Cassidy supplies model against left's bullying

Louisiana’s Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy’s center-left origins have resurfaced, and that’s actually a good thing.

Perennial candidate Rob Maness, who launched his string of defeats by losing to Cassidy for the Senate in 2014, kept telling anybody who would listen that Cassidy was too liberal ideologically. While his voting record in the House of Representatives belied that, others asserted he had a leftist streak in him that certainly he had more than a decade ago.

Cassidy’s Senate tenure has given no reason to believe he acts anything as a conservative, with a lifetime American Conservative Union voting scorecard rating of over 82. But the leftism he once flirted with came out strongly in his actions concerning the nomination of Appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

St. George opposition disbelieves own rhetoric

That seems to have developed as strategy for special interests trying to stop the incipient city of St. George from coming into being. Currently, an effort taking place in much of southern and eastern East Baton Rouge Parish seeks to make that unincorporated area into that municipality, joining other successful past attempts that created Baker, Central, and Zachary.

A similar try occurred three years ago, over a slightly larger land area. Some shenanigans by the East Baton Parish registrar’s office, taking advantage of ambiguity then existing in state laws regarding incorporation elections, denied bringing the matter to a vote. So, proponents retooled and now go for it again, with a Nov. 27 deadline to collect the necessary number of residential signatures to trigger an election to decide whether St. George may form.

This has caused remobilization of opponents, many of whom don’t live in the area. And, as a recent presentation by a group representing such interests shows, a mixture of shoddy assertions and illogical premises has taken the forefront in their resistance.

Media criticism an American political tradition

Democrat Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has objected to elected officials who “continuously berate the media” as the right of free expression is “enshrined in the First Amendment,” a position both contradictory and, in his case, somewhat hypocritical.

Edwards made these comments on his monthly call-in radio show, in apparent reference to Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s frequent castigation of some national media outlets for the quality of their news stories. No president ever (but perhaps now with technological advancements to make direct public communication easy) has so consistently berated the fourth estate for supposed inadequacies in impartial reporting.

But if Edwards saw anything unique or inconsistent with American political history, then there’s much he doesn’t know. Presidents and other prominent politicians throughout history have criticized the media – and gone beyond just that.

Review panel should ditch its manager idea

Architects of the East Baton Rouge Parish Plan of Government review should look skeptically upon the notion of adding a city manager.

The committee responsible for any updates of the charter that runs Baton Rouge and some affairs parish-wide has floated the idea of adding this position to the current government. It appears to think this job would act in concert with the existing chief administrative officer, a mayoral appointee, to perform unspecified but managerially-oriented tasks. The current iteration appears to recommend that the Metropolitan Council hire the manager but the mayor could dismiss him.

The whole debate reeks of confusion, beginning with an apparent misconception that officials can separate politics from administration. If possible, then it might make sense to have a council-appointed manager. But that’s a myth; the manager reflects the politics of whoever hires, although more insulated from this tendency when overseen by a collective because of the fractious nature of committees and that members (in this instance) serve on a part-time basis that grants such a manager greater governing latitude.

The Advocate column, Sep. 30, 2018

Public Service commissioners' decision to look into compensation agreements comes at convenient time
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_ef7dc2e0-c1d4-11e8-94b2-5753c91bffed.html

Links:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/largest-u-s-wind-project-dealt-potentially-fatal-blow-in-texas
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_8cb89832-bc26-11e8-94f5-bb915b06722b.html
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_9a0e0cce-bd20-11e8-99fe-2f5995a6ae12.html
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_dbac09ac-bd1a-11e8-b8d7-4fa5c9ca6cc9.html