Bossier jurors display reelection vulnerability

This week, Bossier Parish police jurors can choose whether to dig their political gravesites a little deeper when they decide who to represent them on the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District.

The agency has been mired in controversy for years with the ongoing dispute over whether the Jury’s two-time appointee to five-year terms, Robert Berry, also can serve as the district’s executive director. This spring, the Louisiana Supreme Court answered that question definitively by ordering lower courts to rule that Berry’s continued service in both positions violated the state’s dual officeholding statute.

Nonetheless, with Berry’s term ending in a couple of weeks, the agency’s Board of Commissioners (with his recusal) inexplicably asked for his reappointment despite no evidence that he intended to resign as executive director, which is the only legal way he could continue. Unless the Jury wants its slot on the Board, its composition filled with area parish government agency representatives, to go vacant, it must decide in this week’s meeting either to reappoint Berry to a third term, appoint somebody else which would allow Berry legally to stay on as executive director, or leave the spot unfilled.

Reappointment would flout openly the highest court’s ruling, but acting above the law has become more the pattern than the exception for jurors. A year-and-a-half after without vetting anybody else it handed the parish administrator’s post to long-time parish engineer Butch Ford, he apparently illegally holds the job after Republican Parish Assessor Bobby Edmiston determined Ford doesn’t occupy a Bossier Parish property in his name, which he must do in order to qualify to register to vote at a parish address as required by state law to have the job. Jurors turned a blind eye to his not being registered in the parish for the first ten months of his tenure and then ever since have winked at the gamesmanship Ford has employed to allow his continued occupation of a property in Caddo Parish as a residence.

Jurors also in violation of dual officeholding provisions comprise the entirety of the parish’s Library Board of Control (which will meet prior to the Jury meeting), for several years now. In fact, all five members now are jurors: Republicans Bob Brotherton, Glenn Benton, Julianna Parks, and Doug Rimmer, and Democrat Charles Gray. Each serves knowingly illegally.

This arrogant belief that they may discard the laws that don’t suit them has begun to draw a backlash. Brotherton and Republican Mac Plummer already have drawn opponents in the forms of Michael Farris and Keith Sutton, respectively. At least two other jurors, Parks and Republican Philip Rodgers, also have had opponents seriously consider challenging them, and it was only through a disqualification that Gray took office in a district the demographics of which don’t favor him so he likely will draw an opponent. Qualifying for all dozen positions runs Aug. 8-10, although qualification by petition already has commenced.

Perhaps only Benton, Rodgers, Parks, and the GOP’s John Ed Jorden and Chris Marsiglia have any real preparation for challenges, since they were the only jurors to run against opposition in their last elections (a special election in Parks’ case, after her interim appointment). In fact, the campaign muscles for the majority of incumbents should be quite flabby with few resources gathered according to campaign finance reports through last year.

Brotherton – laid up with health problems and unable to campaign but apparently running for reelection – hasn’t had opposition since 2011 and filed an affidavit for his campaign finance report then and 2015, which meant he spent less than $5,000 and didn’t receive more than $200 from any one source, and subsequently emptied his account of $734. He didn’t file anything in 2019, meaning he raised and spent nothing (other that pay with his own money his filing fees). Plummer has filed only affidavits since his 2008 initial (special) election, through 2015.

Republican Tom Salzer never filed for his only contest, and even though Jorden faced an opponent he didn’t either in his first try (his opponent did file to show spending over $1,600, mostly his own funds). Gray spent $1,100 in his only 2019 contest, but most of it his own. Marsiglia spent $2,000 to defeat his opponent and emptied his account. Republican Doug Rimmer filed affidavits in his contested 2011 race and uncontested 2015 one, and none in 2019, leaving nothing.

Among the real veterans, only Benton has faced much in the way of opposition recently, contested since 2007 and let slide only in 2015. Nevertheless, he spent next to nothing that period, in 2019 picking up a single political action committee donation and spend $521 on election day for a party for supporters, emptying his account.

By contrast, independent Jerome Darby hasn’t had opposition since 2007, his first in two decades, and Democrat Jimmy Cochran none since 1995. Both last filed by affidavit in 2015 and have nothing on the books.

Even as Rodgers had to run more than a moribund campaign in 2019, self-financed with the assistance of family members to the tune of $14,000, he emptied his account afterwards and will have to round up dollars again. The only other juror to have run more than a cursory campaign in the last four years, Parks, drawing upon connections that her husband Republican City Judge Santi Parks enjoyed, raised over $23,000 and spent $15,000, leaving her as the only sitting juror who had funding left in the bank.

In summary, almost all jurors haven’t run more than a cursory campaign, if ever, in recent years. Few have proven they can compete against a serious and motivated challenger that can raise approaching five figures in cash and therefore may be ripe to be picked off by such an opponent. And recent comments made by Rodgers at a recent Cypress Black Bayou meeting that seemed to indicate he received favorable treatment because he was an elected official makes him vulnerable in any event.

Given the constant controversy the Jury continues to court with its members thumbing their collective noses at the law, there’s great potential for significant change if quality challengers can campaign to expose this behavior. They just have to step up.