As its legal woes mount, once again the Bossier City Council violated the city charter, although on this third occasion one councilor decided it was time to cut his losses.
At its last meeting, once again Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler placed on the agenda an item to put on the Nov. 18 general election runoff ballot a referendum on a three-term lifetime and retroactive limit on elected officials. A petition, following the charter’s stipulations, was certified by the registrar of voters to force the Council to do this if it did not itself resolve into an amendment this change within 30 days of certification.
It has 90 days after that to call the election or piggyback onto another. And it failed to follow the charter for a third time, which had the practical effect of pushing the matter off the Nov. 18 ballot and now placing it on the Mar. 23, 2024 presidential preference primary ballot. Given the presence of the certified petition, legally it must do so by early November, although the same majority bloc of the Council that so far has blocked this muscled through a resolution to go to court to try to declare the petition invalid because it didn’t follow the letter of the law in its format although it had all the information required by law.
That’s not working out so great so far. The Council majority bloc – then comprised of Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, plus Democrat Bubba Williams and no party Jeff Darby – also passed a resolution asking the registrar to rescind the certification on that basis. The Attorney General’s office, which acts as legal counsel to the registrar, decisively rejected that, pointing out that which both other councilors and the public had noted repeatedly that the law contains no provision to do this.
Matters became worse when it leaked that at least Montgomery and Darby were contemplating changing public comment regulations after the bloc's actions had drawn stinging rebukes. The problem was that this closed-door session, captured on audio, appeared to violate open meetings law, which drew an investigation from the Attorney General. Worst of all, this happened to a backdrop of a contentious previous meeting where the presiding officer Free at the prompting of Montgomery may have stepped over the line with illegal content restriction on citizen Wes Merriott’s expression rights. Merriott then blew the whistle bringing the AG’s intervention.
With the potato not just hot but on fire, and already having comment regulations that if more than barely enforced invited just such complaints like Merriott’s, apparently Montgomery, Darby, and their ilk at least temporarily dropped the proposed changes that apparently had been intended for the latest, Sep. 19, meeting. This was confirmed when in the audio it was mentioned Free would not be attendance for a vote Montgomery polled at 4-2 – with Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons, who have voted consistently for getting term limits on the ballot, assumed to be against – and he was absent for the Sep. 19 meeting.
This meant the 5-2 majorities previously refusing to carry out the charter imperative would be down to 4-2 – which then became 3-3 as for this vote Maggio, the only of the five who if the petition’s contents were approved by voters could run for reelection, flipped this time. Maggio has been under fire for giving only lip service to term limits even as he alleges that he supports the concept, and in a sense that remains the case as a tie vote doesn’t pass a matter.
That outcome also damaged the term limits cause in another way. It now cannot make the high-stimulus Nov. 18 ballot, where in 2019 Bossier Parish turnout for that general election runoff was about 40 percent for statewide elective offices, but is relegated to the Mar. 23 one – assuming the reduced majority actually decides to quit violating the charter and passes the enabling resolution in time as by the charter just before the general election runoff date – where 2020 turnout in those presidential preference primaries was about half that. Since term limits are widely popular, the lower the turnout, the greater the chance that opponents can hold their own against that.
Further complicating the matter, the group that spearheaded the petition is relaunching its efforts just in case all the legal wrangling either defeats their purposes or drags things out so long that they miss the ballot for next year’s presidential elections, which would mean limits would not be in effect for 2025 city elections. Given the tremendous boost to momentum for limits that all the stalling has sprouted, and with plenty of mass gathering opportunities ahead such as high school football games and polling places, possibly that could be completed before even the legal wrangling has played out that could put the contents of an airtight petition on that fall ballot (deadline Jun. 19, 2024) where the guaranteed high turnout then will make voter approval almost a formality.
Regardless, the recalcitrance by the council graybeards only makes any victory they might achieve resemble more closely a Pyrrhic one that sinks their reelection chances. That’s why Maggio flipped his vote, cutting his losses in public relations terms while bolstering his open alliance with the graybeards and secret desire to deny term limits because the graybeards alone have enough numbers to keep the measure from moving onto the ballot. Term limits organizers can determine whether this is hypocrisy by making attempts to have Maggio sign the new petition.
As for the graybeards, it’s all or nothing to them: even if they delay the popular vote’s consequences past the 2025 election cycle, the ill will they continue to generate endangers their reelection chances. But because they are so interested in clinging to power and the privilege that provides, above and beyond any other consideration including the broader public interest, they will sacrifice all in its pursuit.
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