The Founders Show

By: News Talk 99.5 WRNO (WRNO-FM)
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • A look at Louisiana politics from Chaplain Hy McEnery and Christopher Tidmore
    Copyright News Talk 99.5 WRNO (WRNO-FM)
    Show more Show less
Politics & Government
Show more Show less
Episodes
  • Quin Hillyer & Looming Elections in Orleans & Jefferson

    Quin Hillyer & Looming Elections in Orleans & Jefferson
    Jan 31 2025
    The newest member of the editorial board of the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate joins Hy and Christopher to talk about the challenges - and opportunities - for the Crescent City in the upcoming election seasons.
    His name is well-known in journalism, both locally and nationally. Quin Hillyer has written for National Review, as well as a number of influential publications. His column has run in the T-P for the last two years As of this week, the New Orleans born-and-bred reporter who started his career as a senior staffer for Congressman Bob Livingston in the 1990s, has joined the T-P as a staff editor and writer.
    His ‘welcome home’ piece appears in Sunday’s T-P, “Back in Louisiana, where personalities and politics are bigger than life”.
    Hy and Christopher question Quin on the challenges Speaker Mike Johnson faces passing a budget, the bitter partisanship of Washington DC, and Louisiana’s incredible influence in the nation’s capital. Quin observes that with less than 2% of the nation’s population, Louisiana controls many of the senior positions in Congress.
    We then turn our attention to the upcoming election elections for Mayor of New Orleans and on multiple levels in Jefferson Parish. In fact, qualifying happened this week for some of those open seats in the suburban cities. As Christopher writes in this coming week’s edition of The Louisiana Weekly:
    Candidates Qualify for 3/29/25 Election
    By Christopher Tidmore
    Jefferson Parish insiders expressed a degree of shock at the amount of integrity which long-time Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson demonstrated in his decision not to seek another term last week. He released a press release before qualifying began on January 29, 2025, thanking the public and announcing his intentions to retire.
    Unmentioned but well-known, he hoped that his son Brett Lawson, a seasoned police officer himself, would be his successor. The younger Lawson dutifully qualified last Wednesday upon the opening of registration. That’s what surprised every insider. Until last Monday, Arthur Larson seemed primed to run for another term, scaring away any opponents, so why not pull a Chehardy?
    The famous case of the incumbent Jefferson Parish Assessor—walking into qualifying on the final day with his son, and then watching his son qualify for office unopposed in his place—has constituted a legendary handoff of power to the next generation. At the time, critics called it nepotism at its worst, yet Lawrence Chehardy Jr. remained a popular incumbent who never faced a serious challenge for decades thereafter.
    Arthur Larson could have kept his silence until 4:55, walked into the Clerk’s office with his son, and watched Brett sign up for the race unopposed. Instead, he telegraphed his intentions, and gave any candidate to wish to challenge ample time to qualify. Of course, the dilemma of any potential challenger is that campaign dollars may prove scarce this year against the popular Lawson name, which meant that as late as the morning of Friday, Jan. 31 (when this newspaper went to press) Brett Larson had not received a challenger for Police Chief of Gretna.
    State Rep. Ricky Templet did, however, in his quest to return to the Jefferson Parish Council. The Mayor of Jean Lafitte Timothy Kerner Jr. threw his hat in the proverbial ring. This sets up the District 1 race as a ‘Battle of Titans’ from either end of the West Bank seat. A scion of the dynasty from the coastal city text squares off against the principal powerbroker from the main municipality further north. Making this even more complicated for Templet, Kerner’s father serves in the Louisiana House of Representatives with him. Both men are Republicans, but they are joined in the contest by Andrea Manuel, an African-American Democrat.
    After losing his reelection to a third term as Westwego Mayor by just 114 votes several years ago, John I. "Johnny" Shaddinger Jr. seeks to return to elective politics in running for the District 1 seat on the Westwego Council. He faces Republican Jason LeBlanc and Democrat Maggie "May" Campbell.
    Timothy "Tim" Matherne faces a challenge from Johnny Nobles Jr. in the District 2 contest. Robert "Bobby" Black runs against Randy Carr (of Carr Drugs fame) for District 4, and Robert "Bobby B" Bonvillian faces Larry Warino for the District 5 seat on the Council. All are Republicans.
    Show more Show less
    54 mins
  • Sneauxpocalypse’s Message: Start Schools on August 1

    Sneauxpocalypse’s Message: Start Schools on August 1
    Jan 24 2025
    Tuesday’s 9.5 inches of snow not only shut down South Louisiana for most of the week, the blizzard also underlined the fact that increasingly volatile weather occurrences – from hurricanes to tornadoes to floods –have consistently robbed school children of necessary days in the classroom, almost on a yearly basis. Hy and Christopher propose a solution on this week’s edition of the Founders Show.
    While current Orleans Parish charter school schedules have slowly, year after year, edged earlier, with students often coming to the class on or about the 5th or 6th of August, schools in other parts of the state (and much of the private system) continue in the trend of the last 40 years, starting near the middle of August.
    Some claim that one of OPSB’s boost in test scores over the past decade has come about, in part, due to school sessions beginning at an earlier date. Weather was not the original motivation. Part of the reason for the shift to earlier in August by Orleans charter schools tended to deal with a real local problem, many parents had previously not thought that their children needed to be enrolled until after Labor Day. By starting near the beginning of August, that negative tradition has ameliorated somewhat.
    Truant September starts might decline even further if schools would commence on about August 1throughout Louisiana. Children missing a whole month of school stands as a delay even the most reticent of parents can’t justify. Moreover, the impact of weather-related events suggests that school sessions should begin as early in August as possible, to make up for the likely loss of days that could become a common occurrence year after year thanks to climate change.
    Louisiana school children no longer miss just a day in the classroom because of the weather. Increasingly losing an entire week has become common place – as the Jan. 21-24 snow event demonstrated – and as increasingly intense hurricanes are closing down the state every two to three years for several days. Beginning the school year on August 1 comes with a fiscal cost, undoubtedly, in higher teacher pay and adjustments on union contracts. Still, with a finite number of classroom hours until the all important high stakes testing of LEAP (and the associated advancement exams), students missing a week of education can make all the difference between passage and failure.
    Legislators should take action in the April 2025 Regular Session to mandate that weather events will never deny our children the minimum number of school days to succeed.
    Hy and Christopher go on to talk about the impact of Trump’s first days in Washington, Mike Johnson’s challenge in passing tax cut extensions, and a new scam plaguing the people of New Orleans. Men impersonating Orleans Parish sheriff’s officers call, unsuspecting people, and say that there’s a warrant out for their arrest. After an extended period of time on the phone, where they encourage people to come in to the police station to deal with these warrants, they ask for money to be wired for a bail bond.
    Show more Show less
    54 mins
  • Trump's Second Inauguration Followed By D.C. Mardi Gras

    Trump's Second Inauguration Followed By D.C. Mardi Gras
    Jan 18 2025
    This week, while the nation focuses upon the second inaugural of Donald J. Trump on Monday, January 20, 2025 (ironically also the Martin Luther King holiday), the Louisiana political world will be focused on the following four-day weekend in the nation’s capitol. Hy and Christopher talk about the major event and even go into how Opera influenced Mardi Gras— a major theme of the first event of Washington Mardi Gras.Washington Mardi Gras may have begun 76 years ago as means for homesick Pelican State congressional staffers to throw themselves a Carnival Ball, yet from Thursday, January 23 to Sunday, January 26 the entire Louisiana political establishment will descend upon the Washington Hilton for a series of receptions so grand and well-funded that the main event of the Ball Saturday night almost feels like an afterthought.Interest groups have good reasons to put on a cavalcade of parties and mixers, one after another, as every elected official in Louisiana is invited each year to the Ball, and as such, a good party allows facetime with a Parish President, Legislator, or member of Congress, all at the same time. Over 2000 Louisianas attend. Interestingly, this year, thanks to Louisiana’s GOP bent, many of the attendees will come for Trump’s inauguration and stay the week, with extends the parties to Wednesday night—where Gov. Jeff Landry will be feted with a major fundraiser.Still, Washington Mardi Gras is supposed to stand as a non-partisan event. New Orleans Democratic Congressman Troy Carter serves as the 2025 Chairman of the Ball Committee, and the various events welcome politicians and their staffs from both sides of the aisle. This year’s King is Hispanic (Rico Alvendia, a decorated Iraq War vet, West Point grad, and founder of the Krewe of Mars) and Queen is African-American (Kendall Williams, a college student and noted civic volunteer who also founded the ‘Diversity Club’ at Louise McGehee School).Even the events betray a non-partisan gist. Thursday kicks off with the New Orleans Opera Association’s fundraiser/concert at the James Beard-award winning Equinox Restaurant from 11:30-2 pm with a Franco-Creole luncheon and a performance by LA-born Metropolitan Opera star Cadie J. Bryan (NOOA’s Susanna in 2023 Le nozze di Figaro) at $350 per person and honoring Opera-supporter LA PSC Commissioner Eric Skrmetta.That is followed by 'economic development' lunches hosted by “Elevate Louisiana” and “Louisiana Alive”, invitation-only dinners for politicians and their supporters Thursday evening, the Chamber’s luncheon on Friday, then an endless number of private receptions in the Washington Hilton that afternoon, evening, and throughout the day Saturday. The Ball is Saturday night at the same hotel, and JEDCO underwrites the breakfast-goodbye Sunday morning.It is not an accident that the bar at the Hilton is draped with a banner reading “Welcome to the 65th Parish”. It is the center of the political year for interest groups, a series of parties with the purpose of kicking off the legislative session, the state’s priorities in the next Congress, and the simple act of asking every politician necessary for support on a particular issue—when they are assembled in the same place, and unusually pliable after days of libations.The fact that key political players from other states now clamor to attend the receptions and Ball underpins Louisiana’s growing Congressional power. Steve Scalise is a long-time member of the Mystic Krewe of Louisianans, and he and Mike Johnson attend multiple events yearly. They draw fellow members of the leadership to the parties. So does Troy Carter, who often is able to convince his fellow Democrats (sometimes including his one-time fraternity brother Hakeem Jeffries) to come by for a drink, food, or a second-line. In other words, as the new Trump Administration comes to power, the Pelican State reminds all of Washington that week who is in control at the other side of Pennsylvania Ave.—and our tribunes in DC do it in the most Louisiana way; throw a party.Modern Mardi Gras was Born Though OperaMany know New Orleans as “America’s First City of Opera”. After all, the performance of Sylvain in 1796 constituted the first staged opera in current boundaries of the United States. Moreover, New Orleans would host the North American premieres works by European master composers such as Verdi, Rossini, and Bellini from 1830 to 1912, with dozens of major operas first presented to US audiences in the Crescent City.Less well known was that French Opera House –Théâtre de l'Opéra– served as the center of New Orleans Carnival from 1859 until 1919 (when it was destroyed by fire). Parading Krewes like Comus, Momus, Proteus, and Rex and society balls such as Nereus, Athenians, and Atlanteans all would meet at the French Opera House for their revels—which always included an operatic performance as part of their ...
    Show more Show less
    54 mins

What listeners say about The Founders Show

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available