(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Anti-establishment Dems hope to capture party control on Saturday [1] ['Michelle Liu', 'More Michelle Liu', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-03-21 In the final leg of his campaign for a seat at the table of the Louisiana Democratic party, Norris Henderson has been chatting with voters about the sweeping policy agenda state Republicans have rapidly begun to enact since Gov. Jeff Landry took office in January. Henderson is one of roughly 100 candidates running on a slate, called “Blue Reboot,” that hopes to reshape the Louisiana Democratic Party by winning seats on its governing body, the Democratic State Central Committee. Seats on the DSCC come up for election once every four years during the presidential primary election, which will take place on Saturday (March 23). The DSCC’s 210 members elect the party’s executive committee and chair, who carry out the work of recruiting candidates, engaging voters and raising money. Registered Democrats can vote for two DSCC seats per state House district — one male and one female — on the presidential primary ballot. In 2020, the last time DSCC elections were held, the party was in a better position than it is now. Louisiana was by then a deeply Republican state — the GOP held both U.S. Senate seats and five of the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — but Democrats had still managed to capture enough districts in the state House of Representatives to deny the GOP a legislative supermajority. And while most statewide offices were occupied by Republicans, there was one particularly notable exception: Gov. John Bel Edwards, a rare Democratic chief executive in the South. But now the Democrats are a virtual non-entity: Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature. And Landry, who was swept into office in a low-turnout October election without having to face a runoff, has a mandate to remake the state. “They’re literally force-feeding people anything and everything they want to do,” Henderson said of Republicans in the state. In an interview with Verite News, Henderson pointed to the recent special legislative session on criminal justice as a particularly salient example of the consequences of one-party rule in Louisiana. During the session, Republican lawmakers, acting on Landry’s directives, greenlit a conservative wishlist of so-called tough-on-crime laws: expanding the methods by which the state can can carry out executions, allowing 17-year-olds to be criminally charged as adults, curbing prison sentence reductions for good behavior and effectively eliminating parole for future prisoners. In hearings during the session, members of Henderson’s criminal justice reform group, Voice of the Experienced, were among the leading opponents of the changes, urging lawmakers to drop or at least moderate them. But they had few allies in the Capitol. Henderson has also criticized the Landry administration for turning down federal money to help low-income families cover summer food costs when their children are out of school, along with policy proposals at the Capitol to weaken unions and limit the voting rights of people convicted of felonies. To Henderson, those policies result from a fundamental failure by state Democrats in recent years to fundraise or field competitive candidates. And that failure, Henderson said, is why registered Democrats in District 99B in New Orleans should vote him onto the Democratic State Central Committee, or DSCC, this Saturday (March 23). “Now it’s easier for me to talk to voters primarily because they already see the backlash,” Henderson said. “They’re seeing and hearing it every day: this is what happens when you don’t get out and vote.” The Blue Reboot candidates say they’re dissatisfied with the party’s leadership — especially current Chair Katie Bernhardt — given the party’s lackluster performance in the 2023 governor’s race, where Democrat Shawn Wilson raised only $2.6 million compared to Landry’s $10.2 million. Among other critiques Democratic leadership have faced within the party: Its focus on intraparty feuds for district-level races while neglecting to back Democrats competing in bigger statewide races. Its alleged funneling of money from utility companies to a centrist incumbent against a progressive challenger for a Public Service Commission seat, an example of its commitment to moderate candidates even in primaries where progressive candidates are more popular. And its airing of a January 2023 television ad seeming to float Bernhardt as a potential Democratic prospect ahead of last year’s gubernatorial race. (Bernhardt did not respond to an interview request for this story.) It was Bernhardt’s ad that spurred Democratic strategist and organizer Lynda Woolard to record an “emergency” episode of her podcast “Lefty Louisiana.” There, she and former party head Stephen Handwerk detailed just how state party leadership gets elected — an explainer that doubled as “roadmap to what needs to happen moving forward,” as Woolard said. Over the last year, Woolard has been working behind the scenes with a couple dozen other organizers who were recruiting candidates for the Blue Reboot slate. Woolard described the reform-minded candidates as “mission-driven,” with many running for office for the first time. Woolard, who unsuccessfully ran against Bernhardt for party chair in 2020, said organizers aimed to recruit candidates seeking new leadership for a more functional party. That would include a new chair — someone who can fundraise, build good relationships with elected officials, find and train candidates for legislative seats and statewide offices, and ensure those candidates have campaign support, Woolard said. Ultimately, the work of Blue Reboot is a “long-game strategy,” Woolard said, to ensure the party can produce a significant challenger to Landry in four years. In the meantime, Democrats will have virtually no power statewide, said Robert Collins, a political analyst who teaches at Dillard University. Criminal justice analysts project that the bills passed at the legislature could massively expand the state’s incarcerated population, erasing the effects of an Edwards-backed criminal justice reform package passed in 2017. In the current legislative session, which convened this month, legislators are set to consider bills that would ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities, make private school vouchers universal and deregulate the state’s troubled insurance industry. “Things are going to be pretty grim for the Democrats,” Collins said. At an event earlier this month, about two dozen people crowded into a venue off Magazine Street, where several Blue Reboot candidates reeled off their demonstrated commitments to Democratic politics and progressive values. Page Gleason, who said she isn’t from New Orleans but “fell in love with the city a very long time ago,” talked about her 25 years working on progressive causes in Georgia — from president of the Young Democrats in Atlanta to the first female executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party. DSCC candidate Michelle Anderson, who used to volunteer on campaigns and put up yard signs for the likes of New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris and Dustin Granger, who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer last year, said she wanted to “engage, educate and energize” voters. And Lauren Jewett, a special education teacher — and former candidate for the state school board — running unopposed in Jefferson Parish, apologized to the crowd for arriving late after a union meeting before urging listeners to “improve voter engagement, elect more progressives and Democrats and establish accountability for our party leadership, who are not doing the job that they’re supposed to do.” Blue Reboot has run at least one ad campaign, but organizers and candidates have emphasized the grassroots nature of the effort. Woolard won’t divulge strategies, but she said Blue Reboot has helped candidates target voters and fine-tune campaign messaging, along with preparing candidates for the role of DSCC member itself. For the most part, candidates are doing their own text-banking and door-knocking. Former public defender Kenn Barnes, who is running for the seat in District 97B, which includes Gentilly, said he decided to throw his hat in the ring given his desire for a better Democratic party, connecting with Blue Reboot only after qualifying for the race. His campaign involves reaching out to family, friends and the student wrestlers he coaches at Xavier University, and “asking people to spread my name in a positive light,” he said. Barnes is also putting out door hangers and showing up to barbershops and hair salons to get his name out. “Unfortunately, it is self-funded,” Barnes said of his campaign. “Don’t tell my wife.” Barnes is among several Blue Reboot candidates facing incumbents with track records of winning elections. The other candidates in his race are New Orleans City Councilmember Eugene Green and former Orleans Parish Criminal Court Clerk Arthur Morrell. In New Orleans, current and former state legislators Diana Bajoie, Royce Duplessis, Jason Hughes and Candace Newell are also vying for DSCC seats against Blue Reboot candidates. Many of these races will come down to name recognition over policy considerations, Collins said, and a presidential primary where Joe Biden has already clinched the nomination will likely mean low turnout on Saturday. But Blue Reboot doesn’t need to win every race. If the reformers secure enough seats, Collins said, it would signal a need for change to establishment Democrats — some of whom are likely unhappy with party leadership as well. “Somewhere around 30-40% probably does it.” According to Blue Reboot, as of early March, 42 out of 107 Blue Reboot candidates were running unopposed, with another 65 in contested races. This year, about half of the 210 DSCC races are contested overall, up from 2020. “This is the one shot, one opportunity rank-and-file Democrats in the state have to impact and shape the state party. The one opportunity they have every four years,” Woolard said. Correction: An earlier version of this article inaccurately described a community event held earlier this month as a Blue Reboot-organized event. Though several Blue Reboot candidates attended, the event was not organized by the group. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/03/21/anti-establishment-dems-hope-to-capture-party-control-on-saturday/ Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/