LouisianaVoice has learned that U.S. Sen. John Kennedy is calling for the resignation of beleaguered Superintendent of State Police Mike Edmonson.
Given the strained relationship between Kennedy and Gov. John Bel Edwards, however, that call isn’t likely to have much sway with the governor.
Nevertheless, it is the first public call by an elected official for Edmonson to step down.
Edmonson was first appointed by former Gov. Bobby Jindal in January 2008 and was reappointed by Edwards when he took office in January 2016.
Before his appointment by Jindal, Edmonson was best known as the constant companion of LSU coaches Nick Saban and Les Miles as he stood ready to protect the two coaches from any hostile fans bent on doing bodily harm to the coaches and were able to first get past 100 beefy football players to get to the coaches. (Well, you come up with a better theory; that’s the best we could come up with.)
Kennedy, you might remember, even weighed in on that controversial Act 859 of 2014 which temporarily awarded Edmonson a $55,000-per-year retirement increase bump. In a special LouisianaVoice guest COLUMN, he called on then-House Speaker Chuck Kleckley to call for an investigation of the Act, pushed through in the closing minutes of the 2014 legislative session by State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia).
Ironically, it was then-State Rep. John Bel Edwards who had requested that Kleckley conduct the investigation.
Louisiana Voice 
Kennedy needs to focus on doing his job in Washington. He should be ashamed of voting to confirm Devos, Sessions, and Pruitt among others.
Touché.
Indeed!
Exactly NolaNirvana. He wanted the job bad enough.
Right on. Senators Kennedy (R) and Cassidy (R) appear to have gone to Washington to puppets on a string for Trump and the Republican Party
This is exactly what I was thinking as I read the article. He needs to be calling for the resignation of Trump.
“Honor Code” better “Wake Up” he will witness a “Drain The Swamp” in 32 months! Much like the recent Scott Angele Defeat!
JBE would do well not to draw a line in the sand to protect Edmonson from Kennedy’s call for his ouster. JBE has Fiscal worries that he is dependent upon Kennedy to help ameliorate, and jeopardizing Kennedy’s support for added Federal funds over someone as trifling as Edmonson would be poor politics.
Awesome
Calling for Edmonson’s resignation is NOT in smarmy Kennedy’s purview. He’s no longer a state employee. It would be surprising to see him perform his senatorial duties such as standing up for an independent investigation into the Trump-Putin-Russian collusion in hacking the presidential election. Surprising for such a bought and paid for talking machine bobble head, but good. And one other thing- the man has $ for district offices but hasn’t opened the first one. So trying to reach staff at one is impossible. Getting through to his DC office, almost impossible, though it wouldn’t likely sway his purchased runaway-train Trump vote. He could have scheduled town hall meetings to listen to constituents while on a break meant just for that. Nope, nothing there either.
Absolutely correct Alicia
We are VERY, VERY fortunate to have Sen. Kennedy as our U. S. Senator. I have confidence that He will ensure Tinker Bel doesn’t get a blank check from the Feds to then distribute as lard to his many cronies,
Something tells me you are not being sarcastic, Robert. So you are saying Kennedy will prevent Louisiana from receiving needed assistance for flood recovery, and that’s a good thing?
Kennedy has been a no-show so far, no town hall meetings or other constituent contact – you’d think he would be enthusiastic to meet with voters so early in his congressional career, but he apparently is not. We are NOT fortunate to have Kennedy in the senate – we pay him well for his work, a facet of which is to meet with us – and we have not seen him at all. This does not bode well for the rest of his term and for his representation of our state. The only thing we’ve seen so far is Kennedy’s bootlicking votes to confirm trump’s unqualified cabinet nominees.