Even in situations where electoral politics literally
should stop at the water’s edge, their appearance seem inevitable, as events
surrounding a curfew in East Baton Rouge Parish indicate.
Earlier this week, EBR Sheriff Sid Gautreaux issued one that
looks to last only briefly, after law enforcement made scattered arrests for
looting consequent to the flood disaster soaking the parish. This imposition elicited complaints from both businesses disproportionately
affected by shutting down commerce early and politicians claiming to look out
for the public’s ability to engage in it and for business owners and employees
to earn money off of it. In at least one case, both views found representation
when Metro Councilman John Delgado penned
an open letter to Gautreaux asking him to lift the curfew.
Delgado owns several nightclubs and later said the
order closed down a large number of establishments like his, grocery stores,
and gas stations (perhaps more to the point, convenience stores that sell
gasoline), making it an overblown reaction to few reports of looting. In
reality, the 10 PM deadline would affect few grocery stores or any other
businesses except bars and convenience stores, so the vast majority of
commercial enterprises remained unaffected.
The good news is state and local government handled
well the recent
catastrophic flooding in and around Baton Rouge and Acadiana. The bad news will
entail paying for it all in a precarious fiscal environment where politics
surely will rear its head.
State and local agencies, aided by citizen
volunteers, worked commendably to rescue, evacuate, and provide shelter and
provisions to those affected by the disaster. Compared to the dysfunctional
responses by the state and New Orleans concerning the hurricane disasters of
2005, state and local governments have learned lessons. In this kind of situation,
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards showed much more of the cool resolve of his Republican
predecessor former Gov. Bobby
Jindal than the flustered response of his Democrat predecessor and current
appointee former Gov. Kathleen
Blanco.
But politics seem destined to enter the fray over
who pays what. While about a third of the state’s parishes eventually expect to
become eligible for federal disaster relief funds, almost certainly state and
local governments will have to pay some costs. Federal regulation permits
the executive branch to reduce three-fifths of the 25 percent match by state government
provided that the total cost, in Louisiana’s case, exceeds around $579 million
(although some spending in the first ten days of the declared disaster may
receive full reimbursement). Even if substantial, projected costs unlikely will
turn out that high, leaving the state on the hook for tens of millions of
dollars.
There’s nothing like leading
from behind, as a number of Louisiana Democrats have demonstrated in the
month since the party’s state Sen. Troy
Brown racked up his second violence charge in well less than a year. Why
belated remonstrations against his behavior only now have started to surface
provides a lesson in partisan politics and absent leadership.
His initial arrest came last November concerning striking
a woman apparently his mistress. He claimed then that he remembered nothing of
the episode due to the after-effects of a car accident a quarter-century ago.
Neither his legal difficulties nor his admission of cognitive impairment his
Democrat colleagues then found troubling enough to conclude that he could not
represent his constituents – as he had done already for four years, having just
secured reelection – which would entail his resignation from office.
Then last month, not long after the marathon
legislative sessions of 2016 had concluded, he reputedly went primal on his
wife with family present, allegedly biting her. During the session, his
Democrat colleagues, including Gov. John Bel Edwards and
state party officials, self-righteously
if not hypocritically found time to criticize a Republican state legislator who
could not tell a joke to save his life that only served to objectify women. But
after Brown’s second run-in with the law, once again they lost their voices.
In the complicated world of campaign finance
reporting, policy becomes unhelpful if misunderstanding the purpose of that
disclosure in the first place.
In a piece
that explicates recent campaign decisions made by front-running U.S. Senate
candidate Republican Treasurer John
Kennedy, independent journalist Jeremy Alford notes that Kennedy a huge
amount of money from his state campaign account to a political action committee
active in electing Senate candidates. This PAC presumably will spend on behalf
of Kennedy this election cycle, but Alford points out that state reporting
requirements, as 2016 is not a statewide election year, will not reflect the
transaction from Kennedy’s account until the filing of annual reports due in
early 2017.
Alford doesn’t like that lag and therefore
proposes changing state law to require at least quarterly reporting in
non-election years. Not only does federal law require that of active federal candidates
and officeholders, but many
states also do that and often even more, such as mandating monthly
reporting.