Cooper: Bringing people together a ‘top priority’

In an interview last week, Mark Cooper said his most important task as Gov. John Bel Edwards’ incoming chief of staff will be to unite people.

That theme applies politically to the volatile landscape of the Louisiana Legislature and more practically to a state still reeling from police-involved shootings and recent natural disasters.

“That’s the top priority,” Cooper said from his office in Arkansas, where he works as the senior director of global emergency management at Walmart.

Cooper will become Edwards’ new chief of staff during the third week of March, but he’s already studying the state budget and has a set of meetings scheduled this week in Baton Rouge.

For now it’s all about policy and politics; he doesn’t have any plans for staffing changes.

“That’s not my intent,” Cooper said.

Cooper first connected with Edwards last year when both gave speeches to the National Governors Association. But he added that said he officially interviewed for the post being vacated by former state Sen. Ben Nevers about a month ago.

e said he was well past the point of being homesick at the time and the opportunity to get involved again in “crisis leadership” appealed to him.

“I want to be a part of that rebuilding process from last year’s floods. I felt the same way after Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “Louisiana is in my blood. I just want to help with some of these very real problems.”

Cooper was the director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under former Gov. Bobby Jindal. That Edwards campaigned against Jindal, and has blamed him for many of the state’s budget challenges, has not been missed by politicos.

Yet Cooper said his approach to public service has never been based on party — he also previously worked for late U.S. Sen. Russell Long and former Gov. Buddy Roemer.

“Most people don’t care what party you’re in,” he said. “They just want you to solve problems.”

The governor’s chief of staff is traditionally among the most powerful positions in state government. Super PAC to support Kennedy’s politicsA new super PAC is being created to help U.S. Sen. John Kennedy in Washington and at home.

It’s called the Conservative Louisiana PAC and Kyle Ruckert, the political architect for former U.S. Sen. David Vitter, will serve as its director.

Washington attorney Charlie Spies, who has been involved in landmark cases in Louisiana involving what are loosely known as super PACs, has signed on as the treasurer.

Super PACs, thanks for a U.S. Supreme Court decision, are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money and are not beholden to the same giving caps that are applied to political parties and candidate committees.

It’s unknown exactly what the new pro-Kennedy organization will do, but it will likely involve itself in races that Kennedy cares about and it may advocate policy issues the senator is pushing.State senator rejuvenates podcastSen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, is back in the studio with his podcast recording again.

The first episode of 2017 features crime analyst Jeff Asher. New episodes available in the coming weeks will have Rep. Helena Moreno, D-New Orleans, on women’s issues and the Ignite Advocacy Network; the Louisiana Budget Projects’ Jan Moller on the state’s huge budget woes; and Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma, on what it’s like to grow up in politics as the child of an elected official.

Get episodes at JPMorrell.com, iTunes and Google Play. You can likewise ask questions for the show on Twitter using the hashtag #AskJP.Clark steps up at LSMSDr. Beau Clark, the East Baton Rouge Parish coroner, has been installed as the new president of the Louisiana State Medical Society — a move that will at the very least bump up his profile inside the Capitol.

Two years ago a group of influential donors attempted to convince Clark to run for mayor in Baton Rouge. At the time Clark said he had established a set of goals for the coroner’s office and had not accomplished them.

“I do not want to say no forever,” he added.

That caused many Red Stick politicos to simply keep tabs on Clark’s developing political career, which has been aided in recent years by his participation in the legislative process on issues like heroin overdoses.

Clark, as the former first vice president, was next in line for the presidency at LSMS.Political History: A pirate and a governor Last week marked the 194th anniversary (Feb. 5, 1823) that the pirate Jean Lafitte — he preferred the term “privateer” — allegedly died in a battle off the coast of Honduras.

The term “allegedly” is another important distinction — but only because there are differing accounts of Lafitte’s death and few can agree on a date.

Lafitte was a colorful character nonetheless and a foil to Louisiana’s first governor, William C.C. Claiborne. Suspicious of the Lafitte operation that was bringing goods into New Orleans, Claiborne posted notices throughout the city in 1813 offering $500 for the capture of Jean Lafitte.

In “Lafitte the Pirate,” author Lyle Saxon writes that Jean Lafitte visited the city the following day but was harassed by no one: “The Creoles could not but admire his indifference to danger; and when he was seen perusing the proclamation and smiling, they were amused by his nonchalance.”

They were probably even brought to laughter two days later when Jean Lafitte posted his own posters offering $1,500 to anyone who would deliver Gov. Claiborne to Grand Terre.They Said It“I happen to think I have the best ideas.”—Gov. John Bel Edwards, to the Joint Budget Committee“We are not going away. We’re going to be there. We’re going to show up. We’re going to show up in droves.”—Angela Lorio, a mother of a disabled child, on possible health care cuts in the special session, in the Associated Press

 

About Jeremy Alford 227 Articles
Jeremy Alford is an independent journalist and the co-author of LONG SHOT, which recounts Louisiana's 2015 race for governor. His bylines appear regularly in The New York Times and he has served as an on-camera analyst for CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and C-SPAN.

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