The Times Picayune | Editorial Staff

Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years in prison Friday for the 11 counts of corruption for which he was found guilty in U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III’s courtroom last summer.
That’s a fitting punishment for a disgraced former official whose conduct the judge described as “a cancer on the body politic.”

CQ Politics | No Author Listed

Louisiana’s first term Republican Sen. David Vitter gets mixed marks when it comes to how vulnerable he will be in 2010 with a minority of voters saying he should get a second term but he leads when pitted against a generic Democratic opponent and one real one, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted July 17-19.

Vitter, of course, is the senator who was embarrassed last year when it was revealed his phone number was found in the records of the escort service run by the woman known as the “D.C. Madam.”

Politico | Bobby Jindal

Things in Louisiana are looking up. We are announcing major economic development wins and private capital investment and reducing government spending in order to live within our means. We just completed a grueling legislative session where we all had to work together, Democrats and Republicans, to find a way to do more with less.

We trimmed government spending, protected vital services and refused to raise taxes. (As is the case in any legislative body, some gave it a try). I can’t say our legislative session was much fun, but it was necessary, and it is the American way. Or, at least we thought it was.

In the meantime, I’ve been catching up on the news in Washington. I wish I had not.

Associated Press | MATTHEW BARAKAT

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal jury has seen video of a former Louisiana congressman accepting a suitcase filled with $100,000 in cash outside a northern Virginia hotel.

The videos played Tuesday are a key piece of evidence in the bribery trial of William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans. He’s accused of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes to broker business deals in Africa.

Times Picayune | Editorial Staff

For months now, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said that most of his 2008 e-mail messages were “inadvertently” deleted from City Hall servers due to storage problems. Even now, he clings to that explanation.

But as New Orleanians learn details about the e-mail’s disappearance, Mayor Nagin is sounding as plausible as if he were claiming that the dog ate his e-mail.

A team of experts hired by the Nagin administration to search for the mayor’s messages concluded that the e-mail’s purge was not the accidental result of server trouble. Instead, the Louisiana Technology Council said the mayor’s mail box was intentionally wiped out by a tech-savvy person with “administrative-level access” to City Hall servers.

CQ Politics | Greg Giroux

Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon hasn’t even said publicly if he’s going to challenge Republican Sen. David Vitter in 2010, but that hasn’t stopped the senator from launching a pre-emptive attack on Melancon to raise some campaign cash.

Vitter on Friday sent out a fundraising e-mail that says Melancon, a Democrat, was talked into running for the Senate by “President Obama and congressional liberals.” The senator also criticized Melancon’s political views, including his votes in favor of the economic stimulus law and a budget blueprint for the next fiscal year.

Bayou Buzz | Jeff Crouere

As reported last week, U.S. Congressman Charlie Melancon (D-Napoleonville) is taking a fresh look at the U.S. Senate race in 2010. Previously, he expressed reservations about entering the contest, but things have changed in the last few weeks.

Charleston Daily Mail | MELINDA DESLATTE

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The Louisiana House unanimously agreed to override Gov. Bobby Jindal’s rejection of $98 million in federal stimulus dollars to expand unemployment benefits. But it’s unlikely most representatives even knew what they were voting for.

Rep. Avon Honey, D-Baton Rouge, quietly slipped the language to sidestep Jindal’s refusal of the stimulus dollars into a worker’s compensation bill on the House floor Monday evening in the final minutes of House work for the day. There was little discussion about what the changes did.

FoxNews — Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana is facing a potentially risque challenge next year. Porn star Stormy Daniels is considering running for the Republican’s seat in 2010.