As Louisiana Democrats try to rebuild, is fighting or working with Republicans the answer?

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Beto O’Rourke was fired up when he appeared before an enthusiastic crowd of more than 1,000 people in New Orleans on Thursday night, telling them that Democrats can begin turning around their fortunes in Louisiana.

The path, said O’Rourke, a former congressman who lost highly publicized races for the U.S. Senate and governor in Texas, requires “finding and fielding the candidates who are going to show up and authentically and honestly engage with the people they want to serve, learn from them, reflect what they are hearing, campaign like there is no tomorrow.”

It’s a path lined with obstacles.

In the 2023 elections, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry surprised most observers by cruising to victory in the primary over his Democratic challenger, negating the need for a runoff. Republicans also prevailed once again in all of the other statewide offices, and they captured enough additional legislative seats to claim a two-thirds super-majority in both the House and the Senate.

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Given the size of the Republican advantage in Louisiana, Democrats in the state Legislature have decided not to mimic the defiant approach of Democrats in Washington and are instead working with the Republican leadership in Baton Rouge whenever possible to notch small victories for their constituents.

“They have concluded it’s best to be accommodationist,” said James Carville, the preeminent Democratic strategist who lives in New Orleans. “This is more of an observation than a criticism.”

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A month after the 2023 election, Davante Lewis, a Democratic member of the Public Service Commission from Baton Rouge, said his party had hit “rock bottom.”

Asked recently for an update, Lewis said, “We are trying to find our path back,” and pointed to some successes over the past 18 months.

He noted that progressive groups and Democrats helped organize the campaign that in March resoundingly defeated four constitutional amendments sought by Landry and the Legislature.

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Still, Democrats can’t point to much success at the ballot box since the fall 2023 elections.

Cleo Fields did win a congressional seat in 2024 for a district that stretches from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, but that was no surprise since Landry and state legislators drew the district earlier in the year for a Black Democrat to win it.

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So far, no major Democrat has announced plans to run against U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, who is facing three major Republican candidates, with qualifying for the November 2026 general election set to occur in January.

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Carville had said after the poor 2023 election results that Democrats had to act like an opposition party to begin to reverse their fortunes at the ballot box.

That would require Democrats to regularly challenge Landry and the Republican leadership of the Legislature with a consistent message that would score points with the media and the public.

Instead, they often work with Landry and have provided the votes needed to pass two major pieces of legislation that the governor wanted.

House Democrats have a good working relationship with Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, praising him for including them in his visits to House districts throughout the state and for naming two Democrats to chair House committees.

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“They’re an accommodationist party,” Carville said of Democrats in Louisiana. “That’s an understandable choice they’ve made. You’ll get a left turn lane in your (legislative) district. But you’re never going to win elections doing that. They won’t ever define themselves.”

State Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, of Lafayette, who leads the 11-member Democratic Senate caucus, said Republicans hold so much power that it behooves Democrats to work with them whenever possible, without sacrificing their principles.

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Boudreaux was referring to how, during a special session in November, Democrats helped Landry overcome the opposition of conservative Republicans by voting to pass legislation that flattened state income taxes while increasing the state sales tax.

In return, Landry agreed to increase spending for Grambling University and for the three Southern University campuses by a total of $10 million annually for the next three years. He also agreed to not cut spending on early childhood education and to ensure that juveniles jailed in adult prisons will have access to education and vo-tech training programs aimed at keeping them from committing more crimes.

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In April, Democrats came to Landry’s rescue again on his chief legislative priority, House Bill 148, which gives the insurance commissioner greater authority to reject rate increases. If rates continue to rise, Landry said, he will blame the current commissioner, Tim Temple, who objected to the legislation. Republicans were divided on the bill, but it passed with unanimous support from Democrats.

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When it came time after the session for Landry to exercise his line-item veto, 16 of the 17 spending projects he killed were sponsored by Republicans who had voted against HB148.

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Boudreaux noted another benefit of working with Landry and Henry.

On May 19, two dozen African-American Democrats and two White Democrats took the unusual step of standing solidarity in the front of the House to express their anger with House Bill 685, a measure by Rep. Emily Chenevert, R-Baton Rouge, that would roll back Louisiana’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

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Boudreaux and other Democrats asked Landry and Henry to bottle up the bill in the Senate, without giving it hearing.

HB685 died without getting a hearing.

“If all you do is say no, when these issues come up, you don’t get any support,” Boudreaux said.

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