There is a change that some folks are trying to bring about in the way that Louisiana elects state leaders, and that change may eventually carry down to local elections as well. Lt Governor Billy Nungesser stands in opposition to changing Louisiana’s current “open” primary system, where Republican, Democratic, Independent and no-party voters can all vote for whoever they want, to a “closed” primary system, where only those registered with a party would be able to vote for their party’s primary candidates, and there would be a guarantee that a Republican and a Democrat would be running against one another in a general election. Nungesser joined Newell on the show Tuesday morning to explain his position, and what he aimed to do in a recent speech to the Republican State Central Committee.
“Billy, like you, I have some really strong feelings about this,” Newell said. “Tell us what's going on in the background and what led you to your comments before the RSCC the other day?”
“Well, it's all kind of boiled over... when my father and many others built the Republican Party in this state, it was an open door party,” Nungesser said. “Everyone was welcomed in, with the core Republican beliefs. But over the last couple of years, we've let PACs and big money crucify fellow Republicans. We've seen PACs dominate who gets elected. The money that was put behind negative ads so a certain PAC could pick the Speaker of the House and the head of the Senate... that's for the legislators to decide! Not a Senator, or an Attorney General, or a PAC! And then to ram this down our throats... I mean, I'm the leading elected Republican official in the state and I wasn't even asked to sit on the committee that's going to overlook this to decide if it's worth moving forward. They hand picked everyone that's in favor of it, go figure why they unanimously thought it was a good idea! They hand picked the committee instead of having a debate from both sides. Once again, a few are trying to dominate what the Republican Party does, and that's unfortunate.”
“My feeling has been, and you said the same thing before the State Central Committee, is that the closed primary system ensures one thing and pretty much one thing only - that we will elect ideologues from the far, far right,” Newell said. “Anyone who's willing to reach across the aisle will be canceled. Anyone willing to communicate, coordinate, think about even cooperating with a Democrat will be canceled. As I sat on a number of national committees in the National Sheriff's Association and Major County Sheriffs, I had lengthy conversations with individuals in states that elected sheriffs through a closed primary system. And they waited 20 years on the sidelines to run, because the party rules everything about who's going to run, how they're gonna run, when they're gonna run and so forth. And if the party is in the hands of far-right wing individuals, that's all that anybody will have a choice to vote for.”
“Absolutely right,” Nungesser said. “The governor asked me to say a few words in 2018, before the last special session. I talked about the great numbers in tourism, and how I hope we could come together not as Republicans and Democrats, but as Louisianaians together, fix the budget problem and move forward. Well, then The Hayride put an article that says Nungesser lost his mind as he wants higher taxes. And the PAC that I believe Senator Kennedy and Jeff Landry run put money behind that to make sure every Republican in the state saw it. And it was a lie! And they say look, we lost two governor’s races. Well, Republicans didn't lose the governor's races because of an open primary. They lost it because their candidate lied about other Republicans. Ralph Abraham is a good man and they told lies about him. He wasn't going to lie to get elected. We have got to quit letting people lie about people and, and turn off the vote in support of that person.”
“So how does this work, Billy? The fastest growing party affiliation in this state right now is independent,” Newell said. “So you basically eliminate that. Aren’t these elected leaders that want to go to a closed primary system basically saying we're not worried about independent voters?”
“Listen, these people that threaten, punish and lie about people that they don't want to see elected are only worried about one thing - power,” Nungesser said. “I mean, why would a Senator and an Attorney General and a PAC put money in who is elected to lead the House and the Senate? They weigh in with negative commercials against good Republicans, because they want you to think they were liberals. They went on the radio and said, certain people were liberal than Nancy Pelosi. I'm trying to understand and it's the only thing I can come up with. It's all about power and controlling who's running the legislature, who's going to sit in certain seats. I mean, they ran untrue attack ads against anybody they didn't want to see re-elected. And we've got to stop that.”
Hear the entire interview on the audio player below.
