Republicans on the Louisiana Public Service Commission have voted to strip the state's only LGBTQ+ elected official of his leadership role after he defended Dr. Rachel Levine.
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The commission's GOP majority voted to remove Davante Lewis from his position as PSC vice chairman on Wednesday in response to a post from Lewis calling Republican Gov. Jeff Landry an "asshole." While conservatives claimed the vote was in the name of civility, Lewis says that it is "hypocrisy at its finest" and that his opposition "deliberately targeted me for political reasons."
"I don't believe anybody of the trans community or the LGBTQ community, the immigrant, Black, Asian, Latino, poor, working, union communities should be attacked simply for who they are," Lewis tells The Advocate. "If you want to attack people for their identity and make fun of them, then I'm gonna call you out on that. This may not be the last time I call [Landry] or anybody an asshole if they're doing asshole behavior."
Lewis' post came in response to Landry's public attack against Levine, an admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and pediatrician who is a trans woman. Levine was the highest-ranking out trans person in President Joe Biden's administration. Landry claimed that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was recently confirmed as Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, is a "major upgrade," despite not actually replacing Levine, who served as assistant secretary.
"This tweet shows that conservatism right now is only about cruelty and chaos. They will find away to be cruel to someone just bc [because] they can," Lewis wrote last week on X/Twitter. "What a completely asshole you are @LAGovJeffLandry."
In response to Lewis' defense of a fellow LGBTQ+ government official, PSC Chairman Mike Francis added the vote to remove Lewis from the vice chairmanship to the commission's Wednesday agenda. Francis called the comments "an embarrassment to me," stating via WBRZ that Lewis "can't talk like that" because "it's way out of bounds to insult another public official." Francis did not address the governor's insult aimed at another public official.
The motion passed 3-2 along party lines, though without the support of the community, as the meeting was attended by dozens of civilians who unanimously spoke in support of Lewis.
PSC meetings are usually empty — Lewis says "out of people who are not a lobbyist or lawyer, maybe on average three or four will attend these meetings" — but yesterday's was attended by "about 50 to 60 plus people who had no agenda" other than to defend him. While the Republicans on the board wouldn't be able to "get two people to come rally for them at a commission meeting if they paid you," Lewis says his support was all "organic," as he "didn't rally people" and "didn't ask for anybody to show up."
"That moment was probably the only part of the meeting that gave me any emotion," Lewis says. "It wasn't the emotion of being removed. It wasn't the motion of my colleagues not agreeing with me ... but to hear that organic support and to feel what my presence and my voice on the commission meant to so many other people is a humbling experience that you can't describe."
"It makes what you do worth it," Lewis adds. "Sometimes you don't see the fruit of that work. And yesterday was a moment where I saw it and I had to sit in it."
One attendee, Melissa Flournoy, told Francis that "you are not [Lewis'] daddy" and that "there are a lot of people who think Gov. Landry is an asshole." Sherry White, who is Black, called the vote "straight-up racism."
Lewis believes that the commission's vote was "absolutely" motivated by his race, noting that out of the over 100 years the PSC has been in existence, he is still "only the third Black person in our state's history to ever serve on this commission."
Francis and the other Republicans also faced accusations of hypocrisy during the meeting. Foster Campbell, the other Democrat on the commission, noted that Francis once walked behind him with a sign that read "bullshit" while he was giving a speech during a PSC meeting. Both Campbell and Lewis recounted during the meeting that the Republican chosen to replace Lewis, Eric Skrmetta, is "the one commissioner who has had the most aggressive behavior at us all."
Lewis says that Skrmetta "constantly interrupts us" during meetings, including one instance where Skrmetta "rudely interrupted me" and "screamed at me." In a recording of a meeting from November 2024, Skrmetta can be seen yelling at Lewis as the Democrat spoke during his allotted time. When Lewis asked Skrmetta to let him speak, Skrmetta screamed back, "Not a chance."
"I pointed that out to the chairman that when he did that, you didn't ridicule him. You didn't gavel him down. You didn't say, 'It's Mr. Lewis' time.' You didn't say, 'That's not of decorum.' You didn't say, 'That's not how we should treat our colleagues.' You sat silently," Lewis says. "And now when I'm outside of the meeting and, because of some language you don't like, I'm being punished. But in the committee room, you have nothing to say about the very person that disrespects our order."
Now that he's been replaced, Lewis says "I don't know if there's anything I can do." He is currently in contact with the ACLU of Louisiana, and "will entertain any conversation," but maintains that "I did what I wanted to do, and I got back to work defending my people."
"Whether I'm a commissioner, chair, vice chair, no matter what position I hold, I'm going to just do the work," Lewis says.
As for his Republican colleagues, "it's really going to be up to them how they engage in what they want to go forward." Lewis, who has four years left in his term, says "if they want to play partisan politics, they can do that," but that he's "here to do the work of the Louisiana people."
For those who feel outrage over his removal, Lewis wants them to "channel that passion."
"We will not be deterred by this radical conservative movement that believes in silencing opposition, stripping them of their rights," he says. "We channel all of that energy, and we get up and we get to work."
