Info
A look at Louisiana politics from Chaplain Hy McEnery and Christopher Tidmore
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
Transcribed
6 FEB 2026 · It’s our carnival edition, and Hy and Christopher explore the new exhibit at the Presbytere on the Illinois Clubs.
Illinois Club exhibit at the Presbytere Tells of 231 Years of Black Carnival Aspiration & Triumph
By Christopher Tidmore
Just as The Louisiana Weekly celebrates its centenary this year, so will the Young Men’s Illinois club reach that milestone this Mardi Gras season. The history of that landmark African-American carnival crew and its progenitor, the Original Illinois Club, are the subject of a brilliant new exhibition at the Louisiana State Museum at Jackson Square.
One enters the Presbytere‘s second floor into the special exhibition hall to be greeted by the resplendent dress of Dr. Karen Becnel Moore, Queen of Young Men’s Illinois in 1966, backed by a picture of her court. Another glittering gown worn by three generations of the Rhodes family stands sentinel before that case. Kings costumes, videos of balls, and the brilliant backdrop of the Old French Opera House from the 1968 YMI Ball takes up seven full walls. As exhibit advisory member and key contributor Carolyn Duvigneaud Thomas described, “These dresses are just simply beautiful…You have an assortment of dresses and crowns and scepters. It’s it’s just a wonderful collection, and you also have two Kings costumes. The Original Illinois is the only organization that has kings, and so we have two of their costumes on display.”
“I’m just happy this story is being told. It’s been a secret. A hidden secret, and it’s time for this story to be out, and for everyone to know it.”
Along the way, visitors learn how a former Pullman porter working the Illinois Central Railroad, Wiley J. Knight, arrived in New Orleans in 1894 and revolutionized carnival. As the exhibit explains, “A native of Bolivar, Tennessee, he worked in close proximity to wealthy whites, earning a living as a butler, a valet, a waiter, and a railroad chef. In his eyes, Blacks had limited knowledge of the social graces. Knight believed that the only formal dance familiar to African Americans was the quadrille…Wiley Knight founded Knight's School of Dance, where Black families enrolled their children to learn etiquette and dancing. His students suggested staging a carnival dance, which was so successful that it quickly gave rise to the formation of the Illinois Club. According to club lore, Knight founded the organization at the home of Erona Doley, whose great-nephew Harold Doley Sr. would later become a prominent member of the Young Men Illinois Club….The Illinois Club became the most important African American carnival organization in New Orleans, known for its annual balls, debutantes, and its signature dance, the Chicago Glide.”
The First Club would spawn an equally dynamic organization, as the exhibit dioramas explain. “As Illinois Club membership expanded, controversy arose, resulting in a rift in 1926. The exact cause of the split remains uncertain, with two stories surviving. According to one account, some of the newer, younger members no longer wanted to follow founder Wiley Knight's policies. It was said that Knight ‘ruled with an iron hand.’ The other belief is that two members disagreed about the selection of the queen of the ball.”
“Regardless of the reason for the breakup, the new organization's name-Young Men Illinois Club (YMI)- implies a generational difference. The founding group became the Original Illinois Club. Longtime YMI member Ernest M. Thomas often stated that YMI was organized at his 1920 Bienville Streethome in March 1926. On February 26, 1927, the Young Men Illinois staged their first ball with Mabel Saulsby reigning as queen. The 1920s tensions faded over time. Despite having two separate organizations, it was not uncommon for men to be members of both clubs simultaneously. Today, the clubs recognize the presence of each other's members and wives at their annual balls.”
Dr. Karen Becnel Moore observed, “The original Illinois was founded in 1895 and the young men’s Illinois in 1926, and it is the centennial anniversary that we are celebrating this year, and also we’re celebrating the history of both clubs and the origin of both clubs,” but she added the lessons of serving in those courts went far beyond Mardi Gras sequins.
“Queenship and being presented as a debutante means to us service and commitment to our society, to enhancing our community, and to enhancing the country. It is not just party/party/ party. This is an introduction to society for the purpose of working with the society and being dedicated just to serve. Our debutantes and queens— whether young people or senior citizens—we’re still serving and we are still persons who are doctors, lawyers, educators, and businesswomen in the community. People who are determined to contribute to elevating society and elevating the community whether it is Black or white. The community in New Orleans, the culture, the legacy that has been bestowed upon us and left to the next generation and paying it forward.”
Exhibit co-curator Kelly Dorsey Parker expanded on this thought and noted the underlying purpose of telling the Illinois clubs’ story is that “queenship in the realm of a black society in New Orleans is trailblazing.”
She continued, “ I guess we can call it a mantle in a crown that’s worn pretty much like a cape! They are she-heros. We don’t have a look very far to find heroes and she-heros in New Orleans. Royalty regarding these two organizations are just it! It’s something that you carry with you through professional live, through social life .
“You are the Beacon that continues, and has continued, now within both of these clubs for 231 years collectively. There is not a young girl that doesn’t see Dr. Moore or even through the parading organizations—through Zulu queens and NOMTOC queens—there’s not a little girl who doesn’t see themselves in that image. Well, if I’m looking at a queen now and think, we’ll, this could be me—if I would like to do it in the future. So, it’s just really important that we have that representation—that’s been here for so long—and is still need it today.”
The Presbytere exhibit notes how the story of the Illinois Clubs is more than just carnival, it stands as a living metaphor for the civil rights movement. One of the banners quotes Sybil Haydel Morial from her 2015 memoir, Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment, "’Maybe I knew, maybe we all knew underneath, that the rituals we took part in, a mimicking of a society from which we were excluded, had become hollow. Surely none of us suspected how the boundaries of that society would soon convulse in this city and throughout the South.’ Morial's debutante beginnings in 1950 gave way to a life defined by her deep commitment to justice, civic engagement, and education. In 1963 she founded the Louisiana League of Good
Government, an organization dedicated to increasing Black voter registration and expanding political participation across the state.”
Exhibit Co-curator Dr. Kim Vaz-Deville, also a professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University, spoke about how much of the battle civil rights came from those who created and were nurtured by these clubs. As she explained, “If we start with the Pullman porters and the Pullman maids, that really is the reason that it’s called ‘Illinois’ because they worked on the Illinois Central Railroad. They were going up and down between Chicago and New Orleans, taking a lot of African-Americans out of the south and into this new world of where they thought that they would have more freedom. So these men and women are able to see how high society white people acted— how they dressed, what they talked about, and what they did. So when Wiley Knight (who was a Pullman porter) settled here, he opened a dance studio for the privileged African-Americans. And even though they were privileged, and they wanted to put on a ball, they were only certain places where they could rent a hall. And they had to transform those rather ‘not palatial places’—more like gymnasiums—into imperial looking settings to match the themes.”
“We can fast forward to the 1930s when New Orleans City Hall decided to build a Municipal Auditorium that one would think all citizens would be able to use and enjoy. but, in fact, that was not the case. In the 1940s when an African-American this minister wanted to bring the Black Baptist convention to Municipal Auditorium, they told him ‘no’.”
“Fast forward two more years, A. P. Tureaud, who was noted Louisiana NAACP-affiliated attorney and Ernest Morial, filed a suit saying that the requirement that African-Americans pay in into the city coffers and cannot use facility really is against the 14th Amendment. They took them to court, but this was after Brown versus Board of Education, so you can see the resistance lasted so very long …It was [not until] 1966 for the Young Men’s Illinois, and a decade later for the Original Illinois Club, to go into the Municipal Auditorium.”
“I could talk a little bit about Sybil Morial‘s comment because she [was First Maid] and her sister was Queen of the Young Men’s Illinois club balls. ..Of course, that was how you learn grace, and how you learn to be a woman, and how you learn to be an African-American woman who could present yourself with elegance into the social world—and into you know the middle-class white world in which they were going. But, she said, as [Mrs. Morial] became more involved in the civil rights movement, because of her husband sometimes used her as a plaintive in his civil rights cases, she became much more conscious of you know this thing that we’re doing. ‘Are we simply a being people in terms of style or you know, is there something else going along here goi
Transcribed
6 FEB 2026 · Hy and Christopher confront a number of topics, including Washington, Mardi Gras, and the importance of the upcoming election elections on February 7.
But we talk about two fundamental questions that the current sheriff and the incoming sheriff has so far refused to answer. We try to answer them on this week’s show.
Last year, the jail switched vendors for providing inmate communications -- like phone calls -- to a controversial Florida company (Smart Communications) that has recently filed bankruptcy, how will that impact jail operations?
2) Has the Sheriff begun investigation for a replacement?
3) The owner of smart communications was a very proud ex convict. He had a license plate that said “ convict”. Did the sheriff express reservations given that information?
4) In some jurisdictions, inmate advocates have been critical of banning mail, arguing that it diminishes contact with family and loved ones; I believe the jail currently scans mail for viewing on kiosk screens -- what are your thoughts on that?
5) Does the sheriffs office currently have an in-house PIO officer?
Transcribed
24 JAN 2026 · Hy and Christopher broadcast from Big Bend National Park. We ask why Trump has put his face on the new annual pass for the National Parks? We also examine Trump’s recent endorsement of Julia Letlow. Here is Christopher’s column in The Louisiana Weekly.
GOP contenders unfazed by Trump endorsement of Julia Letlow
By Christopher Tidmore, Contributing Writer
Three weeks ago, in a closed meeting of the Republican National Committee, Chairman Joe Gruters reportedly said that he had learned that Senator Bill Cassidy would be accepting a university position instead of qualifying for another term, and that Congresswoman Julia Letlow would soon be endorsed by President Trump, and subsequently run for the Senate. This news brought cheers to the hyper-partisan crowd, as Cassidy enjoys very little popularity in senior GOP circles after his vote to convict President Trump in the second impeachment five years ago. At least half of Gruters’ prediction came true last week.
On Saturday, January 17, President Trump announced his endorsement of Julia Letlow in a TruthSocial posting that read, “Should she decide to enter this Race, Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!” She formally joined the United States Senate race the following Tuesday.
State Rep. Mike Bayham, a Letlow supporter, speculated that an upcoming fundraiser the GOP Senate Majority Leader planned on hosting in Baton Rouge might have prompted President Trump to act sooner than he might have previously planned: “I think the Thune event for Cassidy triggered the late night Trump post [on Truth Social] for Julia for the U.S. Senate,” Bayham explained.
Trump’s endorsement certainly came as a shock to the four candidates already challenging Bill Cassidy in the U.S. Senate race, which includes La. Treasurer John Fleming, 1st District PSC Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, 22nd District State Senator Blake Miguez and 39th District State Rep. Julie Emerson. All had been vying for Trump’s endorsement, and Skrmetta, in particular, had just attended a meeting at the White House on energy policy the previous week.
Emerson dropped out on Friday, January 23, yet she is the only candidate to depart so far. In fact, Skrmetta doubled down by announcing a $3500 per person fundraiser on February 3, promoting his new book Conservatism: Endowed by Our Creator. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, Skrmetta pledged to remain in the contest, no matter what. He sees a lot of discontented conservatives eager for another choice. Partially, the reason is ideological. Louisiana’s rightwing intelligentsia is not thrilled with the President's choice of Letlow.
As 1996 U.S. Senate candidate and former State Rep. Woody Jenkins put it, Cassidy and Letlow “ARE THE TWO MODERATE REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE RACE coming up in Louisiana – not by any length the candidates most conservative Republicans will be looking at. We have strong conservatives running who have a good chance to win. Don’t let the media define the race as between these two moderate candidates because that is far from the case. FYI Cassidy and Letlow have voting records almost the same.”
The critique is a tad unfair, as it is based on American Conservative Union ratings, which put both Cassidy and Letlow at roughly 75-percent pure conservative voting records. One of the main reasons both were discounted was the effort undertaken by both to convince FEMA to change its flood maps. In other words, the desire to keep the federal government subsidizing flood insurance for tens of thousands of Louisianans—a very critical need for their constituents to remain in their homes south of the flood protection walls—may have been popular locally, but national conservative organizations rated those votes as “liberal.”
Still, Jenkins tapped into the anxiety that many local conservatives have about sending yet another moderate to D.C. Governor Landry’s motivation to reestablish the closed primary was to make it impossible for a comparative moderate like Cassidy to win renomination. Letlow, a candidate with a voting record on insurance and healthcare similar to Cassidy, doesn’t strike many conservatives as an improvement. She reminds many conservatives of how the White House parachuted former New Orleans Councilwoman and La. Elections Commissioner Suzie Terrell into the 2002 U.S. Senate race; Terrell entered the contest only due to the unabashed support of President George W. Bush, which propelled her into the runoff over more conservative candidates. Nevertheless, she ended up losing to Mary Landrieu.
Terrell’s 2002 Senate GOP opponent, Tony Perkins, a protégé of Jenkins’ and currently the head of the conservative Family Research Council, argued at the time that a more conservative candidate would have had better turnout – and perhaps won.
As an editorial by the Louisiana conservative website The Hayride argued, “Overall, [Letlow’s] scorecard numbers generally hover around 75 percent from a conservative standpoint (they’ll vary a bit based on which votes are scored); that’s pretty much exactly where Bill Cassidy sits. So what’s the point of replacing Cassidy and his seniority with Letlow if she’s going to vote just like Cassidy does?”
The editorial goes on to note that neither Fleming nor Emerson possesses much motivation to leave: “if I’m Skrmetta, Letlow getting in doesn’t phase me much. Like Emerson, I’m going to say I’ve done a hell of a lot more to fight the good fight for conservatism in the 18 years I’ve been battling on the Public Service Commission… And politically, I’m still the one candidate from the New Orleans area; Julia Letlow is absolutely unknown in my neck of the woods, so her getting in only dilutes the vote in the other parts of the state and actually increases my chance of stealing a seat in the runoff.
“And if I’m Blake Miguez I’m selling myself as the Freedom Caucus conservative legislator in the race… if you’re looking for somebody who’s different than Establishment Bill Cassidy, I’m much more that than Julia Letlow is.”
Nevertheless, Letlow is an incredibly popular congresswoman in her district. She won the Northeast Louisiana seat amidst an outpouring of public sympathy over the death of her husband, Luke Letlow, right after his election to Congress. She has proven a very hard-working constituency politician ever since, earning the affectionate title “the Steel Magnolia.”
An endorsement from President Trump in a Republican primary is usually enough to swing the core GOP vote. Whether Cassidy stays in the race remains undetermined. The last polling data available puts his approval amongst Republican primary voters at 29 percent, so his campaign launched a massive effort this month to get those registered “No Party” to cast a ballot in the May 16 primary. Pro-Cassidy text messages flowed all over the state, particularly to Democrats who might change their voter status to support the incumbent Republican senator.
So far, that effort has proven to have a few takers, to say the least. Democrats remain angered at Cassidy‘s re-embrace of Trump since he returned to the White House one year ago. With Louisiana Democrats still unable to recruit a first-tier challenger for the Senate seat, the next U.S. senator from Louisiana might be decided in the May 16 Republican primary.
Transcribed
19 DEC 2025 · Hy and Christopher talk about families coming together, Christmas, but the cynicism that kind of overrides our politics. We mention Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s ripping down of the banners on Gallier Hall placed there for inauguration of her successor Helena Moreno.
Political cynicism threatens to take over the holidays, and we talk about President Trump’s address (in detail below and) on the radio show. We also talk about Rob Reiner’s murder, and the President’s reaction. Christopher shares some comments from James Woods, a strong Trump supporter, who also loved Reiner as a fellow patriot— even as they disagreed politically. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AGz4WFLFz/?mibextid=wwXIfr
However, we also talk about the “threat” to Christmas. Santa may have been captured by the communists! We have secret footage of his interrogation! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BtMfsQ7oA/?mibextid=wwXIfr
However, our main topic centers around this theme, Christopher’s Column in The Louisiana Weekly.
Lord, it's like a hard candy Christmas
By Christopher Tidmore
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me down
The immortal Christmas ballad by Dolly Parton is a lament. It essentially says all of the ways that one’s life will be better in the coming year than the previous, yet the implication of the song – when she sings of the possibility of losing some weight, meeting someone, or moving away – reveals that the singer knows nothing much will change by the next Yuletide season.
One wonders if that was the real truth of Donald Trump’s eighteen minute national address last Wednesday night. To tell us how good things will become – in the hopes that we don’t recognize how challenging life is right now – and will remain.
For those that missed the president’s rant, all negative economic data and social problems were blamed on Joe Biden. Any upturn in the economy, fall in the jobless rates, or positive news came as a Christmas gift courtesy of Donald Trump.
Of course, the president talked about tax cuts, and supply side stimulus does have an impact on the economy. The problem, however, is that most of his tax cuts have yet to take effect. The tax cuts on tips and Social Security will not manifest until returns are filed next April, and the president’s proposed healthcare savings accounts have not yet been enacted, and will likely face a hostile filibuster in the U.S. Senate due to the president’s own opposition to paying subsidies to insurance companies.
Claiming that health insurance underwriters exist as whole-owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party might come as a surprise to the gaggle of lobbyists who tend to give bigger contributions to Republicans, including Trump. Finally, the president’s proposal to give a $1,776 bonus to members of the military through tariff funds likely won’t come to pass if the Supreme Court outlaws the constitutionality of the White House unilaterally enacting tariffs without congressional support. In fact, many major companies have already pre-filed lawsuits to get the money refunded. Even if Trump does succeed in convincing the majority of the court that he can unilaterally put taxes on anything, he’s already promised tariff money to three other funding schemes. There’s not a lot left, unless he was lying previously.
Hey, maybe I'll dye my hair
Maybe I'll move somewhere
Maybe I'll get a car
Maybe I'll drive so far
They'll all lose track
Me, I'll bounce right back
Maybe I'll sleep real late
Maybe I'll lose some weight
Maybe I'll clear my junk
Maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine
Me, I'll be just
Fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
The song presupposes that one’s hope in the promise of a new year is predicated on actions which really make a difference in one’s life, yet the audience (as well as the singer) both understand that no real will exists to undertake those self improvements.
The president has blamed Joe Biden for all of his challenges because Trump finds it impossible to empathize with people who are hurting, or to offer solutions which might actually lower prices and improve the public’s well-being.
True, gas prices have fallen as the president claimed, but some of Trump’s own political interventions in the petrochemical market have scared off investors just as quickly as deregulation has drawn them. Most other of the prices that he boasts about falling occurred mainly due to the same food offered in smaller-sized amounts, such as the frequently noted “Thanksgiving Dinner” package. Trump’s own success at deporting Hispanic migrants has driven up the cost of labor in multiple industries, harming the economy, though it has helped wage growth in some sectors.
The desperate move (made the day after the speech by the president’s minions) to rename America’s main arts complex “the Trump Kennedy Center” feels just like the meaningless self indulgent mood described in the song.
It’s a hard candy Christmas indeed, and next year will be more of the same.
Transcribed
11 NOV 2025 · Hy and Christopher discussed the results from last Tuesday. It was a GOP slaughter, but Hy says the Democrats won in Democratic states, while Christopher offers a warning.
Democrats in Mississippi broke the G.O.P.’s State House supermajority last Tuesday after a special election was forced by a court-ordered redistricting to offer Black voters a chance for more representation in the State Capital. Two Public Service Commission seats changed party hands in Georgia. For the first time ever, Democrats seized the District Attorney’s office and all nine school board seats in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a Republican stronghold as late as 2022 and the swing county which helped elect Donald Trump. Democrats similarly notched commanding victories in county executive races in Erie, Lehigh, and Northampton counties, all bellwether counties in recent presidential elections.
A Democratic special election for an Iowa state Senate seat—in a district that had been held by Republicans—broke the GOP's supermajority in the 50-member Iowa Senate, giving Democrats 17 seats to 33, forcing Republicans to seek the support of at least one Democrat to confirm appointments to state agencies and commissions by Gov. Kim Reynolds. In a surprising upset in Virginia, Democrat Jay Jones defeated incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares despite a texting scandal where Jones made death threats against the Virginia House Speaker and subsequently lost 9 percent of the voters who cast a ballot for Abigail Spanberger, the victorious Democratic contender for Governor who was widely expected to win. Jones was still carried to victory by high Black turnout and thanks to Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump but switched back to the Democrats across the country.
National attention focused on the New York Mayor’s race, the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, and the California ballot initiative to gerrymander five more congressional seats for the Democrats, yet only a few media sources focused on how, in the down-ticket races in GOP-majority states, key Republican constituencies abandoned the party of Trump in favor of the Democrats. Hispanics, with whom the President made huge inroads in 2024, switched back to the Democrats en masse. African Americans went to their polling precincts in numbers not seen since Barack Obama’s first election in 2008.
“Is it any surprise that last night blue states voted blue?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise quipped, claiming that last year’s presidential race was a better indication of the country’s political lean. Yet Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon noted, “Modern politics now is about engaging low-propensity voters, and they clearly turned them out \[on Tuesday], and this is kind of the Trump model… This is very serious.”
Stacey Abrams’ efforts in 2020 swung Georgia for Biden and two Democratic Senate victories by convincing inconsistent voters to go to the polls. Over issues like affordability and inflation, which carried the day in so many places across the country, voters who often eschew going to the polls actually voted on November 4. Hispanics swung against Trump last Tuesday because more Hispanics in key districts cast a ballot than in 2024. Many of the victories in GOP strongholds came because African Americans, who normally do not go to the polls, decided to vote.
Turnout matters, Christopher concludes. The decision to vote can make all the difference, and as exit polls demonstrate, if voter turnout remains as high in the midterm congressional elections next year as it was on November 4, no amount of GOP gerrymandering will protect their U.S. House, or maybe even their Senate, majorities.
Hy and Christopher go on to talk about tariffs, the Supreme Court, and a story about how a Louisiana Manifesto of rights may have influenced the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
Transcribed
1 NOV 2025 · Mayor-elect Helena Moreno declared last week, “The city of New Orleans should not, and I will not stand for, having a (state) fiscal administrator come in."
Hy and Christopher discuss Gov. Jeff Landry’s proposal that he has the power to appoint a budgetary Tsar over local finances. Does it carry about as much legitimacy as his idea that President Trump should appoint the next LSU football coach?
Both agree that the Governor’s opinion that a tribune of his should hold power over local finances might have carried a little more weight if he had done everything in his power to kill an emergency $125 million bond issue so that the City of New Orleans could pay its employees through Christmas. Due to his opposition, the city withdrew its request from the state bond commission.
Politics operates by the golden rule; he has the gold makes the rule. The taxpayers of New Orleans will pay the price if their police and fire and critical city employees are laid off at the holidays. They have elected a new Mayor and Council. Should the new team have the right to make these decisions, as they will experience, the fallout of budget cuts or tax increases?
Perhaps the Governor’s newfound interest in Orleans finances has more to do with the fact that his poll numbers have fallen into historic lows, way below the President’s. A new statewide poll finds Donald Trump’s favorable rating in Louisiana stands at 48%, but Governor Jeff Landry’s has fallen to only 39% JMC Analytics and Polling pollster John Couvillon says Landry had an aggressive legislative agenda during his first year in office and that might have turned off a few voters. Beating up on New Orleans always ranks as a great way to turn North Louisiana voter opinion back in one’s favor.
Hy and Christopher also ponder if Gov. Jeff Landry led advocates of a second Black-majority district into a trap? By encouraging then-state Senator Cleo Fields to draw a serpentine-shaped district from Baton Rouge to Shreveport—almost impossible to drive across without transversing dirt roads through swamps—the Governor may have not only given the conservative-majority Supreme Court an excuse to strike the current LA 6th Congressional seat out of existence, but every other majority-minority US House district in the nation as well.
In oral arguments one month ago, Justice Samuel Alito largely questioned the specifics of Louisiana’s case and whether the lower courts had faithfully applied the court’s existing Section 2 framework, which requires a minority group to show it is sufficiently large and geographically compact enough to form a majority in a new district.
After lower courts ruled Louisiana’s map with only one majority-Black district violated Section 2, the state added a second one by creating a narrow path stretching from Baton Rouge in the southern part of the state to Shreveport, near its northwestern corner. This oddly redesigned 6th Congressional seat has drew objections ever since.
“There’s a big difference, and there’s a serious question about whether the Black population within the district in question in the illustrative map was geographically compact,” Justice Alito noted.
It is not as if Louisiana had not had a congressional seat struck down for exactly this reason, part of the reason Cleo Fields left Congress nearly three decades ago in the first place. Louisiana's 8th congressional district (which Fields represented from January 3, 1993, to January 3, 1997) was known for its unusual, "Z" shape. Created after the 1990 census, it connected a large and diverse geographic area of Louisiana, including a mix of urban and rural areas as well as stretching east and west of Baton Rouge and up the Mississippi River towards the Arkansas border. When Louisiana lost a congressional seat due to relative population declines following the next census, US Justice Department lawyers thought the 8th looked so odd that the state was allowed to drop this minority-majority seat rather than one of the Caucasian majority districts.
When one adds to the fact that even prior to the current phase of Louisiana’s legal battle reaching the US supreme Court, some members of the conservative majority have long endorsed broad changes to the court’s Section 2 approach. If Louisiana had followed the recommendations of most civil rights lawyers to draw new 6th District from Baton Rouge to Monroe along the Mississippi river, linking geographically connected rural communities with a more “ natural” African-American majority, Louisiana’s case may have received a more skeptical reception by the Justices.
Instead, in all likelihood, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will use Louisiana’s salamander-shaped congressional seat— the very original definition of a gerrymander— as the justification to eliminate the mandate for all majority-minority seats, and then southern “red state” legislators will engage in a smorgasbord of redistricting to produce Donald Trump five more congressional seats, and therefore, grant the GOP a permanent majority in the US House.
Transcribed
25 OCT 2025 · October 30 at 6pm, The Garden District Book Shop on 2727 Prytania will welcome Theresa McCulla speaking about her new book Insatiable City. The event is free and open to the public.
Hy and Christopher welcome Eric Williams to help interview Teresa on what food means to New Orleans. It’s a fascinating conversation.
Insatiable City, a 2025 James Beard Foundation Book Award Nominee in Reference, History, and Scholarship and a Smithsonian Best Book of 2024, is a history of food in the Crescent City that explores race, power, social status, and labor.
In Insatiable City, Theresa McCulla probes the overt and covert ways that the production of food and the discourse about it both created and reinforced many strains of inequality in New Orleans, a city significantly defined by its foodways. Tracking the city’s economy from nineteenth-century chattel slavery to twentieth-century tourism, McCulla uses menus, cookbooks, newspapers, postcards, photography, and other material culture to limn the interplay among the production and reception of food, the inscription and reiteration of racial hierarchies, and the constant diminishment and exploitation of working-class people. The consumption of food and people, she shows, was mutually reinforced and deeply intertwined. Yet she also details how enslaved and free people of color in New Orleans used food and drink to carve paths of mobility, stability, autonomy, freedom, profit, and joy. A story of pain and pleasure, labor and leisure, Insatiable City goes far beyond the task of tracing New Orleans's culinary history to focus on how food suffuses culture and our understandings and constructions of race and power.
Transcribed
25 OCT 2025 · Hy and Christopher start talking about the turnout in the Mayoral election. Many have praised the 40.1 percent who went to the polls - we think it’s too low. http://www.louisianaweekly.com/our-ancestors-are-ashamed-and-we-should-be-too/
Nearly four months ago, Hy and Christopher posed the question of whether Royce Duplessis could replicate the coalition that allowed him to best Democratic Rep. Mandie Landry in 2022. Would the state senator be able to build a biracial coalition of African-American Democrats as well as white Republicans and Independents to outflank a prominent Caucasian challenger? His Senate district, which has more than 75,000 registered voters in Orleans Parish, is a good microcosm of the city – 48 percent are Black, 40 percent are Caucasian and nine percent other. In fact, it’s a bit worse than the City of New Orleans for an African-American contender, which is 55 and 34 percent Black and white respectively. That Duplessis could carry a gentrified district, which under traditional political rules should have given a preference to a liberal white contender, spoke well of his chances in a citywide election.
In the end, the answer was no. He only won one precinct of District 5 by over 50 percent in his mayoral bid. Her totals in the senatorial district are pretty closely tracked with her 55 percent victory citywide.That is not to say that Duplessis did not perform quite well for a candidate who jumped into the mayoral race just over three months before election day and ended up outspent 5-1. At 22 percent, Duplessis did win a plurality in the neighborhoods where he grew up – Pontchartrain Park and throughout Gentilly. He also did well in several Central City neighborhoods and prevailed in a few precincts in New Orleans East, though Oliver Thomas tended to match or edge past Duplessis narrowly in both overall.Essentially, Duplessis’ campaign might have replicated its previous success against a very similar candidate to Moreno, Rep. Mandie Landry, if an additional 12 percent of the city’s voters – i.e. registered Republicans – had universally backed his bid for mayor, as they had in his previous election. Mostly, they did not. Unlike Landry, Moreno won the majority of the GOP vote. The city councilperson appeared a more compelling moderate than Rep. Landry had. The conservative Caucasian remainder tended to support the Republican candidate Frank Janusa. http://www.louisianaweekly.com/moreno-victory/
Then we end on a few comments and the government shutdown. Christopher and Hy disagree. http://www.louisianaweekly.com/the-ongoing-federal-government-shutdown/
Transcribed
13 OCT 2025 · Hy and Christopher take on the impact of the government shut down on our national parks, talk about October 15 deadline to pay our federal employees, whether we can return to the decorum of Ronald Reagan in our politics, And looking forward to the November elections, where a controversial tax will be on the Orleans ballot for affordable housing. Should we pass another tax when the council keeps rolling forward our existing miliages after rolling them back?
Christopher reports from the road, broadcasting from Santa Barbara, California, having just completed a trip across Glacier National Park just hours before the government shut down, into the Waterton Lakes, Banff, and across Canada, and then on a Holland American line to San Diego. Tidbits from that trip, and how the government shutdown is affecting our transport in America are on the agenda!
Transcribed
11 OCT 2025 · Hy and Christopher ponder how to improve public education in Louisiana, and one of the best opportunities that is going on is happening up in Monroe. The first International Baccalaureate school, with the IB educational program available for students from the very beginning opens its doors in Monroe.
Educator Adam Ryland joins us to talk about the opportunities of multidisciplinary education and engagement with students. St. Frederick High School in Monroe is an IB World School offering the Middle Years Program (MYP) for grades 7-10, focusing on inquiry, international-mindedness, and holistic student development. While this is a prominent IB school in the area, other schools worldwide offer various IB programs, such as the Diploma Programme (DP) for the final years of high school. It offers hope for the Pelican State’s moribund educational system.
Hy, then, embarks on a monologue on the impact of Charlie Kirk on free speech and the political environment.
We also mentioned the Mayor’s race and the impact of turnout…
Duplessis’ Fight for Black Votes
By Christopher Tidmore
The L.I.F.E. Ballot endorsed Councilwoman Helena Moreno for Mayor of New Orleans. The Louisiana Federation of independent Electors, an organization of which Dutch Morial co-founded and for which Marc Morial served as guiding force for decades, has advocated for a white candidate to become mayor. The organization most identified with the fight to elect the first Black mayor nearly nearly five decades ago now endorses a white candidate.
This is just a glimpse of the climb that Sen. Royce Duplessis must accomplish by 8 PM on October 11. He must convince a supermajority of Black voters in Orleans Parish to cast for him in order to have a shot at a runoff slot and another month to fight. The state Senator’s original strategy of creating a biracial coalition, particularly with Republican support, has collapsed as 53% of GOP voters back Moreno and the remainder tend to support the Republican candidate Frank Janusa.
Duplessis’ best hope would be to force a runoff by a narrow margin, and the chances of that are as narrow as electorally conceivable. Moreno commanded 49 percent in a University of New Orleans survey last week, followed by Duplessis with 15 percent and Councilman Oliver Thomas with 13 percent.
However, one in five respondents remain undecided, with an overwhelming number of these African-American voters, and upon this Black electorate Duplessis has gambled. The state Senator runs on a strategy of African-American dissatisfaction with the fights between the city council and the mayor and anxiety of electing another Caucasian mayor of New Orleans in a Black majority city. Consequently, he seeks to drive up African-American turnout, with himself as the beneficiary. It is the only means for Duplessis’ gambel to pay off and earn a runoff slot— if Black voters respond to his message.
The state Senator responded to a question in a recent forum that underlines his strategy. He subsequently broadcast this question on every social media platform, almost minute by minute. As Duplessis explains his campaign thesis, “The one thing we’re not gonna do is ignore race. Because race-bases issues cannot be solved by avoiding the conversation around race. Your question pointed out the stark racial disparities around economics in New Orleans. New Orleans is still a majority Black city, but we’re not just a majority Black city. We are one of the most culturally rich cities in the world where the contributions of Black people mean so much—not just a New Orleans culture—but to the entire world.”
However, Helena Moreno has done a very good job in courting African-American voters, and their leaders, which could thwart the state Senator’s strategy. Congressman Troy Carter, heads the other political faction in Orleans Parish, and he endorsed the Councilwoman’s campaign, just like L.I.F.E. and a myriad other Black elected officials—leading to questions of whether higher turnout will even affect Moreno’s glide-path to 50.1 percent on October 11.
A look at Louisiana politics from Chaplain Hy McEnery and Christopher Tidmore
Information
| Author | News Talk 99.5 WRNO (WRNO-FM) |
| Organization | iHeartRadio |
| Categories | News |
| Website | - |
| - |
Copyright 2026 - Spreaker Inc. an iHeartMedia Company
