BC charter panel implodes, lawfare on tap

The verdict from the Bossier political establishment: lawfare.

Last week, Bossier City’s Charter Review Commission imploded. It hadn’t had a formal meeting in over a month-and-a-half despite a couple of attempts, with one featuring no members appointed by city councilors who opposed a strict term limits measure, and the other featuring no members appointed by councilors and the mayor who favored that. In the meantime, two members resigned and a citizen petition to put on the ballot a term limits measure of three lifetime retroactively was certified and readied to present to the Council the day after.

That petition mirrored a proposal accepted by the Commission at its previous meeting, where two of the members who had expressed opposition to the measure were absent and put the anti-measure commissioners into the minority. This brought a counterreaction from that group, who still maintained a majority, who at the intended meeting – which was not summoned by the acting chairman Shane Cheatham and because of its not having been scheduled at a previous meeting was of questionable legality – had anti-proposal member Secretary Sandra Morehart place the item for review with the intent of its removal. This would be facilitated by appointing two new members, apparently allies of the majority against strict limits, at the meeting as by state law. The strategy was either to have no term limits measure in the final product or a watered-down version that could override the petition’s version on the Dec. 7 ballot.

At least this meeting actually came to order with all present commissioners attending, and then quickly degraded. It didn’t even get to approving that agenda before Cheatham, citing the questionable legality and rushed nature – the Commission faced a deadline to reach the same ballot as the amendment that if it missed couldn’t neuter the effort – quit the meeting, followed shortly thereafter by David Johnson, another strict term limits supporter. For the next hour haggling over the agenda occurred as Lee Jeter, the final strict term limits supporter remaining, argued to slow down the process, in particular that the appointees should have public vetting, but the remaining members unanimously rejected that and approved the agenda.

With Jeter’s presence, a quorum continued to exist and business could be conducted, leaving the plan alive to use the panel as a cudgel to neuter the petition’s demand. Except it never got there. A parade of speakers throughout normally perfunctory agenda items brought up a number of points that would bring into question various aspects of the Commission’s operation, from its formation and membership through rules of conduct, which ended up accomplishing Jeter’s request as it only made it through accepting the resignations, then stopped by deciding to schedule a later meeting to give time to collect and vet requests of replacements.

But this extension didn’t jibe with the goal of strict term limits opponents on the Council, as they needed to have the whole revamping complete by the end of the month to have time to get it on the ballot to compete with the petition; otherwise, the panel was useless to them. So, when the next day Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler offered to add to the Council agenda at its meeting an item to disband the Commission, those of that bloc present – only Republican Jeff Free and Democrat Bubba Williams were – agreed and then approved the first vote to accomplish that. As it required an ordinance, the concluding vote will occur at its next meeting and all signs are it will pass, unanimously. Again, this demonstrates the one and only purpose of the Commission to the majority that established it – Free and Williams plus Republican Councilors David Montgomery and Vince Maggio plus no party Jeff Darby, all of whom except Maggio could not serve again under the successful petition’s language – which happened right after a previous version of the petition gathered enough signatures but ran afoul of legal technicalities, was to subvert any other attempt to get a similar petition on the ballot. Having failed that, it was of no use to them.

That option out the window, the bloc’s next strategy was to find some impairment to the petition in an attempted reprise of the fate of the previous one. Otherwise, they were boxed in because of the city charter’s language: within 30 days of the date on a received a certified petition, meaning by Aug. 24, councilors either had to resolve to put the item on the ballot within 90 days, or the next election scheduled by law in this case Dec. 7, or to amend by ordinance the charter with that language themselves.

Chandler proposed that ordinance to amend the language of the petition into Charter, which then would require a ratifying election. At the meeting when the issue came up about whether an ordinance or resolution, which required only one vote, was necessary, Council Clerk Phyllis McGraw said it would need to be an ordinance which then would convert into a resolution.

This deviated from what Chandler did with the first petition, where he offered resolutions to bring that language to a vote an election. Again, the Charter states that either the Council do that or it must pass identical language as an ordinance to put it on the ballot. The state’s election code mentions only a resolution to the State Bond Commission as the means by which for it to approve and forward to the secretary of state a ballot item, and typically the Council for tax renewals uses resolutions.

And even more interestingly, even though City Attorney Charles Jacobs asserted that a resolution would be required to send the matter to the SBC, the Election Code becomes ambiguous on that. In R.S. 18:1285, it does say that the SBC must forward that approval and mentions changes in home rule charters, yet in R.S. 18:1299 it says that preceding Section A of the chapter (6) that contains this language doesn’t apply to elections involving home rule charters (Section B). This raises the question of whether the Charter has some kind of self-executing mechanism that could force a non-monetary measure to the SBC without the need of a Council resolution.

Searching for that desired defect, prior to the vote Williams mused openly about whether the retroactivity provision violated the state’s constitution, but Jacobs opined that it didn’t. This seemed to be the last salvo to find some kind of way out of the trap into which the successful petition and Charter had put him and his allies.

The subsequent vote stalemated at 2-2 with Free and Williams against. This means, given time constraints where action must happen at the next regular meeting only remaining was taking the second option through resolution (absent a special meeting) to stay in Charter compliance. But that the pair didn’t just concede and get it over with would indicate they and the rest of their bloc are girding to vote against any such resolution at the Aug. 13 meeting, which if that’s the case means they violate the charter yet again.

The cabal knows it ultimately will lose, as one way or the other the legalities behind the process will force the measure onto the ballot, where it almost certainly will win. Recall, however, that the goal isn’t to try to defeat but to delay installation of strict term limits. As long as actions can be taken to prevent the measure’s consideration prior to Mar. 29 city elections that would apply it to those, a potential final term can be won by any of the graybeards Darby, Free, and Montgomery (Williams has announced he won’t run again).

Thus, the calendar becomes crucial if in fact by Aug. 24 the Council majority bloc refuses to call the election as ordered by the Charter. Presumably, immediately thereafter elements backing the petition would file for a declaratory judgment moving the matter to the SBC, so then it becomes a matter of how quickly a judge in 26^th Judicial District issues that order – if one does; given the closed, clubby nature of politics in the parish whoever draws it may refuse to do so, or at least would engage in dilatory tactics to slow down the matter. If refused, then almost certainly the Second Circuit Court of Appeals would take up the matter and issue the order – and consider that appeals dealing with election matters are given expediency by courts with appellate jurisdiction.

Even so, all of this would take time. Assuming SBC approval is needed, technically the date for consideration for its Sep. 19 meeting comes prior to Aug. 24. But, practically speaking, historically the SBC without question accepts application up to a “10 day deadline” which is set at Sep. 4. Even so, frequently the panel will put something onto the agenda, especially if relatively straightforward as this would be, as late as 24 hours prior to the meeting.

Even if these dates were to be missed, the deadline for the secretary of state to receive the SBC approval is Oct. 14. If needed, the SBC can hold a special meeting to beat this.

Further, even if this date were missed, this doesn’t preclude any of the judiciary closer to the election ordering it on the ballot, or a special election being called – if need be by the judiciary – prior to the Jan. 29, 2025 qualifying date for city elections, or for the courts to knock back the municipal general elections to the May 3, 2025 date of the municipal runoffs, having the term limits measure on the Mar. 29 ballot and then having a special election for any runoffs coming from May mid-June, with plenty of time to seat new city elective offices for Jul. 1, 2025.

In other words, higher courts displeased with the Bossier City Council’s refusal to follow its charter and with lower court obstructionism realistically could defeat delaying tactics designed to prevent the substance of the term limits proposal from applying to upcoming city elections. Regardless, the graybeards and Maggio seemed poised to try to thwart this, abrogating their duty under the Charter. Citizens will have to go the lengths they shouldn’t have to, in costing their time and money in legal battles, in order to secure their rights against a rogue cabal trying to serve its self-interests rather than the people’s.