My dad, the late Albert George “Ladd” Alexander, was active in the Louisiana Republican Party all of his adult life. He was a US Marine and a patriot who exemplified JS Mill’s belief that “Bad men need nothing more to accomplish their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
Affectionately called “Pop” by his twelve children, he was a man of courage and action, and he admired men of courage and action. Until his death he remained faithful in word and deed to the two great principles of his life: the eternal sovereignty of God, and the inalienable freedom of the individual. My dad swore eternal hostility against government’s inexorable erosion of our freedom. He lived his life with a sense of urgent enthusiasm the likes of which I have not witnessed since. He seemed to know that life is short, and time precious. He believed in doing something, even if it meant doing it imperfectly. He believed in rising after a fall, which he always did. And he believed in relentless, daily effort.
Pop had in his office on the 14th floor of the Beck Building in Shreveport what he called the “Wall of Fame,” on which hung pictures of American elected leaders who he believed had kept faith with the American people and the Constitution, leaders who had, despite holding great power, resisted the temptation to enrich themselves at the expense of the American people, leaders who never forgot why they were there.
I remember Henry Hyde was on the Wall, Clyde Holloway, Ronald Reagan, Woody Jenkins, J.C. Watts, and others. The highest tribute my dad could pay a public servant was to place him on the Wall of Fame. Periodically Pop would add another picture and explain to one or more of his children what that person had done to earn a place on the Wall. In honor of my dad, LACAG has instituted an online Ladd Alexander Wall of Fame that will be maintained as long as we have the privilege of serving the citizens of Louisiana.
Nobody is more deserving of being the first initiate into the LACAG Wall of Fame than Representative Kathy Edmonston. Edmonston believes in acting more than in talking. She has been a tireless voice of individual freedom in the face of increasing government encroachment. She has spoken courageously in favor of medical privacy and against vaccine mandates and other coercive actions by our government. She is among the few legislators who have publicly questioned the prevailing Big Government Covid narrative to which far too many of her colleagues have paid blind allegiance.
Edmonston’s vaccine transparency legislation, House Bill 47, was among the most important items of the 2022 legislative session. The Bill required any Louisiana school or daycare to accept either a written statement from a treating doctor contra-indicating a vaccine, or a written dissent from the student, and also provides that the students’ legal right of exemption be included, in writing, with any communication issued to students or their guardians about immunization requirements. HB 47 was vitally important due to the widespread, propagandized, and often coercive effort in Louisiana by the Health Department and the Governor to pressure Louisiana citizens into getting the Covid vaccine without concurrent disclosure of their right of exemption, of which many Louisianans remain unaware. It was necessitated also by the increasing evidence of the severe adverse health effects that the Covid vaccine has had on an alarming number of Louisianans. Shamefully, the legislation was killed on the full Senate floor by Globalist Republican Senate President Paige Cortez. Edmonston continues to fight for the legislation and plans to bring it forth again next term.
Edmonston has also strongly supported legislation to keep the poisonous doctrine of Critical Race Theory out of our public schools, has supported fiscal sanity in our government, and has been a consistent defender of the most vulnerable and defenseless among us, the unborn.
Kathy Edmonston has been a faithful steward of freedom while often surrounded by weak-minded legislators who have forgotten why they were elected. She continues to sound the alarm that liberty is precious, and much easier lost than recovered. Her constituents, as well as citizens across Louisiana, are privileged to have a great American patriot looking out for them in the State Legislature. LACAG is pleased to honor Edmonston as its inaugural member of the Ladd Alexander Wall of Fame. Pop would indeed approve.