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Republicans in the state House proved they can win. Last year, the party used its majority to break precedent, buck the newly elected Democratic governor and install one of its own as House Speaker.

They proved they can obstruct. Gov. John Bel Edwards has seen a number of his major initiatives, including campaign promises he made in his winning 2015 race, die in unfriendly House committees.

The question that remains, though, is whether they can govern.

The answer is likely to come in the upcoming legislative session, when the lower chamber's GOP majority will have a chance to show that it can finally help stabilize the state's tax code and put the budget on surer footing or else confirm critics' complaints that it can't, or simply won't.

House leaders have made the case that the vote to elevate Republican state Rep. Taylor Barras as speaker over Edwards' chosen candidate, Democrat Walt Leger III, amounted to a show of legislative independence. But now that they've won that independence, they need to figure out what to do with it.

This year, that means deciding whether their primary aim is to stymie Edwards, who has introduced a comprehensive and controversial proposal to restructure the tax system, or to push through their own ideas.

Edwards' proposal swaps out some tax breaks for lower overall income tax rates. The governor's also pushing a new tax on commercial activities, a phase-out of the corporate franchise tax and an expansion of sales tax to cover many transactions that are currently exempt. The governors plan seeks at least enough recurring revenue to offset $1.3 billion in expiring temporary taxes, including a one-cent sales tax increase that now gives Louisiana the highest combined state and local sales tax in the country, and to steer the state away from what's become known as the fiscal cliff.

The cliff that lawmakers are staring down is actually there because Republicans in the House insisted on putting it there. Facing a crisis situation last year, they pushed to adopt an added penny of sales tax until 2018, with the aim of forcing the Legislature's hand on broader tax reform. They also supported creating a blue ribbon task force, which has issued a number of recommendations that found their way into Edwards' package. A notable exception is the commercial activities tax, which the administration proposed on its own.

With the task force report out and the penny tax set to expire next year, though, GOP lawmakers as a whole have neither endorsed the group's recommendations nor offered their own.

Barras told The Advocate's Tyler Bridges last week that a number of Republicans plan to offer bills, and that the sum total would constitute something of a plan.

State Rep. John Schroder, a candidate for state treasurer who authored the bill to create the task force, is now focusing more on reducing spending.

So is Lance Harris, the House's Republican Caucus Chair, who said that the GOP would support some bills but that I never said wed release (the party's fiscal plan) to the public. Meanwhile, several people who attended a recent GOP retreat told Bridges that Harris didn't seem to want to produce a comprehensive Republican-backed plan at all.

Edwards calls all of this a cop-out.

"The only thing you hear from them is no, without a plan, the governor said. He's also criticized Republicans for talking up the idea of spending cuts but not offering a plan on that either.

Unless and until the House leadership shows its hand, it'll be hard to argue with Edwards' criticisms.

Conservatives in the state House staged a coup of sorts in January 2016: Dispensing with tra

Their position, in fact, isn't that different from that of Republicans in Washington who now control both Congress and the presidency, and are still struggling to come up with an agenda beyond opposing what former President Barack Obama supported.

One congressman from Florida, Republican Tom Rooney, put it in particularly blunt terms: Ive been in this job eight years, and Im wracking my brain to think of one thing our party has done thats been something positive, thats been something other than stopping something else from happening, he told The Atlantic.

You've got to wonder how many Louisiana lawmakers can relate.

Follow Stephanie Grace on Twitter, @stephgracela.

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Stephanie Grace: Upcoming session will test whether House Republicans can govern - The Advocate

(L-R) Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus. Not pictured: what theyre holding in their left hands. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

In the wake of their failure to repeal Obamacare, Republicans have quickly pivoted to their next priority: maneuvering to pin the blame on each other for the failure. Some of the infighting has pitted Republicans in the Executive branch against those in the House. Some of it has pitted White House aides against each other. What follows is a guide to the latest developments in the partys fratricidal conflict.

President Trump wishes he didnt try to pass health-care reform before he tried infrastructure and tax cuts. According to CNN, Trump said he expressed regret at attempting to push through a health-care repeal effort before working on tax reform or an infrastructure package both areas in which hes better versed than health care. (Trump does not actually understand infrastructure policy or tax policy well at all, but he believes he does, which is not the case with health-care reform.)

Trump is trying to pass health-care reform anyway. The White House held a meeting last night with House leaders pressing upon them the need to pass a bill quickly. A House aide said Pence and other White House officials painted a dire political picture of what would happen if Republicans fail to act on health care, reports the Washington Post, which describes the meeting as intense.

Politico goes farther. It was really bad, one source says.They were in total meltdown, total chaos mode. Priebus may or may not have threatened Ryans job if the bill fails:

Priebus may get fired. One reason for the intensity of the meeting may be that Priebus himself is at risk of being sacked if the health-care bill does not pass. According to several people familiar with Trumps thinking, reports CNN, if this latest health-care gambit fails, Priebus is likely to catch the blame and could be shown the door.

Trump is also angry at Steve Bannon. The chief strategist urged Trump to ram a bill through the House and dare members to oppose it, eventually culminating in a humiliating retreat. Bannons demotion from his position on the National Security Council is universally seen as a public rebuke by the president.

Bannon is fighting back against his internal enemies. Bannon has lashed out at Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn, his internal rivals for Trumps ear. Bannon is calling Cohn Globalist Gary, according to CNN, an apparent reference to Cohns background at Goldman Sachs. (Bannon also worked at Goldman Sachs, but sees himself as less of a rootless cosmopolitan international-banking elitist.)

Jonathan Swan reports, the hatred between the two wings is intense and irreconcilable, and that the Bannonites believe the liberals another Bannonite term for the conventional Republicans advising Trump, who are not liberal staged a coup and will turn Trump into a conventional squish who betrays the very voters who brought him to power. The Jared wing thinks the Bannonites are clinically nuts. Evidence suggests both sides are correct.

[Steve] recently vented to us about Jared being a globalist and a cuckHe actually said cuck, as in cuckservative, one administration official told the Daily Beast. (Cuckservative is an alt-right term, derived from cuckolding, to impugn mainstream conservatives as metaphorically or sexually impotent. The term also refers to the white-supremacist fixation with the white race losing its identity through miscegenation.)

According to Swan, Bannon is threatening to use his connections to right-wing media moguls to attack his adversaries. Steve has developed strong and important relationships with some of the most powerful right-leaning business leaders, a close Bannon ally outside of the White House tells Swan. I see some bad press in [Jareds] future.

The civil war is percolating down through the bureaucracy. According to another Politico story, many or even most agencies are riven with conflicts between Trump loyalists, who expected high positions in the administration, and regular Republicans, who have largely supplanted them.

There are people who moved here and signed a year lease, one longtime campaign staffer tells Politico. They got nothing for their loyalty to Trump. Were pissed off. Were angry. There are people who cant even look us in the eye because they know theyre [screwing] us.

The actual reasons for the failure of the health-care bill boil down to two things: first, the irreconcilable tension between public desire for more generous coverage and conservative demands for less, and the complete policy ignorance of the president, which made intra-party negotiation prohibitively difficult.

Obviously, those are not explanations Trump wants to hear. At the moment, he appears to be leaning toward the answers supplied to him by Kushner and Cohn. Bannon is reportedly telling people, I love a gunfight. But you dont bring a gun to the Night of the Long Knives.

This Golden Revival of Girls Is Notable Mostly for Putting All Four Girls in the Same Scene

A Brief Fact Check of Trumps Claim to Have Enjoyed 13 Weeks of Historic Success

The strikes would likely kill Russian soldiers and mark 180-degree shift in the White Houses policy towards Syria.

The House district represented by Mike Pompeo looked unassailable just days ago. No more.

It has not been successful or 13 weeks.

The president is reportedly weighing military action in Syria.

Its been tried, and it didnt work the first time.

The Trump administration has assembled a long list of popular, left-wing policies that it has shown no intention of actually trying to pass.

Its the Night of the Long Knives for the fine-tuned machine.

The long-awaited GOP move to force confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and future nominees by a simple majority has finally happened.

The boats dont yet have names, so the citys second-graders are tasked with picking them.

And in the process, ensures its published on news sites across the world.

Nunes will leave the gig to spend more time defending himself against ethics charges.

The presidents eldest son says the politics bug bit him.

To prepare for his meeting with Xi Jinping, Trump is relying on the expertise of his son-in-law, an oil executive, and a 93-year-old man.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights calls it ISISs largest mass killing of 2017.

It hurt the Democrats in the short run. But new polling confirms that the ACA gave the left a permanent advantage in the health-care debate.

Hes been clashing with Jared Kushner, and the President Bannon meme is said to be getting to Trump.

Making evidence-free accusations has worked out pretty well for him, so he probably wont.

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Republicans Tearing Each Other to Pieces Over Trumpcare Debacle - New York Magazine

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mocked Republicans for not being able to repeal Obamacare, saying that it was gratifying to see them be defeated in their efforts.

She made the comments to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times at Tina Browns eighth annual Women in the World Summit in New York City.

The commitment to hurt so many people that his administration, Clinton told the audience, this White House, seems to be pursuing you know there are so many examples in just the first hundred days.

And then of course what they did or tried to do to the health care bill, she explained, which I did, I will confess to this. Having listened to them talk about repeal and replace for eight years, or seven years now, and they had not a clue what that meant. They had no idea.

I dont know that any of them even read the bill, she mocked, read the law, understood how it worked. It was so obvious. And yknow, health care is complicated. Right?

And so, they dont know what to do, she concluded to applause. I do admit that was somewhat gratifying.

The Obamacare replacement bill by the Republicans was called the American Health Care Act, but many referred to is as Obamacare lite because they believed it didnt repeal enough of Obamacares destructive policies.

The GOP replacement bill was defeated when the House Freedom Caucus of conservative Republicans refused to back it. After the sponsors of the bill changed it to meet some of their demands, it lost support from moderate Republicans, and was pulled from a vote.

Trump has since said hell turn to moderate Democrats to get a bill passed, but Freedom Caucus allies believe he is bluffing in order to negotiate for his political objectives.

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Hillary says it was 'gratifying' to see Republicans fail on Obamacare repeal - TheBlaze.com

New York Times

Republican Health Proposal Would Undermine Coverage for Pre-existing Conditions New York Times Throughout the debate to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Trump and Republican congressional leaders have insisted they would retain a crucial, popular part of the health law: the promise that people can buy insurance even if they ... Republicans try to revive health-care effort as leaders seek to temper expectationsWashington Post White House Quietly Submits New Health Care Proposal to House RepublicansInc.com How Republicans are working to revive the health care billCNN Christian Science Monitor -New Republic -News965 all 2,677 news articles »

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Republican Health Proposal Would Undermine Coverage for Pre-existing Conditions - New York Times

OWATONNA For area Republicans, Saturday was filled with energy, celebration and optimism after a election cycle that gave the party control of the Minnesota Legislature, U.S. Congress and the White House.

Its a great day to be a Republican. Every day is, said Carol Stevenson, First District Republican chairwoman, before calling to order the First District Republican Convention at Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna.

The convention drew more than 150 delegates from at least 20 south central and southeastern Minnesota counties to vote on party business, elect new district officers and hear from GOP legislators about what the party is doing locally, regionally and nationally in the aftermath of a momentous election.

Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, was the first of several area legislators to address those in attendance about the work Senate Republicans have been doing at the state capitol this session, including passing a health insurance premium relief bill and a transportation bill that funds the four-lane expansion of Highway 14 from Owatonna to Dodge Center.

Nelson said the next big issue Senate Republicans plan to address is an omnibus budget bill, which they hope to release Monday or Tuesday.

It gives us a full month to work with the House, but really our biggest adversary is Gov. Dayton. He has a totally different view as weve seen the last six years, and we know how devastating that is to Minnesotans, she said.

Jabs were taken at Gov. Mark Dayton, Congressman Tim Walz, who announced his candidacy for governor early last week, and the Democratic Party and policies and actions theyve supported throughout the event, including the Affordable Care Act.

When Minnesota Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt took the stage with a warm welcome, he recognized the districts representatives, including John Petersburg, Brian Daniels and Peggy Bennett, who are a part of the largest Republican majority in history following a presidential election and acknowledged the Republican Senate majority, too, before expanding upon Daytons very different vision for Minnesota.

He touched on Daytons support of transit, universal Pre-K and doing everything he can to give licenses to undocumented immigrants and voiced the Republicans' resistance to the governor and state DFLs wasteful spending.

If we let [Gov. Dayton] spend what he wanted to, we would have a $3 billion deficit, but this year we have new battles on our hands and this wont surprise you a bit. Even with this record surplus Gov. Dayton is proposing $1.3 billion in new taxes. Thats his vision for Minnesota, Daudt said.

Daudt garnered applause and cheers when he provided two pieces of good news in which one included the next two years are Daytons last before calling for a unified commitment to electing a Republican governor in 2018.

If we can do that it will be the first time in state history that Republicans have had complete control of state government and that would be our opportunity to make Minnesota great again, he said.

Because of that Daudt believes the 2018 election cycle will be really exciting, energetic.

Outgoing Minnesota GOP Chairman Keith Downey agreed and said hes highly optimistic about the future of the party in the state.

Downey, whose second two-year term as state party chair ends May 1, said when he was elected party chair in 2013, the Republican party was very much in the ditch, but things have turned around.

We have the potential to make Minnesota red in 2018, he said, noting with Walz running for governor in 2018, the first district has a great shot at picking up the congressional seat and holding onto it.

On April 29, state Republicans will elect a new chair and a new deputy chair at the state central convention in St. Cloud. Each of the candidates for those positions Jennifer Carnahan, Chris Fields, David Hann and Rick Rice spoke at the convention Saturday. Andy Aplikowski, Jennifer Dejournett and David Pascoe are the candidates for state deputy party chair.

At the convention Saturday, the district elected its officers. Jeremy Munson was elected chair, Joel Hanson was elected deputy chair, Chris Styndl was elected treasurer, Spencer Krier was elected secretary and Josh Anderson was elected state executive committee representative.

Reach reporter Ashley Stewart at 444-2378 or follow her on Twitter.com @OPPashley

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Area Republicans optimistic about future in Minnesota, nation - Southernminn.com