Louisiana Democrats have their opening, the potential to secure a small
foothold but when you don’t have anything at all it’s an improvement.
Any realistic chance that the state would not have to fork over in the
neighborhood of $105 million evaporated yesterday when the U.S Supreme Court
denied hearing an appeal by Louisiana
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to a judgment it owed $105 million
in penalties in a class-action lawsuit. State courts had ruled the public
corporation had broken state law in making payments too late to policy-holder
claims. The state-owned and run organization sells property insurance, mostly
the kinds and in areas that private insurers are discouraged from offering, and
is backed by those revenues but also can levy an assessment on any
policy-holder in the state.
Citizens is
run by a board of directors, some appointed by the governor from interest group
selections, others by legislative leaders, and even has the state treasurer or
his designee. But the official with the most assumed control, the one whose
designee his chief of staff serves as chairwoman of it, who steers the process
to hire its chief executive officer, and who seems to speak in all official situations
concerning it, is Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
Donelon can claim it was a problem he inherited, with the claims
largely coming from events previous to his assumption of the job from the
resignation of the previous occupant. He can point out that the chief executive
from the previous period who would have overseen these matters he had the board
fire after allegations of improprieties
later sustained in the courts. And it may not become an issue in the sense
that the reserves Citizens has built up, from those who pay for its policies,
are enough to pay the judgment.
With the next round of state elections three years distant, assuming he
will run for reelection, if Citizens has to put on a happy face and pay up
without any other repercussions, Donelon probably will survive in office. But
if in that interval one or more major storms hits the state that forces
Citizens to pay out more than a relatively small amount in claims, that will
spell trouble. The judgment wipes out all available cash as of the first
quarter of 2012 and is over a quarter of all liquid assets not encumbered
by debt. Just one big storm between now and then could cause a repeat of the
need to borrow $1 billion after the hurricane disasters of 2005, being paid off
still by a 5 percent additional assessment on all policy-holders passed through
by insurers.
If that happens, Donelon’s political future becomes problematic. While
opponents of any political stripe can use the issue against him, Democrats in
particular can benefit. Louisiana has become solidly Republican because of
developments long and short in term. The failed economic model propagated by
liberalism and its inherent weaknesses and internal contradictions took some
time to become evident to the Louisiana public in a state at a lower level of
economic development, although the Pres. Barack Obama
regime has brought this into greater prominence lately. The nationalization of politics
also largely mooted the strategy of many state Democrats to hide the economic
and cultural liberalism of their party behind their own professions of social conservatism.
Having lost in the marketplace of ideas, as long as national Democrats
continue to embrace those same failed ideas and/or state Democrats cannot or will
not move far enough away from them, this means the only way for Democrats
to win state offices will be to shift electoral contests away from ideas and
towards the issue of competence and management in government. The Citizens
fiasco presents just such an opportunity. At least it gives the chance for a
Democrat to paint Donelon as being asleep at the wheel, insufficiently
monitoring Citizens and its corrupt then-leader in carrying out its most basic
function, the failure of which cost $105 million of state money. And if
subsequently it happens that this money could have been used to pay off claims
that, through bad luck, all state policy-holders end up paying, the charge
would carry a great deal of credibility.
Of course, you have to have quality candidates who are in short supply
among the state’s donkeys. One of the more high-profile elected Democrats and
with an interest in insurance, state Sen. Eric
LaFleur, in fact is disqualified because he has sat on the board since 2008
and could have the same problem pinned on him as Donelon. Still, an incumbent with
perceived vulnerability might attract a credible opponent from the other party,
which means if Donelon finds himself in this position pressure will come from
Republicans for him to forswear reelection and make way for another GOP
contender.
1 comment:
More offensive garbage peddled by the most partisan professor. First, conservative economics replace a successful 8-year period of growth under liberal values. The 8-year conservative experiment is an economic disaster. Then, the liberals take the reigns and slowly get the economy back on track. So where is this "failure" of liberal leadership? Here's what is really happening. Liberals are getting the country back on track after eight years of people like Jeff Sadow dragging our flag through the mud while pushing our economy off a cliff. The reason conservatives like Jeff write such up-is-down BS is that conservatives have trained themselves to feel hurt and oppressed and under attack and poorer than the poor. And they love to play the victim card. And you can bet that they always feel like the liberals are trying to steal their hard-earned money. You can just picture Jeff wiping away his tears while he types out his bile from his parent's basement. Jeff is a professional idiot.
Post a Comment