Edwards salutes LA with middle digit once more

As a parting gift to Louisianans, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards gave them the middle-fingered salute that forever cements his reputation as Gov. Nyet.

It’s not so much the volume of vetoes, contrasted to his predecessor Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal who in his first term vetoed 74 regular session non-appropriations bills and 50 in his second term, while Edwards vetoed just 29 in his first term and wrapped up with 78 in his second. In part, it’s because Edwards cast nearly half his vetoes in just the past two years while Jindal cast only a few in his last quarter of service.

But mostly it’s because Jindal’s vetoes only rarely struck anything but low-profile measures while Edwards’ have gone against some subjects of considerable popular and newsworthy concern. So much so that Edwards looks to have triggered a third veto session in an annual row, where these meetings to overturn vetoes had been unprecedented prior to his time in office, and where one override became the first to succeed.

Expect more. Prior to Edwards, past governors shied away from vetoing big items, in part because they didn’t have to face them. High-profile measures usually carried popular support and legislative supermajorities, so if a governor couldn’t cut these off at the pass, he would have to let them go.

But Edwards, if not the most liberal governor in the state’s history in the aggregate certainly the most committed leftist on social issues, just won’t lay down on some of these. And he does so for the most relentless partisan and ideological reasons, even as he invokes tiresome preachiness about how anybody disagreeing with him is sowing division when, in reality, he disingenuously goes out of his way to provoke conflict as a necessity of ideological fealty and to pay off allies.

Some of his veto messages provide prime examples of this sanctimony. HB 399 would have had schools when communicating information about the state schedule of vaccinations also reminding parents and students that under statute they can opt out themselves or their children from this. He vetoed this, calling it “a covert attempt to undermine the faith of the public in vaccines” as his way of covertly attacking state law he dislikes because it disempowers government – even as the evidence continues to grow about intentional media and government downplaying of the volume and magnitude of adverse impacts of Wuhan coronavirus vaccination.

Or with SB 1 that over the next few years would have reduced substantially, perhaps even entirely, the corporate franchise tax considered economically injurious. Edwards admits this but says he vetoed it because it might cut government revenues too much in light of previous reformation efforts and the coming expiration of the 0.45 percent sales tax hike he had backed to the hilt. Of course, in his zeal to overinflate government to this year’s budget Edwards led the charge to add hundreds of millions of dollars in unneeded new commitments, which without that happening would have mooted any future concerns about tax cuts that would have reached consumers.

And there’s SB 196, which attempted to bring transparency to the Wild West of third party litigation funding – critically appraised by the television news program 60 Minutes, many state attorneys general, and GOP Sen. John Kennedy for resulting in an unnecessary amount of litigation and potential noncitizen interference in legal processes – not by prohibiting this but merely asking for revelation of lawsuit funders. But as this could have the slightest possibility of reducing trial lawyer business – the single largest group of funders of Edwards’ political career – he vetoed it, ignoring consequences from the zero oversight and rules about it and instead calling it “a pretense designed to gain a litigation advantage” for trial lawyer opponents.

His pièce de résistance was the last-minute vetoes of HB 81, HB 466, and HB 648. HB 466 would prevent school employees from psychological coaching of students about their gender identity inconsistent with state instructional standards and protect school employees and students from confusion over pronoun use of students. HB 81 would cover pronoun usage like HB 466. HB 648 would prohibit medical interventions to alter the sex of children, where research shows such interventions regretted by almost a third of all children guided into these and a significant portion of others years later feeling no more positively about themselves.

These disapprovals guaranteed another veto session, with each having passed by healthy supermajorities. Not only will all but a couple of Republicans vote for overrides but also several Democrats threatened to lose reelection this fall will jump at the chance to override as nationally opinion polls show the sentiments behind the bills favored by the public.

Edwards’ actions are so predictable. This pathetic political hack never has had the best interests of Louisianans in mind other than as an appendage to ruthless promotion of an ideological template alien to the state and/or empowering special interest political allies. But he’ll go down swinging, railing against whatever contravenes his warped agenda for the polity.