House again rejects bad bill, passes anti-woke one

Two years in a row now the Louisiana Legislature has made the right call on a pair of controversial bills. Now if only it can force Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards to back members on one or otherwise push his negativity aside.

This week, as it did last year, the House of Representatives turned back HB 649 by Republican state Rep. Stephanie Hilferty. This would have forbidden a school district from allowing corporal punishment in its schools. This was the second attempt to get the bill over to the Senate, failing both times barely to obtain the absolute majority of the seated House necessary, meaning without suspension of the rules the measure is dead for the session.

That action replicates the bill’s fate from last year, and for good reason. Research demonstrates that as part of a continuum of disciplinary actions, when it occurs sparingly as a last resort, spanking in combination with other methods creates the optimal regimen for discipline. Further, statute makes use of this discretionary by a district, and only when parents approve in the cases of their children.

Errors cost chance to delete burdensome rule

Louisiana remains stuck on stupid concerning required vaccinations of school attendees because Republicans can’t get it together in the state Senate.

This week, the Senate’s Health and Welfare Committee rejected HCR 3 by Republican state Rep. Larry Bagley. The bill would have overturned the decision last year by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ Department of Health, ratified by Edwards himself, to add Wuhan coronavirus vaccination to its schedule for both elementary and secondary education and higher education.

Much data has accumulated demonstrating the relatively high risk attached to vaccination of children compared to the benefits. As vaccination doesn’t stop the spread of the virus, there’s no reason to impose such a requirement, as to do so interferes with the autonomy of the family to make health care decisions for its children while being forced into certain conduct, school attendance, by the state. Next school year, Louisiana will be the only state in the country requiring this vaccination.

More bonus bucks, less need for LA to spend

That Louisiana has discovered some extra money likely will comes its way doesn’t change the dynamics of why its Legislature shouldn’t start spending like a drunken sailor.

This week, the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference forecast that tax coffers would be a little fuller than previously believed early in the year. It accepted that this year would see an extra $350 million into the general fund and next year another $104 million would come the fund’s way.

Unless the Legislature can find ways to spend the former in the next 50 days, it will have to go to nonrecurring purposes. There’s plenty of use for that, starting with the billions in infrastructure needs, or defeasance of unfunded accrued liabilities due for payoff by 2029, or going a long way towards the state paying off the final installment to the federal government for flood protection due over a year from now. Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards would like to see it used to entice federal funding for Interstate 10 bridge construction over the Mississippi River connecting Baton Rouge, an idea already rebuffed by the Legislature but to which it could become more receptive with the realization of this largesse.

LA must prevent woke abortion subsidization

If Louisianans don’t want their dollars any time soon going to encourage abortion or mutilation of children, they better hope lawmakers figure something out soon.

With correcting of the jurisprudential wrong done by the wholly invented, hardly-baked Roe. v. Wade Supreme Court decision through its reversal seeming extremely likely, some corporations have broadcast their wokeness by announcing they will fund expenses related to procuring an abortion. The Court’s action would bring abortion policy back to a firm constitutional grounding that empowers states to regulate the practice, so some states will ban it while others will let it occur unfettered, and these firms have said they’ll foot the entire bill for their female employees using their company health care plan in those states restricting abortion to travel to another to snuff life from their unborn infants.

Louisiana has a number of provisions that would restrict, even outlaw, abortions except under the most unusual circumstances. Salutary as that may be, the state’s citizens should want to go further to penalize, if not deter, firms that practice the cognitive dissonance of proclaiming abortion is a kind of health care without recognizing it ends up as death dealing for the most vulnerable members of society.

Poor choices put BC over contracting barrel

Years of bad decisions have put Bossier City taxpayers into a trap, and the same dynamic looks set to cost them even more courtesy of elected officials unwilling to treat the people’s money with the respect it deserves.

At last week’s City Council meeting, Republican mayor Tommy Chandler placed on the agenda an item to boost the city’s contracted payment to Manchac Consulting from $12,500 to $20,000. The firm oversees public works, but as part of that also has had its employee Ben Rauschenbach serve as interim city engineer over a series of short-term appointments for nearly two years.

During the meeting, Rauschenbach defended the company’s request, aided by Chandler. He said he was consumed by the job with so many infrastructure projects in the books, about $150 million worth. The extra money, which works out to $90,000 a year, would be less than the city could expect to hire a dedicated outside city engineer, so in essence with the boost the city could get both him and a city engineer (he was thinking of his assistant). Chandler supported him on this, saying he had tried several times to hire a city engineer, but candidates always backed out.