Louisiana Senate GOP super majority just about fizzled out and lost all their leverage.

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If overrides of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto-fest don’t happen this month, that will indict directly and negatively the leadership abilities, if not their commitment to quality legislation, of Republicans House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and Sen. Pres. Page Cortez.

Earlier this week, Cortez said he thought any veto session would prove futile because, with only 26 GOP senators present and that the bare minimum to make for a supermajority, Republican state Sen. Rogers Pope had communicated to him that he wouldn’t vote for an override of any of the 28 measures (plus budget lines items) Edwards had vetoed – even though Pope voted for all of the most consequential items. It also turns out that Republican state Sen. Bodi White scheduled himself for surgery during the mid-July span.

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Perhaps one could see this coming when one of the Senate’s get-along-go-along Republicans Rick Ward, seeing his influence wane as more solidly conservative Republicans increasingly called the legislative tune, announced just before the regular session’s end he would resign with more than a year to go in his final term. This gave the GOP Senate supermajority required to override successfully no margin to spare, echoing last year when Republican former Sen. Ronnie Johns said he wouldn’t and didn’t attend the veto session, then quit right after it to join the Edwards Administration.

Down a man and with another off to surgery – although unless it’s something that suddenly came up, White certainly knew when the legislative calendar called for a veto session – this might explain Cortez’s lack of ardor in inducing Pope to vote with the party who, although major questions surrounded his desire to cast conservative/reform votes especially on education matters when he entered the Senate after three terms in the House, had reliably backed almost all such measures including on override votes last year. Possibly Pope, who will be 82 during next year’s elections, plans on retiring which would reduce considerably leadership and constituent pressures on him.

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