Meet Elbert Guillory for America First Talks About Our Current Political Climate

Elbert Guillory is a former member of the Louisiana State Senate. An American Republican, he represented District 24, including his native Opelousas, and several rural precincts, from May 2, 2009, when he won a special election, until January 11, 2016, when his full term to which he was elected in 2011 ended. State Senator Karen Carter Peterson, the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party, had indicated racism to be the reason why the Louisiana Legislature and Governor Bobby Jindal opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010 by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Jindal and the legislature had declined to implement in Louisiana that part of the federal act expanding eligibility for Medicaid, largely with federal funding. Guillory took exception to Carter Peterson's characterization of the opponents of the law, but his intent to switch parties had already been under consideration. Before Guillory's switch, the last Republican of African-American ethnicity in the Louisiana Senate had served during the Reconstruction era. In accepting the award, Guillory compared himself to 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a Republican who had supported Abraham Lincoln. Join national political commentator/host Chauncey I. Brown III and Elbert Guillory for a very informative conversation about the current state of America.