Next session offers big chance to reduce crime

The next special session this year of the Louisiana Legislature, dealing with justice matters with a bit of monetary matters thrown in, promises to be remarkable both in successful coverage of a governor’s intent and setting the stage to achieve a policy goal of crime reduction.

Last week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued the call of two dozen items, and with four days to go before commencement of the meetup that could go as long as 17 days possibly ending only five days before the start of the regular session – leaving several days still realistically for introduction of bills – prefiled bills covered nearly all of these. The two biggest omissions at present were the most complicated, dealing with surplus money accumulating for this fiscal year, and the most controversial, reapportionment of state Supreme Court districts.

Just about everything else had been addressed by bills with one or more items, with a few bills offering complementary approaches on the same subject. Clearly Landry had consulted with legislative and other allies on the content of his call, given this response, of items designed to increase punishment of more guilty parties in a greater age range with increased transparency.

Which, apparently by their choice, didn’t include the super-minority Democrats in each chamber. Only a single of the 28 bills prefiled at present has a Democrat as sponsor, a reflection that legislative Democrats want to avoid the agenda, as it has the potential to undo a goodly portion of changes in criminal justice they favored that ended up emptying jails to some extent but did little, if anything to reduce crime if not actually increase its rates, and didn’t really save any money (as a consequence of having to raise per diem rates for local jailers since the volume of state convicts sent their way decreased). The left preaches for reduced punishment, as well as diluting other public safety tools such as by bail elimination (which isn’t explicitly mentioned in the call but perhaps could have shoehorned in minimum bail requirements), as that fits its narrative that consequences for criminals have a discriminatory, if not racist, component to these.

Perhaps before it’s all over a Democrat also will sally forth on the Supreme Court reapportionment issue, in trying to cough up a bill most favorable to electing proportionally the most Democrats onto the Court (there’s no legal imperative to reapportionment at this time, but Landry for years has expressed concern over the highly malapportioned state of the existing districts). However, enacting any change there might constitute the heaviest lift of all the items, given the crowded nature of the upcoming legislative calendar and the complex politics involved that could produce maps anywhere from seven to nine districts with one or two majority-minority districts that would favor Democrats.

That effort could involve a series of supermajority approvals that makes passage prospects uncertain, and points to the only other measure at present that also would require supermajority approval which may keep from it making it into law: lowering the age at which a juvenile may be prosecuted as an adult. There’s good empirical reason to do that, but with Democrat unanimity almost certain against almost all bills, just a few Republicans in each chamber could scuttle something like GOP state Sen. Heather Cloud’s SB 3 or Republican state Sen. Stewart Cathey’s SB 11 that intend to do that.

Other than in these areas, with only majorities needed for passage and a governor willing to sign everything adhering to his agenda at present well-reflected in the prefiled bills, most of these are slam dunks for passage, with the only ones of this grouping not likely going all the way coming as a consequence of more than one bill pertaining to these subjects being introduced. Democrats only can try to water these down, and may succeed occasionally at the margins, but look for almost everything offered to succeed almost exactly the way Landry had hoped.

All from Republicans, the most consequential, and therefore the most controversial, are HB 2 by state Rep. Tony Bacala, HB 6 by state Rep. Nick Muscarello, HB 12 by state Rep. Danny McCormick, SB 1 and SB 2 by state Sen. Blake Miguez, SB 3, SB 6 by state Sen. Alan Seabaugh, SB 8 by state Sen. Mike Reese, and SB 11. HB 12, SB 1, and SB 2 do away with requiring permits for carrying concealed firearms and address liability; HB 2 and SB 6 alters immunity for law enforcement officers carrying out their duties lawfully; HB 6 authorizes three different methods of capital punishment and shields the identities of participants and suppliers from public records requests; and SB 8 centralizes public defense in the governor’s office instead of run by an appointed board.

Of these, the only one that may not be a sure thing in close to present form is SB 8. Public defense provision has had chronic problems because of the patchwork funding mechanism too dependent on the vagaries of local criminal justice conduct. Centralizing operations out of the governor’s office could lead to more sensible deployment of state funds based upon actual need of the various districts. But this could raise squawks from special interests sympathetic to the leftist view of criminal justice, the only real threat to its passage may come from parochial interests that capture the interest of some in the GOP.

Yet if all goes the way the winds currently blow, Landry and allies backing that agenda should score in aggregate a major victory and steer Louisiana much closer to the rest of politically conservative deep south states on matters such as capital punishment, concealed carry, and for some the juvenile/adult line – and towards more effective policy in preventing crime.