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6.2.20

Conservative execution critics deceive selves

Abandoning conservative principles, a group of people terming themselves conservatives have organized in Louisiana to oppose its death penalty.

The Louisiana Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty have taken this position because, according to the group’s national manager Heather Cox, “Millions [of dollars] … are not going toward programs that actually could work to deter crimes in the first place, which we know that the death penalty does not. The death penalty is a failed, broken, big government program marked by all the error, corruption, and fallibility that we see in so many other government programs.”

It’s never a good sign when a group’s leader speaks, if not disingenuously, ignorantly about the very premise behind the effort. In reality, nearly a half century of high-quality, nonpartisan research demonstrates capital punishment does absolutely deter crime. It saves lives, and for the group’s leader to deny that makes the entire group seem fraudulent.

5.2.20

Schexnayder homers with committee choices

Some Louisiana conservatives thought new GOP House Speaker Clay Schexnayder would take three strikes. Instead, he hit three homers.

When Schexnayder nailed down the speakership with a majority of Democrats (all in the chamber) supporting him, doubts grew about how much fidelity he could maintain with a conservative agenda in the chamber he would lead. Recent actions of his should erase those.

First, he stacked the two most important, fiscally-related, committees in the House with enough Republicans and conservatives that not only will the tax-and-spend agenda of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards find no traction, but also a real chance exists for tax relief. Next, he backed that up by trying to induce caution and prudence into the revenue estimating process. He (as well as Republican state Sen. Pres. Page Cortez) lost that battle when thwarted by Edwards’ mouthpiece Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, but are winning the war to date because no additional revenue became recognized at this time, which to some degree accomplished the same purpose.

4.2.20

Confused Dardenne obstructs forecast

Who’s obstructing now, Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne?

At the close of 2018, Dardenne, who works for Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, had unkind words for the state House of Representatives majority Republican leadership that, like he, served on the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference. The panel, which additionally has representation from the current state Senate Republican leadership and an independent economist, determines the amount of revenue the state legally may use in budgeting and requires unanimity to set a new target.

Back then, House leaders refused to assent to higher figures predicted by economists from the executive and legislative branches. They would do so several more times over the next few months before finally accepting a figure lower than the initial one not long before the budget came due. This, Dardenne said at the outset, amounted to obstruction of the budgeting process for political reasons.

3.2.20

Pro-life LA Democrats face bleak natl futures

The answer is, no, there isn’t room for the Katrina Jacksons among national Democrats. Nor Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, now that he had made his bed on the issue of abortion.

A bill, which sensibly imposes regulations on abortuaries similar to those facilities pertaining to surgical centers, that the Democrat state senator sponsored six years ago that became law will come up for adjudication this spring in the U.S. Supreme Court. It became a matter of litigation because of its similarity to a Texas law declared unconstitutional, but differs enough that likely the country’s highest court will uphold it later this year.

This and an appearance at the Washington, DC March for Life last month has put Jackson in the spotlight as an anomaly among national Democrats: pro-life. Several laudatory pieces in national opinion media (obviously from the political right) over the past couple of weeks in different ways pose the question about whether room exists in the national party for a politician like Jackson.