All posts tagged "Jeff Landry"

A red-state governor is facing a recall effort in his own state that was launched by voters upset with him canceling elections amid a redistricting effort.

Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the U.S. House primaries on Thursday, and by Tuesday, the Louisiana Secretary of State's office confirmed that it had received a petition to recall Landry from his post, local media reported.

Baton Rouge residents Katilyn Stepter and Marian Gbaiwon Hills filed the petition, and now have 180 days to collect 500,000 signatures, which is about 20 percent of Louisiana's 2.5 million active registered voters, according to a report by The Shreveport Times....

A group of angry dog-sledders snubbed the Trump administration from attending a major event in Greenland, according to reports Tuesday.

Louisiana Gov. and U.S. envoy to Greenland Jeff Landry was disinvited by Greenlanders to a dogsled race, an annual event with cultural significance for the self-governing Arctic country's majority native population, The Daily Beast reported.

In a statement from the Greenland Dogsledding Association released Sunday, the organization reportedly had “informed that the tourist company that invited Governor Jeff Landry from the United States has withdrawn its invitation.”...

While Hurricane Beryl crossed into Louisiana as a tropical storm, Republican Governor Jeff Landry was on vacation in Europe, according to a new report.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based newspaper the Advocate reported Friday that Landry and his wife, Sharon were on a "weeklong jaunt" through Croatia, Greece and Italy when Beryl hit Louisiana, killing one person and damaging homes and businesses and leaving thousands without power. Beryl — which hit southeast Texas as a category 1 hurricane earlier this month, later moved east into the Bayou State and caused coastal flooding and wind speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour. A 31 year-old woman in Benton, Louisiana was killed when a tree fell on her home.

“All the governors I’m familiar with made a business to be around during hurricane season, especially when there was one in the Gulf,” Terry Ryder — who was an attorney for three former Louisiana governors — told the Advocate. “They were always completely engaged before, during and after a storm or a serious threat of a storm. You would not have seen them way out of the country.”...

Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry appeared surprised in a Friday Fox News interview when asked to defend his newly-signed law requiring the Bible's Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom throughout the state, which critics say is unconstitutional.

Speaking about the First Amendment principle of separation of church and state, which the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed at least a half-dozen times, Landry declared: "I challenge anyone who says that to go find me those words in the First Amendment. They don't exist."

He went on to claim those who want to "extract" what he claims are America's Judeo-Christian principles "out of the foundation of this country...really and truly want to create the chaos that ultimately is the demise of this nation."...

The Louisiana governor who made national headlines this week when he signed legislation requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments is now responding to questions about its dubious constitutionality by questioning whether separation of church and state even exists.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the bill into law Thursday and even bragged that he welcomed civil rights groups who threatened to sue based on First Amendment violations.

“The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools,” the group of civil rights organizations said in a statement. ...

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

Climate change looms larger in Louisiana than it does almost anywhere else in the United States. The state is facing down monster hurricanes as well as sea-level rise, and it still relies on a fossil fuel industry that pollutes the state’s air and erodes its wetlands.

But the state’s incoming governor, Republican Jeff Landry, doesn’t see it that way. Landry, who has served as Louisiana’s attorney general for almost eight years, is one of the most stalwart opponents of President Joe Biden’s climate policies, and he won election this fall after calling climate change a “hoax” and defending polluters....