In the shadow of the towering Capitol in downtown Baton Rouge is the Capitol annex, an unsuspecting building housing the No. 2 in Louisiana’s political chain of command, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne.
Dardenne said he hopes to move about 400 feet across the street after Louisianians elect a new governor Oct. 24 as he champions fiscal balance, education and bipartisanship.
Dardenne is campaigning without the support of the East Baton Rouge Parish Republican Party, which backs the other two biggest GOP candidates Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and U.S. Sen. David Vitter.
Democratic Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell worked with Dardenne in the Louisiana Legislature in the ’90s, and while he often battled with Dardenne, standing on opposite sides of the party line, he said it’s “shameful” the Republican Party does not endorse him.
“Jay Dardenne has done everything the Republicans want him to do,” Campbell said. “And for them, for the Baton Rouge Republicans to abandon him and go with Angelle and Vitter, and leave Jay Dardenne out is sinful.”
Campbell, who raised money for Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards’ campaign, said Dardenne is an honest man and a moderate Republican. He said Dardenne has likely been a Republican since he registered, while Angelle was a Democrat for years before switching his affiliation to Republican.
Dardenne said he defeated the Republican Party’s former chairman and sitting chairman, as well as the son of a former chairman in his statewide campaigns for secretary of state and lieutenant governor.
“So I certainly haven’t been the darling of the Republican Party, although I’m proud to be a Republican, I’ll always be a Republican, and I’ve enjoyed significant support. But we live in a much too partisan a society right now,” Dardenne said.
Dardenne, like the other three well-known candidates, said higher education would be his top priority if elected, touting his role in creating the community and technical college system in Louisiana while a senator.
He said the community college bill introduced Louisiana residents to certificates and associate degrees, and paved the way for seamless transferring to four-year schools or the workforce.
Dardenne said he served on the education committee for the 15 years he was in the state senate. He said he was involved with virtually all legislation dealing with education, and would draw on that experience if elected.
“It’s gonna be a priority to me to make sure we start the process of refunding higher education at a level that is gonna allow Louisiana to be competitive with other states in attracting professors, attracting research dollars, in recognizing that higher education has to have a favored status in the Louisiana budget if we’re gonna continue to grow economically,” he said.
Legislation “devastated” higher education during the Jindal administration, and the proposed $608 million budget cuts to higher education floating around the state legislature in the spring would have decimated higher education and forced some universities to close, Dardenne said.
The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, the merit-based scholarship that pays tuition for many students who met specific high school requirements in Louisiana, faces around a $20 million shortfall, and Dardenne said he would cap TOPS to limit its dramatic growth in state costs.
“TOPS is the most popular thing the legislature has done in my lifetime,” he said. “And it needs to be maintained, and it needs to be sustained.”
Dardenne ranked coastal erosion as third on the list of Louisiana’s most pressing issues today, behind budget deficits and infrastructure.
Louisiana has significant federal dollars available to save the coast and rebuild land along southern Louisiana, which Dardenne called “America’s wetlands.”
Dardenne said he is encouraged by recent polls showing growth in his campaign support and a drop in Vitter’s, though he said polls can be manipulated, and he relies on his campaign’s information.
“I’m looking forward to the one that really counts which is the poll taken on election day when everybody votes,” he said.

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Zoe Geauthreaux

Gubernatorial candidate John Leigh "Jay" Dardenne sits behind his desk on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015, at the Capitol Annex building where he currently serves as Lieutenant Governor.