[StBernard] Breaux coming home, wherever that is

[Westley Annis]

John Maginnis
 
Come fall, it's entirely possible for a current resident of Easton, Md., to
be elected governor of Louisiana by people in Houston. Indeed, it could only
happen here, wherever here is. 
 
As former Sen. John Breaux nears announcing his decision -- which he seems
to have made -- to run for governor, looming large in the coming campaign is
the question of citizenship, and who deserves its rights and protections.
The question applies not only to the eligibility of Breaux to run for office
but also to the ability of many still-displaced former residents of the
state to return home to live, even to vote. 
 
No one is going to be shocked when Attorney General Charlie Foti issues his
opinion that Breaux meets the constitutional requirements for a candidate
for governor. 
 
Politically, it's a no-brainer for Foti, who faces a tough re-election
campaign this fall and needs the state's strongest Democrat leading the
ballot. He will be cussed by some if he opines for Breaux but doomed if he
doesn't, because Democrats would punish him for taking away their best
candidate. 
 
The attorney general also has legal grounds, albeit squishy, to not stand in
a candidate's way. But that won't end it, as the state Republican Party has
served notice it will challenge Breaux's qualifications in court when and if
he qualifies in September. 
 
To be a candidate for governor, the state Constitution does not require one
to be a resident of the state for the preceding five years but rather a
"citizen." Yet that term is not clearly defined in the basic document,
statute or case law. Breaux's circumstances form a gray area, where courts
traditionally and rightly give broad leeway to candidates and the voters'
right to choose or reject them. 
 
Because the burden of proof is on one who challenges a candidate's
qualifications, the state Supreme Court could easily find for Breaux,
especially after he had been campaigning for five months and polls showed
about half of the state was for him. 
 
Not that politics would enter into the high court's decision, of course, but
six of the seven justices are Democrats and they are all elected. 
 
The ability of tens of thousands of other Louisianians to participate in the
fall elections is in the hands of the state Legislature. One of the hotter
issues to be debated in the coming session will be whether to extend the
extraordinary voting procedures offered in last year's New Orleans mayoral
election to hurricane victims still living in other states. Will the
Legislature again set up satellite voting locations around the state? Or buy
advertising in out-of-state markets to inform displaced voters of their
voting rights? More basically, how long can one live, work, even pay income
taxes in other states and still be considered a citizen and elector of
Louisiana? 
 
Supporters of expanded voting rights will argue that enabling the displaced
to vote more easily is essential to keeping them connected to the state and
to helping them return. Opponents will counter that the risk of voter fraud
is too great to continue special treatment to former residents, who already
have ample opportunity to request ballots and vote by mail. 
Since Breaux is going to continue to be hammered by Republicans as a
political illegal alien, he would do well to link his cause to those who
want to return but who wonder if they are wanted. 
 
He can point to his personal sacrifice of his big-money lobbying gig to
return home to public service. Sure, unlike those he would identify with in
southwest Houston, he can afford his own moving van and doesn't need to find
work as soon as he gets back. But as for a place to stay, he could go buy
one of those used FEMA trailers, at 40 cents on the dollar, stick it on his
vacant lot in Crowley and start his campaign there. As Huey Long did under
Evangeline's Oak. 
 
Like thousands who have returned before him and thousands more who want to,
John Breaux will find his road home to be a hard one. His best chance of
making it is to bring a lot of folks back with him.