Fall LA races becoming duller by the moment

Of the two marquee state races on Louisiana’s ballot this fall, one has been decided and the other looks like it might as well be.

Not that races for federal office seem very competitive, made a bit less interesting without a Senate contest this cycle. All five congressional Republican incumbents running at best face token opposition, and even the newly-constructed second majority-minority district in operation probably only for this election cycle has Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields possessing more than $600,000 to play with, having spent relatively little to this point, while his considered main opposition, Republican former state Sen. Elbert Guillory, has yet to file any campaign finance reports. Unless Guillory, who has demonstrated fundraising prowess for his political action committee, mounts a serious campaign, there’s no way anybody can overcome Fields in a district favoring him.

But it was anticipated that competition could be intense for the two offices on statewide entities up from grabs this cycle, the Supreme Court and Public Service Commission, in both cases District 2. For the Court, that is a new one with a redraw of its map that echoed the congressional map in creating a second M/M district. It slices up northeast Louisiana, meanders across and down the state’s border southward, and into Baton Rouge.

Bossier Jury, Port set to squeeze taxpayers

Besides increased values for some that for many are accentuated by an eight-year lag in tax assessments, Bossier Parish property owners also may face property tax rate increases from at least the Police Jury and Port of Caddo-Bossier.

During quadrennial presidential election years, in Louisiana parishes reappraise property values. That didn’t occur across the board in 2020 due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, so for some 2024 will present their first adjustment since 2016. While some properties may lose value, others may gain, and likely in Bossier Parish when made final – the process is in its preliminary stage where assessments made can be challenged – in the aggregate property values will have risen.

That means more paid in taxes, but the Constitution permits a safety valve potentially to ease this. Under normal circumstances, the total amount for all properties substantially the same with the same owners collected for a jurisdiction must equal that total from the previous assessment. To accomplish this, millage rates are “rolled back” automatically, so the higher aggregate value times a lower rate equals the same aggregate amount of taxation as previous, with the rate adjusted precisely to match the previous total collected.

LA must step on gas to ride with AI revolution

It’s being handed to Louisiana on a silver platter. Let’s hope the state’s current crop of policy-makers doesn’t emulate those of the past and blow it.

Particularly with artificial intelligence applications ramping up at an accelerating pace, future world energy demand estimates have begun to escalate. In response, energy firms are reconsidering moves they made away from reliance on coal, natural gas, and nuclear power that purveyors of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hysteria have pressured them to seek, with companies now considering restarting closed operations, abandoning closure plans, and expanding these capacities.

And there is perhaps no state, particularly in per capita terms, that stands to gain more from this than Louisiana, especially when it comes to natural gas. Among the states, Louisiana accounts for about 10 percent of U.S. total marketed natural gas production and holds about 6 percent of the nation's natural gas reserves, good enough to rank third highest in marketed natural gas production and seventh in proved natural gas reserves. It also is the major distributor of natural gas, because of it reserves and production but also as it serves as the major transmission point both within the country and now outside of it with liquified natural gas exports.

Highest sales tax city in LA goes higher still

That’s good timing: West Monroe is raising sales taxes after being identified as the municipality with the highest sales tax rate in Louisiana.

The Tax Foundation’s mid-year report on sales taxation ranks Louisiana only 37^th among the states in state sales taxes, but then throw in the second-highest combined weighed local sales tax rates and it crests at the top of the consolidated rate at 9.565 percent. At any location in the state, consumers could have added to the state rate (which doesn’t apply to food, drugs, and utilities) sales taxes levied by perhaps several different local governments.

In West Monroe, for many parts of the city there is just the Ouachita Parish School District’s three percent and the city’s 2.99 percent. This combined rate is actually lower than a number of places around the state; Sterlington, for example, has a combined rate of 6.50 percent, but the city’s rate is only 2.5 percent as the District’s rate there is a point lower but parish and fire protection levies add a point each.

LA judicial selection method change desirable

From the inception of this blog, time after time after time after time it has implored the state to change its method of judicial selection. The case of Democrat 19^th Judicial Judge Eboni Johnson Rose invites a reminder of this.

Rose recently was suspended, with pay, entirely from the bench, which in Louisiana is done upon recommendation of a panel of judges, lawyers, and other citizens appointed by various levels of judges collectively called the Judiciary Commission and ratified by the Supreme Court. It’s the most serious sanction possible, keeping her off the bench even before the Commission completes an investigation. While those details are confidential for now, a series of questionable decisions in just her first three years in office apparently led to this punishment that assumes justice from her bench would be severely compromised were she allowed to continue presiding over cases.

Of course, the quality of her decision-making, if not competence, were unknowns when she secured her spot, through an election which in no way guarantees a quality judge will be selected, just one who can collect a majority of votes. Generally speaking, the Commission and Court are quite loath to intervene in these cases, as it involves for some Commission members and for the Court other judges supposedly there at the behest of the electorate.