LA Democrats seem willing to break election law

What is a woman? Louisiana Democrats might start having to explain themselves on this as their answer might endorse breaking state election law.

Across the state this Saturday, registered Republicans and Democrats will cast ballots for their respective party’s governing institutions, both for parish executive committees and state central committee. State law sets some parameters for this process for recognized political parties of a certain size, i.e. the two major parties.

Statute for composition of the state central committees gives parties two choices. One, they can follow the somewhat-structured R.S. 18:443.1, which mandates that the SCC have 210 seats with its members elected from each of the 105 state House districts, where males run separately and females run separately. Two, R.S. 18:443.2 mandates broadly that a governor of the party must serve on its SCC but the rest of members selection is left up to the party so long as it’s not inconsistent with state law.

Left refuses to see its causing LA depopulation

A recent musing about Louisiana population loss contains a lot bathos, signifying the difficulty, if not unwillingness, that the state’s leftist institutions have in accepting what’s plain to everybody else.

Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate ran a piece about the latest 2023 census numbers, which show most Louisiana parishes lost population. The state as a whole lost over 14,000 people in 2023, bring the total loss from compared to 2015 to nearly 120,000 even as the country as a whole, and most states, grew in numbers. In fact, the state’s 0.31 percent loss trailed in percentage terms only New York, and of the seven states that did lose population, four were among the largest blue states, with purple Pennsylvania barely slipping and only West Virigina among red states joining Louisiana.

Only Ascension, Beauregard, Bossier, Calcasieu, De Soto, East Feliciana, Iberville, Lafayette, Livingston, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Vermillion, and West Baton Rouge gained – a few barely – and none over one percent. Metropolitan statistical areas were a mixed bag: energy-intensive areas Lafayette and Lake Charles and northshore Hamond and Slidell-Covington-Mandeville, plus Baton Rouge eked out gains but Shreveport-Bossier City, Monroe, Alexandria, Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, and New Orleans-Metairie shrunk. In fact, New Orleans led the country in MSA slumping at 1.15 percent, while Houma was fifth worst at 0.85 percent, Alexandria 16^th worst at 0.60 percent, Shreveport 36^th worst at 0.43 percent, and Monroe 46^th worst at 0.34 percent. Hammond’s 0.92 percent growth was best in the state and 92^nd best nationwide.

Early vote numbers signal advantage Whitehorn

Early voting statistics from Caddo Parish show Republican sheriff candidate former Shreveport City Councilor John Nickelson well may be doing what he has to in order to win this weekend’s election, but it might not be enough.

Nickelson and Democrat former city Chief Administrative Office Henry Whitehorn have locked horns for the position now twice, with the pair emerging from the field in the general election where Nickleson had led Whitehorn 45 percent to 35 percent, and Republican candidates overall receiving 53 percent. Then almost five weeks later famously they virtually tied, with the certified total showing Whitehorn up by one vote. However, a rubber match became necessary when courts found too many irregularities in election conduct to make the actual result indeterminate.

Whitehorn closed the gap because turnout differential swung in his favor, where Republican-favoring precinct turnout fell 5.3 percent while Democrat-favoring precinct turnout increased 1.2 percent, even as overall turnout dropped 2.4 percent. If Nickelson could mitigate each of those changes even slightly, he would win, and increasing base turnout seemed the way to do it based upon the trends had gone adversely for him as a result of falling turnout.

Monroe race to see if Ellis portends trend

By this time next week, we’ll know if independent Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis was a canary in the coal mine for Democrats or just lightning in a bottle.

In 2020, Ellis unexpectedly defeated Democrat former long-time Mayor Jamie Mayo and other candidates to win as a white candidate in a solidly black-majority electorate. However, that may have had more to do with Mayo, who is black, than anything else, whose sometimes odd actions made white voters increasingly suspicious of his leadership and black voters less enthusiastic about him.

On election day – which occurred in July rather than March because of Wuhan coronavirus pandemic restrictions and which might have affected turnout – Ellis won in a 63 percent black constituency. White voter turnout appeared substantially higher than black, although overall it was a healthy over 40 percent. Still, in precincts where blacks comprised at least 90 percent of the vote, Ellis picked up 15 percent while Mayo barely garnered two-thirds, demonstrating greater crossover appeal for white candidates than traditionally.