Louisiana Senate leader seeks to block Landry juvenile justice appointee

Senate President Pro Tempore Regina Barrow is seeking to block Kenneth "Kenny" Loftin from being permanently appointed to lead the Office of Juvenile Justice. (Pool Photo/Gerald Herbert via AP)

A legislative leader doesn’t believe Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s choice to run the state’s youth prison system should get the job, and she’s preparing to put up a fight over his Senate confirmation.

Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, is seeking to unseal state court records in Red River Parish about the Ware Youth Center for her fellow legislators ahead of  Kenneth “Kenny” Loftin’s Senate confirmation as deputy secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice. 

Barrow said the court records could contain information about alleged abuse at the juvenile justice facility in Coushatta that Loftin ran for decades. 

Landry appointed Loftin to oversee Louisiana’s state juvenile justice services in February, in spite of a lengthy report describing rampant child abuse and neglect at the hands of Ware staff that appeared in The New York Times in 2022. The majority of the Louisiana Senate must also agree to confirm Loftin in order for him to keep his job. 

On Tuesday, Landry’s office said the governor intends to pursue Loftin’s Senate confirmation regardless of Barrow’s objections. Landry’s staff declined to comment further. 

Loftin was not accused of any direct abuse in the article, but much of the alleged violence described in the story would have happened when he led the facility. 

The Times investigation said 42 people held at Ware over a 25-year period admitted they were sexually abused by Ware staff. Loftin oversaw the facility from its opening in 1993 to 2015 and again from 2021 to 2023.

Loftin could not be reached for comment on his cell phone or via text message Tuesday. But during a public confirmation hearing earlier this month, he said the 10 people – including formerly incarcerated girls and Ware staff members – who detailed alleged abuse for The New York Times were lying in the article. 

“So they made it up?” Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, asked Loftin during the hearing about the women bringing forward the accusations. 

“Yes. They made it up,” Loftin replied.

The Times article and Loftin’s defensive comments at his confirmation hearing convinced Barrow that Loftin is unfit to run the state’s juvenile justice services.

A handful of Republican senators have also expressed reservations about confirming Loftin and the Legislative Black Caucus has already called for his resignation.

“Members still have a lot of questions about it,” said Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie.

Senate staff identified more than two dozen state court cases regarding alleged behavior at Ware that remain private, Barrow said. The records might be sealed because the cases involve allegations of violence toward people who are underage. 

In an interview Monday, Barrow said it is important she and other senators know the details of these sealed state court cases before voting to confirm Loftin. As deputy secretary for juvenile justice, Loftin would oversee prisons, group homes and other services for minors who have been arrested or found guilty of a crime. 

Loftin has tried to push back on The New York Times allegations by pointing to a recent report from Louisiana’s Office of Iinspector General on Ware. It focused on suicide risks of incarcerated children at the facility. He said the report found he had done nothing wrong. 

But that report examine years at Ware when Loftin mostly wasn’t in charge, when two back-to-back deaths of children incarcerated at the center brought scrutiny to the facility. The inspector general didn’t generally examine the allegations of violence by staff that would have occurred when Loftin oversaw Ware.

If Landry insists on moving forward with Loftin’s confirmation, Barrow said she would take the rare step of making colleagues take a vote to confirm him publicly. 

The Senate confirmation process is typically secretive. Communication between the governor’s office and senators over the governor’s nominees for confirmation is explicitly kept confidential under the law. Most of the debate about who to confirm also takes place behind closed doors.

During the next three weeks, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee will send a list of dozens of appointees the committee recommends for confirmation to the full Senate. Then, the Senate will discuss who to keep on the list during a private, executive session.

Usually, they vote to confirm the list of appointees en masse, though senators can pull someone out of the group and ask for an independent vote on the individual, Barrow and other people familiar with the process said. But it’s unusual for a senator to take that step.

If a person fails to get confirmed, it’s typically because the senator who represents them objects to their appointment. The Senate has a custom of deferring to an appointee’s home senator about whether their confirmation should go forward.

Loftin’s personal senator is Sen. Alan Seabaugh, a conservative Republican from Shreveport who is close to Landry. 

In an interview earlier this month, Seabaugh declined to say whether he would support Loftin’s confirmation.

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