The Green Army, a Louisiana-based environmental coalition headed by retired Gen. Russell Honoré, has issued its first “report card” for the Louisiana Legislature; the grades for Lafayette-area lawmakers are mixed.
As one might expect, Democrats tend to perform better on issues of the environment (when environmentalists, as opposed to Koch Industries or ALEC, are doing the grading), but that’s not universally true. The Green Army had high praise for Republican Sen. Fred Mills of St. Martinville, to whom the GA referred to as "a man of integrity" and who scored higher than Democratic Rep. Stephen Ortego of Carencro. But, generally, the Republicans scored poorly while the Dems received higher marks.
State lawmakers were graded on their votes in the 2014 session on issues such as air/water quality, salt dome regulation, legacy lawsuits and abandoned drilling sites, litter, coastal restoration and the granddaddy of them all, the levee board lawsuit.
The high scorer was Rep. Terry Landry, D-St. Martinville, who received a 100, followed by Rep. Vincent Pierre, D-Lafayette (93), Mills (87), Ortego (86), Sen. Jonathan Perry, R-Kaplan (80), Sen. Page Cortez, R-Lafayette (73), Sen. Elbert Guillory, R-Opelousas (69), Rep. Stuart Bishop, R-Lafayette (58), Rep. Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette (54) and Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette (33).
The Green Army singled out Robideaux in its scorecard report, saying the three-term rep, who is term limited and now running for Lafayette city-parish president, “voted in favor of oil industry interests at every opportunity.”
Read the full report here.