On the Record: U.S. Reps Troy Carter, Cleo Fields dish on being Dems with GOP majorities

, D-New Orleans, and , D-Baton Rouge, began their careers in public service early, both eventually serving the Louisiana Legislature. Fields left the state Senate and served two terms in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 1997. After Louisiana's congressional districts were restructured and Fields was left without a seat, he returned to the state Senate. Carter made history in 1991 as the first African American elected to serve the state's 102d District in the state House. After stints on the New Orleans City Council and in the state Senate, to serve the state's 2nd Congressional district. He was the only Democrat in the Louisiana congressional delegation until to represent the state's 6th Congressional district after the court ordered that a second, Black-majority district be created. Carter and Fields sat down with in Washington, D.C. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

SUTTON: Thank you for agreeing to a joint interview. We haven't had this opportunity to have you both in the same room at the same time. This is a privilege, especially here on Capitol Hill.

SUTTON: (motioning to Carter) So you're in an additional term. How have things changed in Congress since you first got here? And, Mr. Fields, how have things changed since you were here before?

FIELDS: From our perspective, the process, the institution, is the same. The way we passed bills 32 years ago is the same way we pass bills today. The same way we voted 32 years ago is the same way we vote today. I have served when we were a majority in the House and I'm serving when we're a minority. (U.S. Rep.) Tom Foley, who was the speaker of the House, spent almost as much time with the Republicans as he spent with the Democrats. Bipartisan really meant something back then. President (Bill) Clinton spent a sizable amount of his time working with Republican members of Congress. That's the biggest difference. Republicans are in control, and they going to have their way, and they really don't care about what the minority thinks. I think that's a dangerous way to operate a government.

CARTER: Ironically, from my first term to my third term, not much has changed. The last two terms, of course, were under the Biden administration. We both left the Louisiana state Senate. We worked with the Democratic governor, but we controlled the Senate, and the House was controlled by the Republican Party. We were still able to work together. We had better relationships. We spent more time together. In Congress, it's not that way. In this hyperpartisan environment, it appears that there is a resurgence of us against them. There's not nearly as much collaboration and coalition-building. It's almost as if it's become a bad word.

SUTTON: Two of Congress's top leaders are from Louisiana, Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. How has that been helpful to Louisiana?

FIELDS: I guess the jury is still out. This president has taken the position that he's president and he runs it all. He doesn't need Congress, and his Congress has taken the position that they're going to rubber-stamp what the president says. In terms of the speaker and the majority leader, how that parlays into things for Louisiana, all I can tell you is what I have seen. I don't know of any state in the nation like Louisiana that has leadership (that can be) parlayed into helping our state. I know that Louisiana is in a very, very, very good position. Having said all of that, they're both in very tough positions. I'm happy I'm not in their position. They have a party they've got to cater to, and they have a president they have to cater to, they have a very slight, slight, slight majority. How do you manage that?

SUTTON: So let's pick up on that. Let's say you switch roles. Answer that.

CARTER: We're all products of the state Legislature. All four of us have served there. Three of us served in the Senate. Mike's only served in the House. We're Louisiana Legislature products where we got to know each other. Those relationships allowed us to work and transcend beyond the natural party lines. Having both Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise in leadership, on its face, is obviously a good thing because it brings great strength, particularly in the areas of recovery dollars and resources for infrastructure. But that's now being challenged by a president who says Americans should wean themselves off of FEMA, a president who says we want to literally throw millions of people off the rolls of Medicaid. Even though our two leaders are in very challenged positions because they're having to work with the president, we can never forget why we're here. Our job is not to cater to any one president, or even just our party. We have to take care of the people.

Carter looks to Fields — Congressman Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, looks to Congressman Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, as Fields answers a question from columnist Will Sutton during a question-and-answer interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. June 12, 2025.
Courtesy of U.S. Cleo Fields' office

SUTTON: Let's say with the flick of a switch, you two were in the positions of Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. How would it look different?

��ٳ�:��It would look different because our parties are different. First of all, I'm assuming that you are saying that the White House would be Democratic.

CARTER: Congress would be led by Hakeem Jefferies. We would have the president in the White House.

FIELDS: First of all, we wouldn't be giving big billionaire tax breaks. We would be doing just the opposite of what they're doing today. If you change the scenario just a little bit, and you say Trump is still in the White House, and we control the Congress, let's say Troy is speaker and I'm the majority leader. There would be a big difference. He wouldn't be having his way. There would be checks and balances.

CARTER: If we had a Democratic president and a Democratic-led House and Senate, we would have an inclusive form of government, one that respects the Constitution, the rule of law, one that recognizes individual and human rights. We would not pit people against each other. We would not try to dismantle democracy. We would be endeavoring to enhance rights and provide for people that have been historically marginalized or left behind, and to create a robust economy that benefits all people, not just some.

Now if we had the House, the Senate, but Trump was president, this stuff wouldn't be happening because we would be standing up to all of these breaches of the Constitution. We would be acting as the guardrails.

FIELDS: Let me throw out a third scenario. Let's assume we've got a Democratic House and a Democratic president, but the president chooses to take the Trump route, a president who's of our own party, who's perhaps going in a different direction than our state or the country. Just because you're the president doesn't mean that you're right. With President Clinton came the North American Free Trade Agreement. I stood up to him. I told him he was wrong. It was bad for my district because I had a lot of textile industries in my district and they would close. He didn't agree with me. I didn't agree with him. I voted against it and it passed. The crime bill. President Clinton wanted to pass a crime bill, and I was against it for a lot of reasons. But we had a good debate. He sent the attorney general over, and I voted against it. The same thing would happen today. I wasn't in leadership at that time, but I suspect if I was in leadership, my position would be the same. It would be my job to convince Congress to follow me as a leader of this party.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields — Congressman Troy Carter, left, talks with Congressman Cleo Fields, right, and columnist Will Sutton before starting a joint interview in Carter's Capitol Hill office in Washington, D.C. June 12, 2025.
Courtesy of U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields' office

CARTER: To follow up on that, I often tell people that if Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden had done these things that Donald Trump is doing I would challenge even a Democratic president who wanted to do away with Medicaid. I would challenge a Democratic president who wanted to take away the rights of American citizens. I would challenge a Democratic president who wanted to dismantle the Education Department. Just because we're the same party doesn't mean that you get to rubber stamp a wrong.

SUTTON: President Trump has been called a lot of names. Is it accurate, fair to call him authoritarian, to call him fascist, to call him a racist?

FIELDS: I just call him wrong. He's just wrong. I don't like to do a lot of name-calling. He's just dead wrong. He doesn't think through a lot of things that he says or that he does. For the life of me, I don't understand why he controls the place.

SUTTON: What's your take?

�䴡��շ��:��If you single out one race over another, if you stoke the flames of hate speech, if you end programs that are designed to level the playing field where minorities have historically been left behind, if you take sides with nationalist and supremacy organizations, I think one would agree that those are the elements of someone that's racist. If you harbor power and harness it and want to get rid of the democracy and get rid of the rule of law and ignore the checks and balances and ignore the courts and ignore the Congress and its duly granted powers by the Constitution and do things that suggest that you want to be a king, I would say that you want to be an authoritarian.

SUTTON: Let's move closer to home. Gov. Jeff Landry has had a few months in office. He has made it very clear that he feels like with the votes that he got, that he has a mandate. Have you been able to work with any collegiality with Gov. Landry, Republican supermajorities in the House and the Senate and Republican colleagues in Congress representing Louisiana?

��ٳ�:��I guess I could answer the question because I'm fresh off of it. As a former member of the state Senate, I was in the minority. I chaired a committee in the minority. We had to get things done in the minority. I've been able to work with Republicans and Democrats to get things done, one being the creation of this seat that I hold today. It would not have happened had it not been for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. People say that the governor and the Legislature agreed after they were defeated in court time and time again. Nonetheless, it took working with all parties to make it ultimately happen. With the Republican Party, with the governor, we had an understanding that I fought for nonnegotiable things, like civil rights. Nonnegotiable. As long as we had those clear delineating lines, we worked well together. I think more legislators need to take that approach. Don't just oppose somebody because of their party affiliation.

CARTER: We say relationships and oftentimes it's overused. We don't have to hate each other. Or even dislike each other. We hate or dislike the policies. We are oftentimes on opposite sides with policy. What we should be doing is melting them together as best we can to address the issues of the people back home.

SUTTON: One final question. Louisiana has more registered Democrats than Republicans, but continuously elects Republicans statewide. The Louisiana Democratic Party has seemed to struggle in the last several years to find its footing and have good people in good position to run for more offices to have greater strength in numbers. What's your view of the Louisiana Democratic Party and the prospects for the future?

CARTER: It's a work in progress. The state party is in a work in progress, very much like a football team that gets new coach and gets new players, they're rebuilding. Our party is building. We have to broaden the tent to bring a more diverse group into it. We have to make our party look like the inclusive party that we are. And so we are in that rebuilding mode of redefining that we're the party of inclusion, the party that is working for the people.

��ٳ�:��People are not apathetic. They're just uninspired. It's our job to inspire people. They're not active because they just need some inspiration. The Democratic Party has a big agenda. Its tent is bigger than the other party's. We want to start taking back statewide offices, state offices and local offices. The people have to be energized. It's going to take all of us doing our part to make that happen.