The Founding Fathers gave each state two senators so they would have an equal voice in the U.S. Senate. Bill Cassidy was initially elected to the Senate in 2014 and took office in 2015. Cassidy is already the senior senator from Louisiana because John Kennedy was elected in 2016 and took office in 2017 as our junior senator.
Cassidy was part of the bipartisan group which developed the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill and voted for it. Kennedy voted against, claiming only 23% of the monstrosity was for traditional infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, and ports.
Kennedy also pointed out the bill cut $9 billion from Medicare and included tax increases, among many other items unreported by the media.
Immediately upon passage of the legislation out of the Senate, Cassidy sent out a release that Louisiana would get $6 billion of projects. Kennedy says Louisiana was already getting $4.8 billion from the Federal Highway Trust Fund’s gasoline taxes, so it’s really only $1.1 billion additional money for Louisiana in the $1.2 trillion legislation (that’s 1/1,000 or .001%).
In May, LAPolitics.com newsletter said, “U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has made a name for himself nationally as a member of the influential Judiciary Committee, but he was recently assigned another role on the Appropriations Committee that has captured the attention of folks back home. Kennedy is now the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. For long-timers, this may bring to mind former Sen. J Bennett Johnston, who used the exact same position to great success.
"Just like it did for Johnston, Kennedy’s position will place him front and center in crafting annual appropriations. More specifically, Kennedy will have a voice on issues important to Louisiana, like funding related to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Energy. Kennedy has only had the gig for a couple of months, but he certainly knows Johnston used the same role to bring home legislative triumphs in navigation, flood control, and hurricane protection.”
Kennedy sticks to bread and butter conservative credentials. The University of Virginia’s Center for Effective Lawmaking recently ranked Kennedy as one of the top ten most effective Republican senators and as the most effective GOP senator in the areas of commerce, education, and trade. The center said that all of Kennedy’s bills from the 116th Congress (last term) were substantive and not commemorative.
Legislation tailored to Louisiana needs has been Kennedy’s focus, like flood insurance and disaster relief, but also targeting corruption in Washington and protecting retirement and college savings from fraud at the hands of Communist China. His Dump Opioids Act in the 117th Congress, S.957, was recently signed into law by President Joe Biden.
In the 116th Congress, Kennedy authored and passed S.1693, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Extension Act of 2019. The Rural Business Investment Companies (RBIC) Advisers Relief Act of 2018 (S.2765) was Kennedy’s 115th Congress legislation.
As the only member of our congressional delegation on an appropriations committee in either chamber, Kennedy works with other delegation members as well as state and local officials to support federal projects that come to Louisiana.
The U.S. Senate works at a much more deliberative pace than our state Senate. Kennedy has authored more bills that have been signed into law than any first-term senator from Louisiana. U.S. Sen. Newton Blanchard (1894-97) is tied with Kennedy at eight bills, but Kennedy’s first term isn’t over.
I first met John when he was Gov. Buddy Roemer’s right-hand man. We spent many Sundays in a group session at the Governor’s Mansion developing fiscal reform. Kennedy always did his homework and got the facts straight.
Then we worked as cabinet secretaries for Gov. Mike Foster. Kennedy was the big tax collector as secretary for the Department of Revenue: sales, income, severance, etc. I was the little tax collector for unemployment taxes as secretary of the Labor Department.
That was before Kennedy became state treasurer and began developing his catchy news-byte phrases that the media love and his faux north Louisiana, down-home Roemer-twang.
But honing your conservative philosophy as a tax collector and treasurer is a pretty good training camp before going off to play offense and defense in the big league of insanity.
Email Garey Forster at Garey.Forster@gmail.com.
