Cynic decries reasonable new LA House plan

You could envision the tears of cynicism streaming from Democrat state Rep. Kenny Cox, triggered because he couldn’t set up a family dynasty.

Earlier this week when the Louisiana House of Representatives’ House and Governmental Affairs Committee considered reapportioning itself, Cox came before it to argue against HB 14 by Speaker Clay Schexnayder, and implicitly in favor of the only alternative Democrats want to pursue, HB 15 by Democrat state Rep. Sam Jenkins. HB 14 moves Cox’s District 23 to New Orleans while HB 15 leaves it roughly in place, sending HD 5 instead to New Orleans.

In Schexnayder’s bill, HD 5 based in Caddo Parish would become a majority Bossier Parish district, plus tacking on Red River Parish and remain majority white in voting age composition. HD 23 would remain a majority-minority district, and HD 62 held by no party Roy Daryl Adams would become M/M, thereby adding one such district over the current registration numbers.

LA Democrats all in on litigating their loss

For Louisiana Democrats, when it comes to reapportionment it’s all about the litigation now.

That became clear as the Louisiana Senate passed, by a partisan vote, SB 5 by Republican state Sen. Sharon Hewitt which would keep with some minor modifications the current plan that establishes only one of six majority-minority districts for Congress. With almost a third of Louisianans being black, Democrats – for whom blacks almost always vote for – and leftist special interests wanted there to be two such districts in the upcoming map. Democrats offered several such plans, including a last-ditch amendment on the floor.

But the problem with that, as both Hewitt directly and GOP Sen. Pres. Page Cortez indirectly made clear in addressing the bill, is it created tenuous black majorities in the two districts, and violated various judicially-approved principles of redistricting as spelled out throughout the process over a series of months, most principally in how all offered Democrat plans tore communities of interest apart. Left unsaid was because those plans made race the dominant consideration they would be unconstitutional.

Decision wrecks LA left's congressional plan

Courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana’s reapportionment exercise now appears to favor heavily the Republican majorities that control the Legislature, and potentially promises years of litigation and uncertainty about congressional boundaries.

All along, the political process has put the GOP in the driver’s seat, with the eventual endgame pointing to implementing maps that created more favorable districts to their candidates’ electoral fortunes. The most publicized of the bunch has been the congressional map, where five of six such districts appear suited to elect GOP candidates, as only the remainder is a majority- minority district where black would be expected to support a Democrat even as black comprise nearly a third of the state’s population.

A number of special interests have proposed alternatives that produce two – barely – M/M districts, as well as looking at reapportionment of the Legislature and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Knowing full well their political clout falls far short of provoking legislative enactment of these, in their material disseminated about these they have issued veiled threats about litigation if they didn’t get their way.

On Court map, LA Democrats lose bird in hand

Maybe Louisiana’s legislative Democrats should have taken the deal when they had the chance.

Last regular session, prior to release of any data from the 2020 census, legislative Republicans put forward a constitutional amendment that would have increased the size of the Louisiana Supreme Court from seven to nine members, mandated decennial reapportionment, and done so for this cycle on an equiproportional basis. Almost a quarter century has passed since the last reapportionment, leading to districts of vastly different populations, of which only one has a black majority meaning an almost-certain seat in the hands of Democrats.

In contrast to representative organs, law and judicature doesn’t require one-man-one-vote and reapportionment every decade with elected judges because they serve in an adjudicatory institution. As a result, Louisiana has no requirement to redraw the current boundaries – and the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to do so – even if it means in a state with about a third of its population racially identifying as black the map at present has just the one minority-majority district.

Orleans reaps crime sowed by DA progressivism

The bill has started to come due for New Orleans voters’ dipping their toes in the “progressive prosecutor” waters.

As crime continues to escalate across the city, its elected politicians increasingly if belatedly have called for some kind of action. Some of it is fratricidal, with Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell taking swipes at “other” law enforcement agencies asking for more cooperation her police chief Shaun Ferguson calling for the City Council to make it easier to use real-time crime camera strategies, on the heels of the Council calling on Ferguson to come up with a plan to address the surge.

However, the “other” agency alluded to made its own statement, that being Democrat District Attorney Jason Williams. Like other “progressive” prosecutors around the country who allege actions such as refusing to prosecute minor offenses, selectively choosing which more serious offenses to pursue, parsimoniously charging up but more frequently down, and relaxing if not eliminating bail standards are “smarter” ways to fight crime, his jurisdiction in the past couple of years has seen a large spike in violent crime.