After setting down a supposedly hard-and-fast
deadline on Jan. 19 to call a special session devoted to closing a projected
roughly $1 billion budget deficit for next fiscal year, Edwards backed off from
that when Republican House Speaker Taylor Barras
essentially told him they
would get back to him at his chamber majority’s leisure. This put Edwards in
an unpalatable position, forcing him to write a budget with huge cuts and/or
appending to it a series of tax increases, due Jan. 26.
By doing so, Edwards ends up owning both while the
Republican-led House and Senate dissidents to GOP Sen. Pres. John Alario’s lapdog rule in concert
with Edwards can criticize and present contrasts to his product. To avoid this
and try to bully Republicans into endorsing his preferred cuts and tax hikes,
Edwards has changed his offensive tactics.
It has ramped up a public relations effort that has seen boilerplate phrasing go out to Republican legislators allegedly from their constituents. These notes equate opposition to Democrats’ preferences as reeking of partisanship that prevents solving budgetary difficulties.
The theme continues in Governor’s Office notes sent
to recipients it thinks might react favorably to that message. Those included
an opinion piece
Edwards wished to circulate among the state’s media and demands that GOP
legislative leaders come up with their own specific ideas on this issue,
implying again that failure to do so connotes putting partisan interests ahead
of the state’s.
That messaging also linked to a favorable piece
about Edwards’ position written by my Advocate
colleague Tyler Bridges. The author managed to corral a couple of the handful
of Republican House members loyal to Edwards and his agenda, with frustrated
comedian state Rep. Kenny Havard opining
that “The Republicans don’t want [Edwards] to have a win. The real losers are
Louisiana citizens. We have to get beyond politics and solve the problems.”
If Havard thinks and Edwards maintains the Legislature’s
leadership must come up with some detailed plan, they need to reread the Constitution,
which clearly states
the governor must submit a general appropriations bill followed by legislative consideration.
He also may submit bills for raising revenue and use of those proceeds.
So, because the Constitution boxes Edwards into a
corner on this matter that would expose his tax-and-spend philosophy, he hopes
to have Republicans throw him a lifeline by using the “partisanship” narrative
as a cudgel. But, to expand on Havard’s evaluation, it’s not that the GOP doesn’t
want to give Edwards a win, it’s that most Republican legislators don’t want to
have triumph Edwards’ agenda that is destructive to Louisiana. And if Havard
can’t understand that, he’s demonstrably not a conservative, walks on all fours,
and sports a large, boney proboscis.
Edwards and Democrat operatives angling for favorable
media coverage, suggesting seminar letter writing, and sending out calls for
action have become the latest, and most desperate attempt to push around Republicans
opposed to keeping inflated government caused by Edwards’ policy choices. That
all wraps into the Edwards strategy of creating a crisis and declaring
noncooperation with him a product of electoral considerations, not of
philosophical differences, because his agenda on its face is best for
Louisiana.
What a joke. The legislative GOP should stay its
course, make Edwards (and invite any individual legislators to join in to) come
up with specific proposals, vet these, and then adjust spending to the
outcomes. It could call its own special session if need be, but Edwards may not
let it come to that anyway as he will not let himself become known as the governor
who slashed what he claims are essential expenditures and additionally would
lose control over the process if he let the Legislature set the special session
agenda.
The desperate bluff. Call Edwards on it. He knows
that, and thus foments the PR full-court press.
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