.
If our governor won’t listen to The Supreme Court, the supreme law of the land, how can we expect him to listen to us, the common people? Who will Jeff Landry listen to?
Andrew Sarhan is an 18-year-old mass communication freshman from Baton Rouge, La.
