gone fishing

session wrap & the sportswoman's paradise

Session ended a couple of weeks ago (scroll down for the session wrap), and I’ve needed some time to sit with it.

There’s been a lot running through my head ever since that fateful night back in October when Janky Jeff won the primary outright and became our Governor—a night that felt reminiscent of another election night circa 2016 when the unthinkable happened. Both of those nights inspired the same unsettling feeling that I’m pretty sure is going to last at least until November when we come up against yet another election night that may or may not hold surprises for us all. And it got me thinking about what our goal is here.

Throughout the life of this project—the Nah Brah project—I’ve allowed the goal to evolve as necessary. It began with the goal of re-electing John Bel. Then the goal evolved to supporting him, passing good legislation, and blocking bullshit legislation, knowing we had a governor who (relatively) had our back, who would sign the good shit and veto the bad. Now we have a super-majority Republican legislature and a governor who, decidedly, does not have our back, and the goal must change again.

I’ve been thinking the last few weeks and months about what the new goal might be. I thought about it as I watched a lot of the work we’ve done disappear in a single committee hearing, in a single vote—hell, in a single second—and I realized something:

A superseding goal I’ve maintained throughout every iteration of Nah Brah is to make it as easy as possible for you to get engaged. I have done everything in my power to hand you the information you need to understand the situation as succinctly as possible and act as quickly as possible. I wrote calls to action and email scripts, and I made it so that all you had to do was copy and paste, and BOOM, your civic duty was done for the day. Checked off. But in thinking about what the new goal may be for this community in this new janky era and after witnessing our first janky-ass session, I’ve realized there are severe limitations to that particular model of civic engagement for a few reasons:

(1) It burned me the fuck out. I could not maintain that level of work, and tbh, I panicked straight through this session, worrying that I wasn’t doing enough, beating myself up for not having the capacity, time, or resources to send out daily calls to action like I’ve done in the past. So many times, I have come here to apologize to you for it, but I couldn’t find the right words. I couldn’t figure out how to say I’m sorry, but I can’t make this easy for you anymore because something didn’t feel right—the situation didn’t warrant an apology; it warranted a re-evaluation. And that’s when I had the biggest realization yet:

It’s not meant to be easy.

I can’t do it anymore because it isn’t possible. I cannot create a cookie-cutter civic engagement model because we are not cutting our teeth on cookies here, we are cutting our teeth on a mother-fucking hellscape of a political reality, and it’s fucking hard.

(2) I cannot offer you one single, watered-down model of civic engagement because you are many. You are not a monolith. You, my dear brahs, are complex, complete people with different skills, different goals, different networks, different intrigues, passions, and interests. I cannot tell you exactly how you are meant to impact this world because that impact is unique to you. I cannot just hand you a fish when you are all meant to be fisherwomen here in this sportsman’s paradise. Are you not ready to go sport some men? Are you not ready to strike your spear through the heart of that fish?

(3) We no longer have a governor who will sign the good legislation and veto the bad and so the model must change. The model must evolve beyond copy and paste. It must live longer than the life of an email. It must live in the beating heart of our collective action that is unified and contemporary but also diversified and long-lasting.

And so, I have finally settled on a new goal:

I’m taking you mother fuckers fishing—in that I am going to teach you how to develop your own civic engagement strategy.

To quote the bible: Give a brah a fish and she eats for a day, but teach a brah to fish and she eats for a lifetime.

Alternately: I will no longer toss you a mullet when what you need is a mallet to smash these oppressive systems to pieces.

In layman’s terms: THE FISH FRY IS OVER, BRAH.

From here on out, I will help you cultivate your own civic footprint instead of just jamming a universal shoe on your foot. I will still, of course, do everything in my power to give you the information you need to understand the political hellscape we are in, but I also commit to helping you carve out your unique path of civic engagement—and for those of you who have already started down that path, I am here to support you, connect you with networks, and offer you resources. Because, honestly, Louisiana needs what you have to offer. Our future is one that only you can help dream up and build.

We can do this together—we must do this together. It won’t be easy (but also does not have to be constantly soul-sucking and overwhelming), but it is the only way forward. Because our future does not depend on a single email script written by one, it depends on the collective action of many.

Why give them one paper cut when we can give them a thousand?

SO, ARE YOU IN, BRAH? Are you ready to imagine it together? Are you down to figure it out as a community? Are you willing to get your hands dirty?

If so, then let’s go fishing.

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a note of gratitude

You have supported me throughout all iterations of this project and I am so very grateful and appreciative that you have been flexible and gracious as our goals have changed. This community blows my mind every single day—it has grown beyond my wildest dreams and is a salve to my younger self who felt so alone in her political awakening here in Southern Louisiana. My hope is that this community might offer some small comfort and support for anyone who might feel alone while reaching for goals and values that don’t align with everyone around them. I love you and I appreciate all of you.

A special heart-and-wallet-felt thank you to those of you who are paid subscribers to this newsletter. You have made this work possible in a very practical and necessary way and your support means everything to me.

I will be switching to a biweekly email schedule now that session is over to give us all a little time to breathe and recover.

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session wrap

I compiled the lists of the winners and losers of janky’s first session as governor and made a tally of the results below. Some groups are both winners and losers, some are just triple/double time losers or winners. Sources:

• Da Winnas & Da Loozas 2024: Louisiana Legislature takes a sharp right turn by Clancy Dubos with The Gambit

• The regular legislative session ended Monday. See who won and who lost by Tyler Bridges, Jame Finn, and Meghan Friedmann on nola.com

• Louisiana legislative session 2024: Victors and the vanquished by Piper Hutchinson, Julie O’Donoghue, Wesley Muller, and Greg LaRose with the Louisiana Illuminator

Here are the winners and losers of the 2024 Legislative Session:

A few things of note:

(1) Janky is listed here as a winner by all three publications. The one time he was listed as a loser was due to the fact that he didn’t get his constitutional convention outright, but he’s already working on a way around it by considering calling a special session in August to “revise the state’s foundational governing document” whatever tf that means. I have a feeling he’s going to get exactly what he wants here, although we can only guess what that might be because he has failed to tell us exactly what he hopes to accomplish in a constitutional convention while pushing for one over the last several months.

(2) The usual suspects of vulnerable communities can overwhelmingly (and unsurprisingly) be found on the loser list—women, children, pregnant people, the LGBTQ community, and residents of Cancer Alley. The list of laws passed that will negatively impact those communities is too long (and too depressing) to go into here, but here’s a quick overview of some of the laws signed so far. Black voters (and Louisiana as a whole) pulled off a win this session by securing a second Black congressional district, but that’s another win that is conditional. That district will most likely be revisited after the fall election.

(3) Social conservatives, election deniers, the anti-vax crowd, and the anti-abortion crowd really stepped it up this session. I’m particularly impressed (in a vomitty way) by the election deniers. Back in 2021, they got a law passed that added layers and layers of red tape to the process of purchasing new voting machines—which Louisiana desperately needs—by citing a whole bunch of conspiracy theory bullshit. Now, three years later, we still don’t have updated voting machines because of the overly restrictive and burdensome sections of that 2021 law, which some lawmakers attempted to repeal this session. However, the election deniers threw such a fit that the bill was sidelined, and legislators gave up on trying to make our voting process functional and efficient.

You’ve really got to hand it to the election deniers: they have tunnel vision, and they are in it for the long haul. They ran out the last Secretary of State, Kyle Ardoin (a big Trump supporter), who specifically blamed them when he resigned for creating an untenable political environment, and it looks like they’re prepared to create the same living hell for our new SOS. These were Ardoin’s departing remarks:

I hope that Louisianans of all political persuasions will stand against the pervasive lies that have eroded trust in our elections by using conspiracies so far-fetched that they belong in a work of fiction. The vast majority of Louisiana’s voters know that our elections are secure and accurate, and it is shameful and outright dangerous that a small minority of vocal individuals have chosen to denigrate the hard work of our election staff and spread unproven falsehoods.

The point is that they—along with the anti-vax and anti-abortion crowd—are loud. They are well organized, and they do not shy away from a difficult path to civic engagement. We need to match their commitment (but not their energy because it’s gross).

(4) Janky is also in it for the long haul. Although he didn’t get everything he wanted this session, his goal is clear: to consolidate power in his grubby little hands. He pushed six bills that will drastically increase his power over state government and reduce government transparency. From the Louisiana Illuminator:

1. Landry has signed a law that allows him to appoint the leaders of nearly 150 state boards and commissions.

2. The governor will gain more control over the Louisiana Board of Ethics, even as ethics charges the board brought against Landry last year remain unresolved. The incoming law expands the ethics board from 11 to 15 members, with nine appointed by the governor and six by lawmakers. The larger, 15-seat board will allow Landry and Republican legislative leaders to take over the board more quickly. With four new members added in 2025, Landry will get to install new people faster than if he had to wait for Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointees to cycle off the panel.

3. Legislation Landry is expected to sign into law will remove the independently elected state insurance commissioner and agriculture commissioner, or their designees, from the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Board. Under the CPRA Board’s current makeup, 17 of 22 members come from the governor’s cabinet, staff or other appointments. The new structure will have 16 of 19 members chosen by governor. 

4. The governor signed a bill into law that will let him keep more documents about his work schedule and travel hidden from the public indefinitely if they threaten the governor or his family’s security. Currently, such records must be made available seven days after a scheduled event or trip. Government transparency advocates worry the exemption could be applied broadly because the new law doesn’t clearly define what constitutes a security risk.

5. Out-of-state residents won’t be able to request records from the governor’s office under legislation Landry is expected to sign. People will need to present Louisiana government identification to receive records from the governor’s office when they file a public records request. 

6. The governor has signed into law a new set of rules that give him more control over the operations of the publicly funded Governor’s Mansion and the ability to keep records related to the mansion private. All meetings of the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion Commission will no longer be open to the public. Documents the commission produces will also be kept secret.

Janky Jeff has his eye on the prize, to say the least. The changes that he makes to state governance, accountability, and our constitution will be long-lasting. Our efforts must be long-lasting as well (hence the new goal).

(5) Honorable mention to the following bullshit laws that passed:

• laws enabling the dumpster fire that is our insurance crisis

• the law curbing free speech and “cracking down on civil disobedience” on college campuses

• the law adding obstacles to voting

• the new law making mifepristone and misoprostol controlled, dangerous substances.

• the law mandating the ten commandments be displayed in Louisiana classrooms

• the law making it a crime to come within 25 feet of an officer under certain circumstance (specifically meant to inhibit filming cops)

• the law stripping lunch breaks from working teens

• the whole slew of anti-LGBTQ laws, including a bathroom bill, don’t say gay bill, deadname bill, and a sports ban against trans kids

• the law pushing back on citizen-led air pollution monitoring in Cancer Alley

Also, a special shout out to the upcoming fiscal session! We are facing a looming budget deficit that will undoubtedly put the funding for many of our safety net programs, as well as our education and health systems, on the line. 

(6) We have a lot of work to do.

For a deeper dive, check out these resources (in addition to the links already provided):

• Jeff Landry signs 14 legislative bills into law. See which ones by nola.com

• 22 ways lawmakers changed Louisiana this legislative session by Chelsea Brasted in Axios

• Legislative Session Included Significant Focus on Education by the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL)

• Session 2024 was a mixed bag by Invest in Louisiana

• 2024 Session: Chipping Away at Sunshine by PAR

• Everything you wanted to know about Louisiana’s budget but were afraid to ask by the Louisiana Illuminator

• The Louisiana Trans Advocates Know Your Rights Directory: Your one-stop shop for knowing your rights as an LGBTQ+ person or close ally in Louisiana.