How ‘Coach’ Blanco learned to cook

As the regular session comes within days of adjournment, politicos find themselves spending an increasing amount of extra time at the Capitol as sine die approaches. The crush of bills and debate that accompanies the end of lawmakers’ work is a pattern that has plagued the Legislature for decades.
When then-Rep. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco arrived at the Capitol for her first session in 1984, she found herself frustrated by the time management. The former teacher and future governor had little patience for her new colleagues’ habit of procrastination and cramming. “New people, men and women, were always aggravated by that schedule,” she recalled in an interview with LaPolitics last year.
According to Edwin Edwards: Governor of Louisiana by author Leo Honeycutt, in the ’84 session, legislators were grappling with a budget deficit of nearly $250 million amid sinking oil prices and tax revenues. As the lower chamber’s work progressed, then-Speaker John Alario decided that the free weekends had to stop and started calling in his members on their days off. “At the end of the session, we were so far behind that we worked Saturdays and Sundays for a month,” Blanco said. “We had no breaks.”
But while Rep. Blanco found herself stuck in Baton Rouge fighting budget battles, her husband faced an even bigger challenge on the other side of the Atchafalaya Basin.
Raymond Blanco, the man affectionally known to friends and family as “Coach,” had built his reputation on the football field and in the classrooms at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. By 1984, he was USL’s vice president of student affairs and found himself having to balance work, his six children and the household tasks that Kathleen had seemingly handled effortlessly for the past 20 years of their marriage.
Coach could easily draw up a defensive play designed to flush out a quarterback or envision a new study program for undergraduates, but according to his wife, he was clueless on where to find the cooking and cleaning instruments in his own home. Meals were especially difficult after the dinners that Kathleen had carefully prepared and portioned ran out. For a family used to home cooked meals such as gumbo and jambalaya, fast food got old quickly.
One afternoon, Rep. Blanco was reading though some bills at her desk in the House Chamber as colleagues debated a measure. Suddenly, the phone rang at her desk. It was Coach. He had a house full of hungry kids and was completely out of options. “I can’t eat another bite of fast food,” he told his wife. “You’ve got to teach me how to cook.”
“He didn’t even know how to boil water,” she recalled with a laugh.
After some discussion of a few different meals, the Blancos settled on spaghetti. Kathleen had actually learned the recipe from Coach’s mother when they were first married. Holding the phone to her ear while the House’s work continued, she guided him carefully through the process.
“He learned how to cook his own mother’s spaghetti recipe,” she said with a laugh. “I have never cooked spaghetti since then.”
Lawmakers offered up last-minute surprises
Before lawmakers vacated Baton Rouge earlier this month to end their annual regular session, a couple of the members from the House side dropped some last-minute surprises about their plans for re-election and party affiliations.
Rep. Terry Brown of Colfax shocked some of his colleagues by announcing he would not be seeking a third term this fall.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for me,” he said. “I’ve been gone from my house for about two years and seven months out of the last eight years working here in Baton Rouge and other areas,” he said.
Brown added, ”My wife and daughter finally asked me not to run for re-election again. It was a hard decision to make because I love what I do, and I hope that I have made a difference in people’s lives.”
He is currently one of four Independents, according to the House’s website, joining Reps. Roy Daryl Adams, Joe Marino and Dee Richard.
That number, however, should be five. Rep. Jim Morris of Oil City quietly switched from Republican to Independent last year, and many of his colleagues didn’t learn of the swap until session’s end, according to published reports.
Former lawmaker running for mayor-president
Former Rep. Simone Champagne told LaPolitics that she will be running for Lafayette mayor-president this fall. Since departing the lower chamber in 2014, the Republican from Youngsville has served her home city’s chief administrative officer.
Champagne said that she will be campaigning on the idea of bringing fiscally conservative policies to City Hall.
“There is a growing anti-tax coalition in Lafayette Parish who finds themselves at odds with a tax and spend government,” she said. “I want to be their voice and champion lower taxes, making much better use of the funds that are already there to improve drainage and roads.”
An official campaign launch is planned for early June. Champagne has hired consultants Chris Comeaux and Rachel Hammac to manage her efforts. The duo serves as Congressman Clay Higgins’ political gurus in Acadiana. Veteran fundraiser Sally Nungesser has also signed on to build Champagne’s war chest.
Champagne is joining a field that includes former mayoral aide Carlee Alm-LaBar, realtor Nancy Marcotte and attorney Josh Guillory, who unsuccessfully challenged Higgins last year. Current Mayor-President Joel Robideaux is declining to seek re-election.
They Said It
“For the record, he likes real rice in his gumbo.”—Gov. John Bel Edwards’ spokeswoman Christina Stephens, on the chief executive’s preferences, to the AP.
“Some rules are made to be broken. I refuse to silence my pager. That is an actual current sign on committee door.” —Rep. Joe Marino, on outdated technology, on Twitter.