Louisiana Voice

Remember those “extreme makeover” shows that aired on ABC-TV a couple of decades ago?

The original show featured people undergoing plastic surgery, hair and wardrobe changes that changed their whole identities. That show morphed into more tripe like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition.

The last of those shows was aired in July 2007 but now we have the new version: Extreme Makeover: Political Edition.

The first subject for this new show is Louisiana State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson and if the show is successful, she might emerge as an elected official no one will recognize.

It’s really quite amazing what influence political expedience can play in motivating candidates to undergo such radical transformations.

The woods – and the Louisiana Legislature – are full of one-time Democrats who, with a finger raised to the shifting political winds now present themselves to constituents as God-fearing Republicans. Sitting at the top of that garbage heap is none other than John Kerry-Democrat-turned-Trump-Republican John Neely Kennedy, Louisiana’s junior U.S. Senator.

But this isn’t about Kennedy or legislators who would, at the drop of a hat, vote for similar voter-suppression laws as those passed by their Georgian counterparts.

It’s about the former chairperson of the Louisiana Democratic Party who is trying to paint herself as a Green New Deal-type of progressive Democrat when everything about her screams deceit, misdirection and obfuscation.

In fact, she did a real number on one of the architects of the Green New Deal, Sen. Bernie Sanders, in 2016 while serving as chairperson of the Louisiana Democratic Party. She attacked Sanders for running a campaign in the South that had attracted large numbers of new voters, suggesting that his efforts sought to minimize Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s primary wins in southern states.

In 2015, she met with gubernatorial candidate John Bel Edwards, reportedly in an effort to get him to drop out of the race in favor a moderate Republican. That doesn’t say much for party loyalty from the head of the state Democratic Party. That would be like Lindsey Graham or Kennedy turning their backs on Trump.

That’s not the kind of action one might normally expect from a Green New Deal progressive.

Neither would a Green New Deal progressive be expected to hold lucrative contracts tied to big energy companies through her full-time, six-figure job with a multinational law firm. But since 2014, she has worked for Dentons Law Firm

Dentons obviously believes that big is better. In 2013, it merged with the Chinese law firm Dacheng to become the world’s fifth-largest law firm in terms of revenue ($2.9 billion) and the largest by number of lawyers.

Dentons gave $25,000 to the Louisiana Democratic Party’s political action committee between 2013 and 2018 (during Carter Peterson’s tenure as party chairperson), state campaign finance records show.

Carter Peterson joined the firm in 2014. Her campaign finance reports which reveal the bare minimum of information show only that her salary is “more than $100,000” for each year since 2014.

Meanwhile, Dentons is contracted to the New Orleans City Council as a consultant on energy matters.

Carter Peterson’s organization, Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD) even got involved when another of its leaders, Oliver Thomas, who would later plead guilty to federal bribery charges, assumed the chairmanship of the city council’s powerful Utility Committee.

Shortly after Thomas took over the Utility Committee, Carter Peterson announced she had formed a business that would begin advising the council on regulating Entergy. Her association with Dentons began soon after that.

Now, after trailing fellow State Sen. Troy Carter by 13 percentage points in the March 20 primary, she has picked up the endorsement of third-place finisher, GARY CHAMBERS JR. of Baton Rouge, who pulled 21 percent of the vote, just two percentage points behind Carter Peterson. It’s not entirely clear how she convinced Chambers, a true New Green Deal progressive, that she is of a similar stripe but no one would be surprised that should she win, a nice job in her congressional office could be Chambers’ reward.

Securing his endorsement should have taken considerable convincing, given the source of much of her campaign support through the years: GEO Corp., a leading operator of private prisons in the US; The Louisiana Sheriff’s and Deputies PAC ($3600), AT&T ($3500), Atmos Energy ($500), Central Louisiana Electric Co. (CLECO) ($500), and ENPAC, the political action committee of Entergy ($4500).

Other contributors to Carter Peterson campaigns include the Louisiana Bankers Association, pharmaceutical interests, a couple of high-dollar law firms with multiple state contracts and Clinton Vince, her boss at Dentons.

And while Carter Peterson was accepting campaign contributions from the likes of Atmos Energy, AT&T, CLECO and political endorsements from such benefactors as Entergy Corp.’s Political Action Committee (ENPAC), she continues in her attempts to convince us she’s a green new dealer.

It’s like the old Huey Long campaign story he used to tell to get both Protestant and Catholic votes. He told crowds he would get up early on Sunday morning, hitch up the family horse to a buggy and take his Catholic grandparents to Mass. He would then return home and fetch his Protestant grandparents and take them to church. When asked by an associate if his story was true, Huey snorted, “Hell, boy, we didn’t even own a horse.”

But those associations haven’t deterred Carter Peterson from flaunting her endorsement from the Sierra Club.

“Half measures won’t cut it when it comes to confronting the environmental injustices making our families sick in #LA02 (Louisiana’s 2^nd Congressional District), especially those in Cancer Alley,” she wrote on Twitter. “It’s fundamentally wrong that families have to choose between their health and putting food on the table.

“That’s why I’m proud to have the support of [the] Sierra Club as we fight to ensure clean air and water for every family, hold polluters accountable, and build a clean energy economy that puts our communities first.”

Carter Peterson has another twitter post that touts “unapologetic progressive champions – like @TeamKCP – that aren’t afraid to fight for working people.

“For too long too many workers and families have felt locked out of opportunities to thrive – not just get by,” she said. “People deserve to be able to thrive. We can’t wait anymore for our leaders to tiptoe around change. We can’t afford that any longer.”

Instead of branding herself as a Green New Dealer, perhaps Carter Peterson could gain some measure of credibility if she would just establish her own Chameleon Party. At least she wouldn’t surprise anyone when she underwent another political makeover.