Wilson entrance to freeze LA governor's race

A preemptive strike by Louisiana Democrat activists appears nigh in an attempt to freeze out intraparty gubernatorial competitors, leaving most declared Republicans in the race hoping that won’t succeed.

The seeming inevitable entrance of Democrat Shawn Wilson into the governor’s race, fueled by his notice he will resign from leading Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ Department of Transportation and Development in about two weeks, has as the only obvious reason behind that setting himself up to take one for the team. Any Democrat would run as a heavy underdog, but for party powerbrokers it’s as important that a quality candidate present himself than he wins.

To put it mildly, the party in Louisiana faces severe crisis. As its national level has careened without ceasing wildly leftward, it continues to pull the state level further away from the median Louisiana voters’ issue preferences. This causes it to win fewer elections then ever at the state and, to a lesser extent, local levels. The party’s rapid loss of white registrants – its 408,344 at present or 13.7 percent of the electorate and 35 percent of all Democrats is down nearly 100,000 and 3.2 percent of all having been 40 percent of Democrats four years earlier and eight years earlier is over 180,000 fewer or a total drop of 6.9 percent and from being 44.2 percent of Democrats – makes it increasingly noncompetitive except in areas with a near-majority or greater number of black registrants, who comprise only about a third of the statewide electorate.

Reasonable library bill helps parents, children

Woke politicians and journalists will expend a lot of energy this spring trying to construct a fable over proliferating bills addressing minors’ access to sexually explicit material in public libraries. Let’s dispel these myths right off the bat to understand the necessity of the bills.

So far, a pair attempts to restrict children from accessing age-inappropriate material. HB 25 by Republican state Rep. Paul Hollis doesn’t address the issue directly, but in its making explicit in state law that members of boards of library control serve at the pleasure of the governing authority it would allow such an authority to remove recalcitrant members that in its judgment failed to protect minors.

Directly addressing it is SB 7 by GOP state Sen. Heather Cloud. That would define objectionable sexual content in library materials for minors according to First Amendment jurisprudence, create a review process for patrons requesting that judgment of the board for disputed material, give parents the option of restricting that material to their children, and would penalize noncompliant boards by negating their ability to have capital outlay bonds approved.

Library takeover latest Bossier Jury lawlessness

It seems when it comes to dual officeholding, the Bossier Parish Police Jury just can’t find its way to following the law.

The Jury deliberately injected itself into controversy over dual officeholding law when it sanctioned the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District by reappointing to the governing board Robert Berry in 2018 after he became executive director of the agency in 2014, shortly after the Jury had named him to the board. That now has gone to litigation, with judges so far allowing this to go on (apparently confused in supposing that statute draws a distinction between ability to and acting on that ability to influence the board when it doesn’t) but a Supreme Court stop seemingly inevitable (although the Jury may try to moot this by not reappointing Berry when his term is up in the middle of the year).

Legal maneuvering in this case has gone on for over two-and-a-half years and made some headlines. But under the radar all this time and before there have been multiple jurors also in violation of the same law in regards to the parish’s Library Board of Control.

Tenure reform needed to aid LA universities

There’s no need to waste taxpayer dollars on initial skirmishes about the merit of tenure in Louisiana higher education. Skip the preliminaries and get on with the legislation.

Last year, Republican state Sen. Stewart Cathey authored a bill to convene study of altering, if not abolishing, the idea of tenure at state schools. It breezed through the Senate but, unusually for study bills, drew significant opposition in the House, mostly from Democrats.

A lot of these bills never produce the intended report, through a combination of institutional resistance and absent follow-through by those requesting the response, including from the author deciding to back off. Cathey chose the latter course but also has stated he intends to move forward with legislation congruent with the idea that the task force would have studied.

Hypocritical sportscaster discovers woke limits

Social justice warriors learn the hard way, as Shreveporter sportscaster Tim Brando found out last week.

Brando, a fixture around Shreveport Regional Airport for many years travelling to the various sports gigs he announces, occasionally ventures into social/political commentary when not behind the microphone. He found that voice again when complaining about a proposal by the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors to name the basketball court at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center after both Dale Brown and Sue Gunter, past coaches of the men’s and women’s basketball teams, respectively.

Both were very successful, although by the numbers Gunter’s accomplishments were greater. However, Brown’s teams brought in far more dollars and much more publicity. His name currently graces the court, and in 2021 the supervisors rejected adding her name.