With the recall effort against East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards coming up way short, what does that mean for the efforts against Governor Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill? LSU political science professor Robert Hogan says since Landry and Murrill are much more closely aligned with the Trump administration, certain voters may be more motivated to act against them.
“You may have a lot of people who are Democrats, who may not be completely aware of all the issues that concern this group that is doing the petition; but simply, for partisan reasons, would join in,” Hogan noted.
Still, Hogan says the fact that the Edwards recall effort got less than 5% of the signatures needed to get the issue before voters underscores the sheer difficulty of launching a recall campaign against any elected official in Louisiana.
“You have to be very well-organized. You’ve got to have a lot of money. You’ve got to have a lot of volunteers going door-to-door to get these signatures, and you’ve got to know where the discontent exists within the state or the constituency where the signatures are needed,” Hogan explained.
Hogan says even if the organizers fall short of their goal of getting the Landry or Murrill recalls before voters, even launching their efforts is mission accomplished for them.
“Part of this is really like a form of negative advertising. You get a lot of free media from that; a lot of the media will cover these, because it is a grassroots organization,” Hogan said.
The same people behind the Edwards recall effort are behind the Landry and Murrill recall campaign.