BC review panel signals moves on term limits

The term limits issue in Bossier City elections took interesting turns this past week that will impact what voters see on the ballot the remainder of the year and reveals the high stakes involved for the parish’s political establishment.

Last week, the city’s Charter Review Commission met mainly to go over more preliminaries about input into its task, but sparks flew when the term limits subject came up. The four appointees by Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler and Republican Councilors Chris Smith and Brian Hammons at various points have signaled they want to see the recommendations forwarded include a term limits measure.

Up until then, the assumption had been the commission – voted into existence by all councilors except Hammons and Smith and excepting that pair multiple times voted against placing a certified petition under the city charter, and in violation of it, to establish a lifetime three-term limit to elected officials retroactively applied that would have disqualified four of the five from running in 2025 – was a vehicle to head off meaningful term limits in the immediate future either by recommending a weak substitute or by pairing a measure with such an unpopular measure, as consideration comes as a package deal, that would send it to defeat. The other five appointees represent the anti-term limits councilors – Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free and Vince Maggio; Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby.

Adding fuel to the fire that the purpose of the commission in the eyes of that majority was to neuter term limits, while Chandler, Smith, and Hammons have taken advantage of the charter’s call for appointers to suggest topics – and named term limits – none of the others did. It became a bonfire when mayoral appointee Shane Cheatham addressed the subject positively, only to be met with resistance by others.

Vicky Whitman, the appointee of Maggio and wife of Republican City Marshal Jim Whitman, said she was interested in a comprehensive review that wouldn’t lend itself to a term limits measure appearing on either of the fall ballots, as the commission wouldn’t have finished its work by then. As reflective of the Bossier political establishment, this view marks a risky alternative approach to making sure that Darby, Free, Montgomery, and Williams can stay on the ballot next year.

Odds of that improved last week when a 26^th District Court ruled the petition for term limits was not properly certified, even though state law doesn’t address that eventuality. The petition didn’t have entries for voters’ years of birth, even thought it did include voter identification numbers that when accessed contain that information. The court ruled strictly on statutory wording, even though other parts of statute suggested such a strict reading wasn’t warranted.

Further, the main defendant in the case, David Crockett, indicated they would not pursue an appeal. That means the gun pointed at most the Council majority bloc on the issue, with rookie Maggio excepted meaning the four graybeards who have served at least 10 years and as many as 26 thereby disqualifying them from running next year and impelling them to try to sabotage any measure with that effect, for the moment has been unloaded and would make their commissioners much more likely to take a leisurely stroll with the charter review, perhaps even using it as an instrument to attempt to make changes to strengthen the establishment’s grip on city politics, such as by trying to make the referendum process to amend the charter more difficult.

The problem with that approach is that Crockett and others continue to work on another set of petitions that includes term limits. They have about seven months to gather signatures again with the aim of making the December ballot, which if passed as likely would lock out the graybeards. But by rushing a watered-down measure onto the December ballot, that counter probably would take precedence through the results as defined in stature and supplant the restrictive measure that reflects the one torpedoed by the judiciary.

A more combative but even riskier avenue was broached by perhaps the definitive establishment voice on the commission, Republican Police Juror Julianna Parks who is the wife of Republican City Judge Santi Parks and appointed by Montgomery. She derided the notion of term limits in an exchange with Cheatham and let on she didn’t want the idea among any recommendations.

This aggressive tactic of dealing with term limits might have been in part a byproduct of a Parks political blunder days earlier. Parks’ outspoken public defenses at various of the get-along-go-along attitude prevalent in Bossier Parish governance that belittles citizen input in favor of sometime lawless government behavior has made her a lightning rod for criticism, to which her typical response has been to portray herself as a victim.

However, recently she advanced to manufacturing controversy to allow her to present herself as aggrieved. During a transmission of the Bossier Watch narrowcast the week before, which generates social media commentary as the show progresses, one frequent commenter took a dig at Parks’ complaint that Tuesday commission meetings were inconvenient for her (begging the question of why she would have accepted the appointment), which neither show host even noticed at the time.

Yet Parks or some supporter of hers must have combed very carefully through the hundreds of comments and when these synchronized with the show dialogue and within hours constructed something at which to take offense. Seizing upon an obscure slang reference of which the show hosts and commenter said they had no idea about, she embraced it as a personal insult in a message she relayed to supposedly personally close social media adherents, as is typical defining herself as victimized, alleging the remark insulted all of womanhood and asked that recipients boycott the show for allowing it (regardless of the impossibility of real-time policing of posted commentary).

The move backfired when at least one recipient made the screed public and it was revealed by the show hosts that Parks was engaging in a campaign beyond social media to discredit them and the commenter, who runs a news- and entertainment-oriented website in the parish’s south. The over-the-top petulance of Parks especially looked bad when she tried to equate her privileged and pampered life and elected official status voluntarily serving the public with the lives of genuine involuntary sufferers of actual misogyny, if not of real violence against them.

Taking up the official political establishment cause on term limits so vigorously in the meeting may have come as a means to deflect the backlash against her play for sympathy/quest to delegitimize a pair of frequent critics, but it also may have been a preemptive strike from the term limits disease spreading elsewhere in the parish, particularly for the Jury. The Lawrason form of government of the parish makes it difficult for imposing term limits which would have to be accomplished by statute, but it has been done in the case of Lincoln Parish. More threateningly, the Constitution establishes a procedure for petitioning the election of a home rule charter commission by just ten percent of the electorate that could create a document limiting juror terms. Giving in on term limits by the city charter review board that leads to a successful vote could encourage advocates to bring the same to the parish, so perhaps best to nip it in the bud.

Regardless of motive, it’s an even riskier proposition just to leave it off. That gives term limits advocates the chance to put something on the ballot without competition. With a November election placement unlikely via the active petition, the commission anti-term limits majority putting a toothless but competing measure on December’s even if passed without a petitioned version will accomplish the primary objective of the graybeards being able to run in 2025. Petitioners could hold their powder and get it on the city election ballot next spring instead, but even if it succeeded among voters the graybeards still will have had their opportunities to last in office at least until 2029.

The high-stakes poker playing over Bossier City term limits as practiced by the commissioners will make for interesting watching as city electoral politics start to heat up for next year’s contests.