A Baton Rouge Republican lawmaker went viral after scorching his colleagues on the floor of the Legislature. State Representative Barry Ivey unloaded on the institution after his motion to add a second minority-majority State Supreme Court district was tabled on the House floor without allowing for debate.
“The people, look we’ll just continue to get by here in Louisiana because we are too stupid to work together,” said Ivey after taking the floor after his proposal was shut down. “I’ve told people this institution is the laziest group of people I’ve ever worked with, because it’s true. Because we’ve got problems everywhere and we don’t want to solve them.”
You can hear a sampling of Ivey's comment's below:
And Ivey's full speech here:
The increased share of the state’s Black population has led many to call for adding additional minority-majority districts. So far the Legislature has shot down most of those proposals, favoring maps that largely keep the status quo. That’s leading to a likely court battle as Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has indicated he will veto maps that do not adequately represent the one-third of the state that is Black.
“We all say it’s not about race, we’ve grown, we’ve matured, we’ve evolved, right, we’re enlightened, and we just repeat… we repeat ourselves,” said Ivey.
Ivey, who’s served for nearly a decade, said business at the State Capitol is not about the people, and argued that the Legislature has “extinguished the hope of our children”.
“If you look at every bill that has passed in this last year, what you will find is that if it wasn’t backed by deep-pocket corporate special interests, it didn’t have much of a shot,” said Ivey, who added that Louisianans are well aware of this. “Groups of people in this state do not vote because they feel that their vote doesn’t count, because they are right, their vote doesn’t count.”
Ivey mentioned he’s not inclined to file another bill this session, or for the rest of his legislative career. Alexandria Republican State Representative Lance Harris, who voted in favor of Covington Representative Mark Wright’s motion to table, spoke after Ivey finished.
“This is a lesion we all need to learn about,” said Harris. “Life does not give you what you want. It gives you what you deserve.”
