Landry Talks to New Orleans, Just Not to Its Mayor
Gov. Jeff Landry is talking to New Orleans again, just not to the person running it. In an interview Wednesday on WBOK, Landry said he recently met privately with Councilman Eugene Green at the Governor's Mansion in Baton Rouge and plans to reach out to Councilwoman Lesli Harris. He did not extend the same offer to City Hall, declining to commit to a meeting with Mayor Helena Moreno or the other council members involved in the dispute. It was the first visible thaw in a standoff that has defined the relationship between the state and its largest city for most of 2026. Even so, the governor chose to reach around the mayor rather than meet with her.
The relationship did not begin this way. When Moreno won the mayor's race outright in October 2025, Landry congratulated her on election night and said he looked forward to working together for a better New Orleans. As late as March, the two were still doing business. Moreno traveled to Baton Rouge, met with the governor and roughly 15 members of his team, and briefed them on legislation giving the City Council greater authority to reform the Sewerage and Water Board.
The break came during the spring session, and it started over the courthouse. The Republican-led Legislature and Landry approved a law merging New Orleans' civil and criminal clerk of court offices, which had operated separately for nearly 150 years, and the statute blocked Calvin Duncan, an exonerated former prisoner, from taking over as criminal court clerk after he won the November election for the job. Lawmakers also cut judgeships. State Sen. Jimmy Harris said the governor started the session wanting to eliminate 23 judges and legislators negotiated that down to nine. In May, Attorney General Liz Murrill sent letters to several New Orleans officials, including Moreno, warning that the governor could remove them from office if they kept pursuing a special election for the newly combined clerk's job.
Those letters led to the most extraordinary episode of the year. An Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Murrill on 16 counts of malfeasance and public intimidation, and Landry quickly said he would pardon her and asked the Louisiana State Police to investigate the grand jury's proceedings. The case did not last. Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams and the council members wrote to special prosecutor Laurie White asking her to drop the charges, and she did so the next morning. The state did not treat that as a peace offering. Murrill said the city wanted the case gone to hide records, and suggested New Orleans leaders may have broken some of the same laws she was accused of violating.
Money turned the legal fight into a fiscal one. Cash-strapped New Orleans withdrew its $110 million bond and loan request from the State Bond Commission, and Landry responded that he would not allow the city to use the state as an ATM. Days later he escalated. The governor told reporters that "New Orleans thinks they're so special," and said a discussion would come only once the mayor got the city's fiscal house in order. Moreno answered in writing that no parish or city in Louisiana could operate the same way, because each is "beautifully unique." Landry's line-item vetoes cut more than $30 million in New Orleans funding from the state budget, and Councilman Jason Hughes argued the vetoes were the price local legislators paid for fighting on the city's behalf. In August the governor set a new condition, saying he would not meet with Moreno until any investigation into the grand jury proceedings behind Murrill's indictment had concluded. Moreno has said she was not involved in orchestrating the indictment.
Meanwhile, the city's books are still the central issue. On Tuesday, Moreno presented her 2027 budget to the council. She argued last year's emergency measures, including a smaller government, reduced overtime and a 90 percent cut to travel, had stabilized finances and restored reserves, but told the council the picture is still far from rosy. The plan projects $77 million in additional cuts. It allocates $167 million to the New Orleans Police Department, 9 percent below the department's $183 million request, and projects an $8.5 million cut for the Fire Department. That budget is the strongest argument Moreno has against the governor's case that the city can't manage its money. It also shows how tight the city's finances are.
That is what makes Wednesday's interview worth reading closely. Landry offered something tangible: he said his administration would listen to lawmakers and review the vetoed projects when the Legislature returns next year, while also weighing the state's finances. His condition was plain: "We'll be working with those folks who want to work with us." He said he prefers meeting council members one at a time because they may be more open about the political issues affecting their districts in that setting. Supporters will call that pragmatic. Critics will say it is an effort to split the council from the mayor. Former news anchor Warren Bell pressed the governor on air, noting that Green is a district council member, not the mayor, and asking whether some resolution was possible.
The practical stakes are larger than either politician. New Orleans needs state money for vetoed projects, cooperation on infrastructure, and a path back to the Bond Commission. The state needs its economic engine running during a budget cycle when neither side has much room. For now the channel runs through the council chamber, not the mayor's office. Whether that eventually leads to Moreno depends partly on when the State Police investigation ends, and partly on whether the governor still wants to keep the fight going.
