Welcome to Louisiana Lefty, a podcast about politics and community in Louisiana, where we make the case that the health of the state requires a strong progressive movement fueled by the critical work of organizing on the ground. Our goal is to democratize information, demystify party politics, and empower you to join the mission, because victory for Louisiana requires you.
Thank you for joining us in our first five seasons of the podcast. I'm your host Lynda Woolard. Welcome to Season Six, which - big announcement - will be our final full season of episodes.
Over five seasons, we've tried to piece together a roadmap for a better Democratic Party, more effective progressive campaigns, and a more sustainable Louisiana. We've talked to folks who are fighting disinformation, we've emphasized the importance of investing in young leaders, and we've always paid special attention to organizers who are coordinating electoral and advocacy actions in their communities. Through every season, we've included briefings on the workings of the Democratic Party, so that regular Democratic voters can understand how we get our leadership and necessary funding, and so that you're armed with the knowledge of how the party operates, as well as your options for engaging with it and changing it. As you'll hear me say frequently, the state cannot survive without a functioning Democratic Party, one that elects more Democrats and better Democrats, leaders with a mission of representing the people and protecting the most vulnerable.
In Season Five in particular, we devoted a lot of time to this topic, and throughout the life of the podcast, we've done bonus episodes with Steven Handwerk, who we've dubbed "the Professor," where we really break down the key aspects folks need to know about the inner workings of the state Democratic Party, and how it interacts with the National Party. In order to make that info easy to find, we've created a special archived page for Demystifying the Democratic Party on our website at louisianalefty.rocks, and I'll link to that, in the Episode Notes. We've intentionally created evergreen material, so that it can be utilized as a resource for years to come. As we wind down our output of episodes, we'll turn our attention to archiving these recordings to make it easy to go back and find targeted information. We'll keep this venture open-ended though so that we may return for emergency episodes, live trainings, and any other unforeseen need that pops up.
In Season Six, because we're in a state election year, we've put out invitations to some of our Democratic candidates to join us, and we'll talk about engaging with their campaigns. We're also going to spend some time focusing on the third leg of the stool of progress, which I think of as living our values. We've discussed campaigns and electoral work. We've talked to advocates who are working to make change through sharing information and passing legislation. Now we'll talk to some of the folks who make it their business, whether by nonprofit or profession, to address the needs of those who might fall through the cracks or who are already falling through the cracks.
Before we head into this last big season of Louisiana Lefty, let's revisit a few highlights from Season Five. First, everyone I've run into lately has been talking about the Environmental Voter Project and the work they're doing to mobilize voters in our state this year. We had the honor of speaking with EVP founder Nathaniel Stinnett.
Every day, the fossil fuel industry is killing Americans with toxic air, poisoned water and climate change. And let's be honest, the industry's biggest killing field is the state of Louisiana. Louisiana is where people are suffering the most from Big Oil. So that, Lynda, is the biggest reason why we want to work in Louisiana. But I'll add, perhaps just as importantly, the Environmental Voter Project has identified huge numbers of nonvoting environmentalists in Louisiana, and we can help tap into that latent political power, and if we do it will make a big difference for the Louisiana environmental movement and also everyday Louisianans who are suffering some of the worst environmental impacts in the United States. And so that's why we're here. Now, yes, there is a gubernatorial election. You have publicly elected, you know, utility regulators. You know, there are a lot of specific things that also make Louisiana high leverage when it comes to climate politics. But the simple truth is, we see lots of untapped environmental political power in the state. And there is nowhere in the United States that the environmental movement should be paying more attention to than Louisiana.
Can you share any of that data? I know, I've seen it on the webinars, so I know it's not private data. But can you share some today?
Yeah. So we identified 320,000 environment-first registered voters in Louisiana, who typically skip gubernatorial elections. So, I'll say that again, they're already registered to vote, they have a really high likelihood of listing climate or some other environmental issue as their very top priority, yet they skip gubernatorial elections. 320,000! What that means is that, to put that number, 320,000 in context, that's more than 10% of all registered voters in Louisiana. So that means more than 10% of all registered voters in Louisiana are nonvoting environmentalists in gubernatorial years. Now, that's scary. You can listen to that stat and say, "Oh, my gosh," and be disappointed or frustrated. But that's also an enormous opportunity. It's a huge opportunity, because what these people represent, are not people whose minds we have to change. And let's face it, we live in a moment in time where it's become almost impossible to change people's opinions about anything, let alone climate change. But these people don't need that intervention. These people are already with us. They just need to change their habits. And obviously, that's not easy. I will never claim that's easy. But it's easier than changing people's minds.
As I point out frequently - and I know you're agnostic on candidates, I'll repeat that you're nonpartisan - but our last governor's election was won by 40,000 votes. So if even a small percent of the folks you're talking about were to turn out to vote, they could swing an election.
They absolutely could. And, to be clear, it's important to vote, even if you don't think you're going to swing an election. Because no matter whom we elect - and I'm not going to pretend it's unimportant whom we elect, it's very important whom we elect - but whether we elect a Neanderthal, or whether we elect someone who's a great climate leader, they still can't just snap their fingers and get whatever they want. They still need to decide what to spend their precious political capital on. And when they make those decisions, believe me, they ain't polling non voters. They are polling voters to figure out, "Okay, with my limited political capital, what am I going to do?" And boy, are we in trouble, no matter whom we elect, boy, are we in trouble if those polls come back and show that only three or four or five percent of voters list climate as a top priority. And so, even if your vote, you know, in a mayoral election where you know the so-called right person will win, or even if you're voting in an election where you think the wrong person will win, you still need to show up. Because the dirty secret about politics, is that, left or right, Democrat or Republican, the one thing they all still share in common is that, boy, do politicians like to win elections. And they will always go where the votes are. And if you get more environmentalists to vote, believe me, you'll have more environmental political leaders.
We also welcomed back Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis to debrief his big win in 2022, running as an unapologetic progressive.
One of the things that I picked up when I listened to the first podcast we did a couple years back, we talked a little bit about how progressive candidates can win, and you identify as a progressive candidate, and, you know, one of the concerns is, will some of our moderate Democratic voters, will some of those Republicans or a more moderate or conservative independent voters vote for a progressive candidate? You made the point in that previous podcast, that you have to connect - progressive issues themselves poll very well with voters when they're taken individually, and they're not identified specifically as progressive - but you made the point that you've got to be able to connect how those progressive policies impact people, and you went on to identify as, like, older Black and Brown voters, you talked about Abuela, and Sister Hattie Mae, and Mr. Alfred, how you have to talk to them about the issues, that they're really looking at it from a self-preservation perspective. So they don't want to jeopardize the gains that they've already made. So it's your job, then, to tell them how the policies you're proposing are going to go on to help them. And I really loved listening to that. But I just, I kind of saw you do that in this campaign where you broke down what you and I might call progressive policies, you really broke them down to a pragmatic level.
Yeah, I mean, I think that that matters to people. So for instance, like I said, I come from clean energy as a way of saying that our environment, our planet should be protected. And oil, gas and fossil fuel is not clean. And it is poisoning our water, it's poisoning our air. However, that doesn't... to some older voters, they... natural gas is reliable. So that conversation was, I didn't change my message, didn't change my belief. But I told them, I was like, "Hey, look, you want to know why your electricity bill is high? It's because we use all of our... the way we generate power is mostly natural gas. So when gas goes up, your electricity bill goes up. Or as if we had a mix of solar and wind, and hydrogen and batteries, then your bills not fluctuating as much." Because those are standard costs, the sun's always gonna shine. May not shine every day, but there's no, there's no cost to the sunshine. There's no cost to the wind blowing. There is a cost about how oil and gas goes. And so that's a way of where you took Green New Deal, and you connect it to somebody who may not really hear Green New Deal, and say "Ah, that ain't for me, I don't... What is all that about?" Right? I mean, those are ways where I think when I talk about you got to connect the progressive issue back to people's lives and how it operates. So that was the way our, for instance, why one of my pillars was investing in green jobs, because there are people who may say, "Hey, the polling data shows this, I kind of want... yea I want something different, but oil and gas, they provide jobs. So if we could all... if we close all those plants, people don't have work, and I and my dad's and my uncles, they all worked at the plants." So we had to say, like, "Hey, not only does our investment in solar bring renewable energy. Our clean energy, it brings high paying jobs." And we need to ensure that when we are adding a solar farm, that the solar technicians are local talent. So we are retraining your uncle and your father or we are giving your brother a job and so that's what I was talking about at that moment. And I did the campaign is to demystify this stuff and I think that's why it didn't work. That's why when the attack ads came out about, "He's gonna raise your electricity bills, he's gonna do all this stuff." And in California and New York people ignored it, because now they understood why green energy matters to me, what that looked like, how is it you can do these things? And what does it matter, and then making the connection, like, "Hey, look, if we are using more natural gas, that means we are making the waters warmer. And because of all the co2... And every time we make the water warmer, the storm gets stronger." So this isn't even just anti-gas. This is about, "Do you want a category six or seven hurricane?" Because at a certain point, if we continue on this path, the storms are going to be stronger than anything we've ever measured before. And so that is the art, I think, to progressive movement is people agree with us on our ultimate solutions. We got to talk to them about the way the solutions work for their lives. And we may love the Green New Deal because it's a Green New Deal, they're going to love the Green New Deal because the Green New Deal provides them clean air, provides them fresh water and makes their utility bill lower. And sometimes you got to talk that way, and not just, "I'm for a Green New Deal." Which, I am, and I said it, and I've never shied away from it. But if you look at the way I communicated with people, I communicated with them in the way that they would understand why I care about a Green New Deal. What a Green New Deal actually means to me and and what does it mean to you, and why you should care about it.
Well, I hope you'll continue to speak to progressive candidates and folks who want to be progressive candidates about how they can do that, because your campaign was really a good model for how that can work, and how you can take those ideas and make them more understandable to people, more acceptable to people, to get them to understand that there is an actual pragmatism to progressive ideas. Right?
Right. So they work. I think what happens is so much is in the progressive space, we get caught up in the, I like to say, the Utopia, our North Star, where we should, must, and need to be. And people get lost because people... I think there's blame to go around. It's not only on the progressive movement, I do think there is a a very conservative corporate media structure that does not kind of favor progressive thought, in the way that it needs to. I do think there is this, this sense of kind of progressive ideology, sometimes start in the status quo, threatenening what we've become accustomed to, and threatened kind of the very major tenets of capitalism are elitism, of wealth. But what that does, is it showcases that, like, we're not... when we are progressives talking about... we're not coming and saying, "We're gonna raise your bill by $75 a month, because we're just going to shut off every natural gas plant tonight. And, and be 100%. Solar." We know that can't happen. And so it's a way of, we got to, and I've always said this, we got to talk about our bold policy vision that we recognize has incremental steps. But we don't make those incremental steps our actual policy vision. And I think that's what my campaign was able to do was showcase that we have a Northstar. We know what we're working towards. But we're going to admit that certain parts are going to happen in phases. But just because we do phase one doesn't mean tomorrow I go out in the yard lawn, and I waved my pom pom we call it quits. We clap that phase one is done, and we pick up the hammer, we start building on phase two tomorrow. And I think that's the key
We spoke to a couple of our current Democratic state central committee members for a deeper dive on that elected body. Kirk Green shared some warnings and challenges for Democrats.
You have a lot of people in the party that want it to be better. I know I've had a lot of negative here and we said a lot of negative things. But you really do. You have some great people in the party. My criticism is my criticism. But it's not everybody all the time. You do have some amazing young people. We've mentioned Ciara, we've mentioned Davante. We have future leadership, you know, I could name even more in the Baton Rouge area. You could probably name half a dozen or more in the New Orleans area. So we do have some good young leadership coming down the pipe. You know, the storm won't always be a storm. You know, right now we're trying to put a ship to the storm, it will eventually go. But it's not just going to do it by itself, we need to steer it in the right direction. So we need people to be involved. We do have some good leaders. We do. Now, not all, that's fine. I'll put that out there. Not everybody in leadership is a great and glorious, but that's, I guess, that's personal criticism from working with them and knowing them and things like that, but there are good. So the question to the Democratic voters is, "How do we distinguish who was actually there for us? And how do we create something better? How do we steer the ship into better waters?" You know, because what's coming down the pipe in some of these other states, if we don't have a strong party, is authoritarian in nature. It's... You can look at some of the things that are run... It's troubling to say the least. On my part, being a teacher, when I see other states that are moving toward indoctrination, not education. Not telling people. Not teaching people how to think but trying to tell them what to think. That's troublesome. And when I see them trying to bring that here, that's, you know, that's something I want to fight against. So that's one of the big things too. What is it that you want to fight for? What is it that you want to fight against? What is it that you are willing to, you know, put your flag in the ground and say, "This is where I stand." You have to know that. You have to understand that. And that can get you involved, that can be a pathway or an avenue to just start standing up. Don't be afraid, you shouldn't be afraid of your elected leaders, they should be afraid of you. You put them in the office, to represent you. Not to represent lobby. Not to represent any of these other companies. They're there to represent the people, and if they're not doing their job, it's time they go. Whether they're a mayor. Or a city Councilman. Or a school board. Or a DSCC member. Or a DPEC. Or a chair. It doesn't matter. They were elected to do the job. If they're not, it's time for them to go. Don't be afraid of that statement. Stand up, you should be able to stand up to your leadership, you should be able to stand up the power and you should speak truth to power at all times.
DSCC member Ciara Hart discussed obstacles and opportunities for the state Democratic Party.
I think one of our biggest weaknesses, as the Louisiana Democratic Party, is that we can't truly say what we stand for. I think individually, we can say that. But I believe on the other side, there are specific things that they are known for, and that they do, and whether they agree with them or not, they champion those issues. I think that we as a party, sometimes it seems like we float the line a lot. We like to be in the middle. And people suffer when you do that. Like, I remember, in college, someone told me nuance doesn't win elections and being neutral, doesn't win elections. And I think about that in terms of issues like abortion access, and health care, and environmental justice, and economic justice. I don't think that those are issues that we should be silent about, or even be ashamed to champion. These are issues that can save people's lives. And if we were more transparent about who we were and what we stood for, maybe young people wouldn't feel like, "Oh, this is shady, I can't trust it." So I'd just love for there to be a blatant, flat out, "Hey, this is who we are." And I think that's kind of where Young Dems comes in. We believe in environmental justice, and economic justice, and reproductive healthcare, and support of women to be able to choose, and the issues that impact us. Being able to make a living wage, being able to live in this state that we love, and we don't want to have to move to Houston, we don't want to have to move to Atlanta, you know, we want to be able to stay here make this place beautiful. But it takes a collective effort. And so I'd love to see the party understand that support. And I believe that there, I would be remiss to say that there hasn't been an investment young people, like, I know that they believe in some of the work that we do, but I need it to to be just more intentional. And that looks like having more young folks at the table. And being able to pass the torch, it's time to pass the torch. It's time to pass the the torch. And I know we work hard to get in these seats. And sometimes they're scared. But for those who have have worked, we appreciate your work. But support a young person in your community who you believe can lead the work in the same way that you did in your seat. And this is my message to those who are currently elected: Empower those in your community. There needs to be people after you to do the work. And they need their seat at the table too.
And finally, as a hat tip to all the episodes we've done over the years on demystifying the Democratic Party, this is how "Professor" Handwerk and I closed the season.
Well, Stephen,I appreciate your taking the time with your wealth of knowledge on Democratic inside baseball, and sharing that with us, so that folks can have a better understanding of how the party functions, and so they can participate in the party in a way that makes sense, where we might actually get some change, this year or next year or however many years down the road, because I think that's important. I think that being able to get average Democrats involved in the party so that they're not questioning things like, "How did we end up with the party chair that we have? How do we end up with the leadership that we did? How did we end up with the endorsements we did?" Those are things we've covered. And we now have a special link on the louisianalefty.rocks website. If you scroll down on the bottom of the archives page, there's a link that says "Demystifying the Democratic Party," and you can click on that and find all the episodes that you and I have done that have talked about these different topics. So that folks, should they care to understand better, have that opportunity.
Yeah. And when you need to go back and sharpen the saw, it's a great time to go back and kind of refresh yourself. Because, as you and I frequently say, you only get one bite at the apple to reshape the party. And that's every four years. And, guess what, that comes this December with qualifying. So I really do hope folks roll up their sleeves and get involved. And just the parting word that I would like to give is, it's truly a butterfly effect. We may not get what we want in this election cycle. But the work that we do today will pay it forward. So that, and lay the groundwork, so that we have an opportunity for success in the future. If we don't begin that work today, if we don't have a starting line for us to begin, then that's never going to get there. We're never going to get there if we don't start. And we can start in small ways in order to be able to affect that big change down the road.
And one of the things that we started Louisiana Lefty for, and that I'd like to underscore, while some people may just not like the party, might not like the issues that they talk about, or might think they should be talking about some issues better, at the end of the day, the reason why we do the work of the Democratic Party and try to make the party a better party, is because there are people in the state who need it to be better for their survival, for their protection. There are there are vulnerable communities, there are workers, there are families, there are children, who need the party to be strong, and to be better, so that there are more people in our elected government representing them and standing up for them.
That's... I couldn't have said it better. 100% There is so much at stake right now. We thought that, you know, we thought that we had certain things that were just done that we could mark them done in the history books, and now, all of a sudden, they're not. They've been undone. And now we're having to refight some of those battles. And that's what we need to do right now. We got to wake up some folks, but then we also have to get to work.
Thank you for listening to Louisiana Lefty. Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you to Ben Collinsworth for producing Louisiana Lefty, Jen Pack of Black Cat Studios for our Super Lefty artwork, and Thousand $ Car for allowing us to use their swamp pop classic "Security Guard" as our Louisiana Lefty theme song.
