The Big Sleazy, Part II

THE Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors, Inc. (LIFE) is arguably the most powerful political force in New Orleans. Operated by the city’s mayor, the cocksure 39-year-old Marc Morial, and his political associates, it exerted a decisive influence in November’s elections, putting a small army of workers on the street on election day. It is to monitor the activities of just such big-stakes political players that Louisiana and the Federal Government have campaign-finance laws. And it is exactly to escape such scrutiny that LIFE flouts all of them, failing to register or file reports with the Louisiana Board of Ethics, the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office, or the Federal Election Commission.

LIFE is an outlaw political group at least in this sense-and perhaps in others as well. After months of combing through New Orleans election records and interviewing city residents, Republican Woody Jenkins’s campaign has compiled a stunning array of evidence to suggest that Democrat Mary Landrieu’s slim 5,788-vote victory over him in November’s Senate race was tainted by widespread corruption, including the outright buying of votes.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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THE Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors, Inc. (LIFE) is arguably the most powerful political force in New Orleans. Operated by the city’s mayor, the cocksure 39-year-old Marc Morial, and his political associates, it exerted a decisive influence in November’s elections, putting a small army of workers on the street on election day. It is to monitor the activities of just such big-stakes political players that Louisiana and the Federal Government have campaign-finance laws. And it is exactly to escape such scrutiny that LIFE flouts all of them, failing to register or file reports with the Louisiana Board of Ethics, the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office, or the Federal Election Commission.

LIFE is an outlaw political group at least in this sense-and perhaps in others as well. After months of combing through New Orleans election records and interviewing city residents, Republican Woody Jenkins’s campaign has compiled a stunning array of evidence to suggest that Democrat Mary Landrieu’s slim 5,788-vote victory over him in November’s Senate race was tainted by widespread corruption, including the outright buying of votes.