Election pressures digging deeper Shreveport hole

Despite Shreveport having a turkey delivered to it, election year politics threatens to compound its negative effects even more.

On the heels of budget negotiations that bandy about pay raises for city employees beyond the statutorily-required ones for police, Moody’s Ratings dropped all forms of Shreveport debt down a notch to barely investment grade. It stated essentially two reasons for doing so: the city’s dwindling fiscal position highlighted by its deteriorating fund balances that are indicative of deficit spending, and by its unwillingness to increase further water and sewerage rates to provide sufficient capital to fix the numerous and large deficiencies in its water, sewage, and drainage systems.

The rate issue is the time bomb that Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux inherited when he took office. Although it barely was discussed during the 2022 campaign, whoever took office as a result would have to address Shreveport’s massive day of reckoning concerning an Environmental Protection Agency consent decree that has gone way over budget. Separately, S&P Global rated the newest issuance low investment grade level and kept the two other issues related to water and sewerage at the same level scarcely above junk status. Additionally, the firm turned negative on the city’s outlook, meaning it increasingly believed a downgrade of ratings was in the cards within the next couple of years.

This has put Arceneaux between a rock and hard place, because he can’t raise rates without the cooperation of a Democrat City Council supermajority that doesn’t want to do that. And, with the 2026 campaign underway, voters might not look kindly on another hike after an increase last year, already having voiced disapproval at a two percent increase of his that didn’t even go towards fulfilling the decree, which councilor criticism forced him to yank.

But making matters worse is Arceneaux has thrown his support behind pay raises for city employees. He proposed a three percent increase for all except those in public safety who would receive five percent as state law mandates at least a two percent increase. For some that is not enough as they would like to see the public safety cohort receive a ten percent hike.

Once again, election year politics may be raising its head, with Arceneaux wanting to give city employees a reason to vote for him. But clearly the city can’t afford that, costing some $4.4 million that the administration claims will come from royalties from oil and gas revenues, federal funds left over from the American Rescue Plan Act and shifting some city funds dedicated to other services, including public streets. In other words, using one-time money and beggaring some needed capital spending.

That is foolhardy, but worse is because the even more foolhardy alternative gets pitched, this makes Arceneaux look like he’s miserly as well. Even before pitching the pay increases, the budget contemplated reducing the general fund balance by $5.5 million, a deficit any recurring pay hike expense will increase even further in future years.

Politically, the pursuit of higher pay with no predictable and stable resources to back it could be an electoral winner, as only the most informed and prudent voters will gig him while city employees will be heartened, and it’s not like opponents announced and unannounced are likely to spend more prudently. Yet it serves as another example of the decades-old can-kicking habit by Shreveport politicians that is building a larger and larger fiscal mess from which not even a supposed fiscally conservative Republican is immune.

Alarmism wave may hit LA data center growth

Climate alarmists have kept busy trying to snuff out the two most important new avenues of economic development in Louisiana, challenging policy-makers to counter such agendas contrary to the benefit of the people.

Earlier this fall, a rogue state judge invented law out of thin air to halt construction of another liquified natural gas production facility for export purposes near Lake Charles. She said the state didn’t take into account the alleged factors of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming effects and “environmental justice” in issuing a permit needed to proceed – an unprecedented ruling.

Although precedent argues that ruling stands little chance of being upheld by a higher court, the state went ahead and revised its determination to expedite the process on the basis of the judicial objections. In it, the state reaffirmed that the concerns it supposedly hadn’t addressed were and concluded the appropriateness of issuing the permit. For now, that may have turned aside the ploy of several activist groups concerned with carbon issued into the atmosphere in the transport and liquidation of natural gas as well as its eventual use after transportation to prevent propagation of the process.

Thanksgiving Day, 2025

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Sunday through Thursday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Thursday, Nov. 27 being Thanksgiving Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Hydrogen panel wants to tap taxpayers needlessly

Whistling into the wind is all right as long as Louisiana taxpayers don’t get put on the hook.

The Louisiana Clean Hydrogen Task Force released its report this week. Its mission was to study current hydrogen production, transportation, storage and use, and to recommend how Louisiana should respond to emerging “clean hydrogen” markets. “Clean” hydrogen is one that in its manufacture produces little in the way of carbon byproducts or carbon used in the process.

Typically, clean hydrogen production involving carbon in any form is paired with carbon capture and sequestration, certainly the most common form coming from use of fossil fuels especially natural gas. Louisiana has inherent resources to facilitate this process, such as an extensive pipeline network, shipping points for end products such ammonia, and geological formations suitable for sequestration. Plus, its manufacturers consume a large amount as well, often coexisting with production.

Scrambling Moreno decreases public safety

When you suffer political humiliation, create a straw man and make yourself look heroic to obscure your inherent culpability with silliness, Democrat New Orleans City Councilor and mayor-elect Helena Moreno reminds us.

Earlier this month, Moreno politically suffered a brutal debasement when she had the state dictate terms to her about a budgetary rescue. Allowing the State Bond Commission to issue $125 million in revenue anticipation notes in exchange for close oversight of city finances by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office, it forces her and the incoming Council to kowtow to outsiders on financial matters, even some very specific ones.

With city government’s wings now substantially clipped, what to do in order to prop yourself up and make people forget your substantial loss of power, to think you have more than you do and are more relevant than you actually are? In Moreno’s case, she decided to make city policy-makers look tough in opposing Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s, with the blessing of GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, plan to send Department of Homeland Security personnel to the New Orleans area next week to conduct intensive sweeps to locate and detain illegal aliens, particularly trying to nab those who committed crimes other than being in the country illegally.

Fiscal issues may shape W. Monroe mayor's race

Maybe West Monroe voters will get a choice they didn’t have in 2022 in their city’s mayor’s contest.

Republican businessman Don Nance tried to offer himself in 2022 as an opponent to Republican incumbent Mayor Staci Mitchell. She was running for reelection after having defeated 10-term incumbent Don Norris in 2018. Back then, she criticized Norris for what she termed a depopulating city and declining sales taxes, and as one idea for bucking the latter proposed building a facility across the way from the Ike Hamilton Exposition Center, a Norris project.

Nance was critical of that idea and other of her spending priorities. But that matchup never happened because he was disqualified when his residency, specifically his failure to register to vote at the residence at which he claimed a homestead exemption as required by statute, was challenged. West Monroe requires a year of residency within the city, and Nance’s exemption was on a property outside the city limits (although that didn't seem to matter when it came to the Shreveport mayor's race later that year).

New scoring reveals hard truths about LA schools

Parents and researchers might be pleased with Louisiana’s new accountability scoring system, but a lot of school board members and educrats won’t be.

This week, the state’s Department of Education released academic year 2025 results, times two. It reported school and district performance scores using both the current 150-point metric that separates elementary, middle, and high schools where elementary schools had three components, middle schools four, and high schools five components in score computation, along with new a 100-point scale approved last year based upon the proportion of students who achieve certain benchmarks with high schools having three components and all others two.

Specifically, elementary and middle schools would have 54 percent scored on student growth in math and English, with special attention paid to the lowest achieving students, and 46 percent with student proficiency in math, English, science, and social studies. For high schools, the former would be proportioned at 42 percent and the latter at 33 percent, with the additional component of 25 percent comprised of on-time graduation, readiness on a nationally recognized exam, and preparation to enter the work world or further studies.

Renewable energy, not data centers, cost consumers

Louisiana may stand to profit both in having lower electricity rates and increased economic growth, from the policy stupidity of other states

As the number of data centers explodes throughout the country, only now is Louisiana starting to gain traction with the proliferation. The state ranks 35^th in number with ten operational (out of 1,926 in the country), but with nine under construction is third-most in ratio of being built to existing yet is close to the bottom of ratio of announced to existing (even if the two announced are massive in size). It’s 23^rd in space and 13^th in wattage used, so it punches above its weight and both totals should increase sharply within the next couple of years (the Hyperion project alone when expanded to its full capacity will increase wattage by over two-and-a-half times all existing state center output).

One reason why Louisiana is off to a good start is its energy prices. Among industrial users, the most recent (August) pricing ranked it lowest in the country. At 6.28 cents per kilowatt/hour, it’s almost a third less than the national average of 9.06, and well below the costs of the top states in numbers of centers (only Texas is close).

BC Council should make good ordinance great

The Bossier City Council should take a good idea – to the chagrin of Republican Mayor Tommy Chnadler – and extend it further and seriously.

This week, the Council will take up an ordinance to give its members at least a passing acquaintance with all of the dozens of mayor nominees and Council potential confirmations. The intended new law would require the mayor to present nominees in some fashion, even if already serving and up for reappointment, to councilors along with biographical information and records for incumbents at least 30 days before an approval vote. Further, a previously denied nominee could not come up again for reappointment for at least 90 days after the negative vote. And all nominees would have to appear in front of the Council at a meeting of it.

Councilors, four of whom just started mid-year with the remainder having completed just one term, appear tired of the old wink-wink-nod-nod system characteristic of the graybeards washed out of the Council over the past two election cycles, allied as the deposed councilors were with former mayors who off to the side decided beforehand who would get to hand out what patronage plum to whom. Names, sometimes with no publicly-revealed qualifications and/or never appearing in front of the Council, would pop up on agendas without any warning to all councilors and stamped into their slot like on an assembly line.

Glimmer of hope for NO, but clowns still in charge

While East Baton Rouge Parish’s metropolitan government is trying to right a ship taking on water, New Orleans elected officials and voters are showing at least a few signs they are halting the rearranging of deck chairs and actually want finally to do something about reversing the protracted agony of their sinking ship, events culminating in last week’s elections demonstrate.

Mismanagement has been a historical feature, not bug, of ruling New Orleans, but since the late 20^th century this has gone onto steroids. Most of the 21^st has featured all of a male hustler who misplayed an unfortunate but unanticipated chance to make major headway in arresting the city’s demographic and economic decline into using his influence corruptly to earn an orange jumpsuit, a lackey legacy more concerned about making symbolic political statements than in trying to reverse the decline, and a female hustler who checked out long ago concerning city governance to live high off the hog on taxpayer expense that may earn her an orange jumpsuit as well. City councilors for their part, if not getting convicted, either actively have participated in benign neglect or gone along with digging the hole deeper.

A month ago, the city found itself in its worst human-caused disaster ever, fiscal in nature. Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who gives the appearance that she can’t wait to get out of office and work on her criminal defense, spent Wuhan coronavirus money like a drunken sailor and budgeted entirely unrealistically in watching revenues evaporate and expenses mount to send the city calling on the state to bail it out. After various state officials demanded real accountability, it hesitated as if its officials – now really led by incoming Democrat mayor and current City Councilor Helena Moreno – thought they could get a better deal. Reality intruded and instead they struck a face-saving deal essentially the same as the one they had tried to reject: oversight by a state official, Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack’s office, in exchange for a $125 million bridge loan for a narrow range of authorized expenditures, at a lower rate than first proposed.

Tax-weary EBR voters turn back sketchy renewals

Last weekend, the “Thrive” plan didn’t thrive in the voting booth. It’s important to understand why and what are the implications.

The consolidated government of East Baton Rouge Parish had on the ballot a corrective plan backed by Republican Mayor-President Sid Edwards. Upon his taking office, it soon became clear that metro government was facing a deficit that only promised to grow, so Edwards came up with the plan. This largely was a consequence of the leaving of the cash cow that now is the separate city of St. George that subsidized the profligacy of past elected Democrats that was so egregious St. George residents constitutionally compartmentalized and fought off a lawsuit from the perpetrators trying to cancel that.

In essence, the plan would slice money from three over-funded dedications and divert some of that to the general fund for ongoing operating expenses. Money going to the parish library system would be the lion’s share affected, but little slices of funding for pest abatement and for the Council on Aging also were targeted. Additionally, the city-parish would divert over $52 million of the fat $121 million the library sat on – far above its projected capital outlay needs with plenty of recent transfer already to the Capital Projects Fund for that purpose – to pay off debt and use the savings as another source of funds.

Story frames poorly Landry role in hirings

Mainstream journalism has evolved into often promoting an agenda through news stories employing implication and innuendo. A recent story about leadership at Louisiana State University provides an apex example.

This month, the LSU System gained a new president in former McNeese State University Pres. Wade Rousse, and a new LSU Baton Rouge chancellor in former University of Alabama Provost James Dalton. The LSU Board of Supervisors, a near-majority of whom have been appointed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry along with its presiding officer, made the selections and in the process split the job from its previously combined status under William Tate IV, who left and took with him a few others to the Rutgers University system early in Landry’s term.

The Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges penned a story related to this, which also broadly looked at recent university head honcho appointments. Purporting to reveal the role Landry had in this, it slyly pushed a narrative that not only did Landry have a large influence over the process but also it was extensive to the point that it may be detrimental to academic accreditation by alleged politicization of the process.

Bridges ran this argument in two ways. One was by framing the process as deviant compared to past searches, especially with Tate. Landry was described as telling some supervisors that he thought Rousse would do well and said he didn’t go so far as did his predecessor Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards in Tate’s selection, pointing out that Edwards previously had hosted South Carolina officials including Tate and supervisors at the Governor’s Mansion and lauded Tate.

This assertion of Edwards favoritism Bridges attempted to torpedo with comments made by Edwards’ commissioner of administration Jay Dardenne, who had applied for the job, by Robert Dampf, an Edwards’ loyalist who was board chairman then and was replaced recently by Landry, and by Edwards himself, denying that. But the facts of the search paint a very different picture.

In an initial list of over two dozen including Dardenne, Tate wasn’t on the list. In a narrowed list of eight, he wasn’t there. But suddenly, lo and behold at the Supervisors meeting to vet the eight  Tate – who never had headed a university system much less a university system – was added to the list and interviewed on the spot, leading to him appearing on a semifinalist list that included then-University of Louisiana System head Jim Henderson Anybody experienced in academia will tell you this sequence of events is a hallmark of a forced selection; late in the process the headhunter firm was told to cull its files or contacts and find someone who fit a profile, in this case likely a minority with a background in administration or research involving diversity, inclusion, and equity issues, to match the governor’s agenda.

Surprise: days later, Tate gets it, with Dampf calling him a “great leader.” Of course, he and Edwards won’t admit publicly the latter’s role in the process – and, curiously, Bridges’ story was entirely incurious about these details which kicks the props out of its argument. By comparison, Landry’s role in Rousse’s hiring seems quite modest.

As it also seems with the hiring at the University of Louisiana Monroe of new president Louisiana native Carrie Castille. The story also alludes to Landry’s praising Castille to corral her over Louisiana Delta Community College’s one-time interim chancellor Chris Broadwater. But it neglects to mention Castille’s extensive higher education career while Broadwater had been in that business only a few years (currently a corporate lawyer for a business with an extensive history of state contracts), after resigning from the House of Representatives midway through Edwards’ first term as it had become clear his loyalty to Edwards was costing him influence among his fellow Republicans who controlled the chamber. Although the final vote is not public, it’s likely that Edwards appointees on the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors got him in the race and almost pushed him past the finish line.

The other tack Bridges takes is to hint that Landry’s involvement was extensive enough to threaten accreditation of state colleges by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges for politicization, quoting Dardenne to back that up. However, that judgement is entirely validated when reviewing how SACSCOC investigated a charge that Florida Republican Gov. Rick DeSantis interfered with the hiring of The New College of Florida’s president, which on the surface indicates much more involvement by him than in the accusations against Landry. SACSCOC reaffirmed nothing untoward happened, but if Bridges bothered to gather that information in assessing the claim, inappropriately either he sat on it or his editors removed it.

Thus, the article tries to insinuate that Landry’s role in the hirings were problematic. That tells us more about the general mainstream media’s antipathy towards Landry than actually providing enlightenment on the incident.

Congress KO's bad policy LA legislators wouldn't

Buzzkill! What Louisiana legislators with feet of clay refused to do members of Congress had the fortitude to do to prevent soon people without a “medical” reason from getting high legally in the state.

One of the downplayed aspects of the tussle between Democrats and Republicans to pass at least a temporary continuing federal budget, accomplished this week, was that three appropriations bills would move forward to fund their areas for the entire fiscal year, one of these being the Department of Agriculture’s colloquially known as the “farm bill.” In it was a provision that starting the next fiscal year would ban sales of hemp-related products if each container has more than 0.4 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive portion of cannabis that comes from the hemp plant..

The 2018 farm bill legalized using industrial hemp, but failed to put adequate restrictions on the use of THC from it, defining usage by weight instead of total amount. The marketplace abhors a void and so it stepped in to create consumable products as high as 15 mg per unit. While these are smaller amounts relative to what may be sold legally as medical marijuana or illegally as lids on the street, take enough of them and you can cop a buzz.

Open electoral season has begun on Arceneaux

A year out from Shreveport’s 2026 mayoral election and a month removed from Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s reelection campaign announcement, finally a Democrat opponent has emerged which tells more about the tone the contest will take than who will be an actual threat.

Arceneaux won in 2022 because of the negative impression his runoff opponent Democrat former state Sen. Greg Tarver had created among some activist Democrats and in the electorate who should have been natural supporters. This means Arceneaux had a target on his back from the moment he took office in the eyes of black Democrats, who feel a majority-black electorate never should have allowed a white Republican into the mayoralty.

Arceneaux has had his ups and downs given a tough situation, as a result of poor decisions by his Democrat predecessors over the previous quarter-century, exacerbated by a City Council gerrymandered to produce five Democrats of seven able to pass legislation over his head. This has produced a largely-cautious, almost technocratic approach to governing by the GOP mayor.

Veterans Day, 2025

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Sunday through Thursday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Monday, Nov. 11 being Veterans' Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to this page.

Bad ruling doesn't slow LA LNG export growth

Even an activist rogue elected state judge won’t be able to slow the momentum liquified natural gas transport and export has established in Louisiana, reaping a windfall to Louisiana’s economy.

Last month, independent 38^th District Judge Penelope Richard ruled in favor of two of three claims made by three leftist environmentalist special interest groups. Richard previously had served as a public defender before election to the court as a Democrat, but more recently ran as an independent as Cameron Parish voter registrants signing up as Republicans began to become the district’s plurality.

In buying claims that the state (and by implication the federal government, which approved of the environmental impact statement earlier this year) ignored catastrophic anthropogenic global warming as a factor in issuing a permit, she wholly created new law using an absurdly expansionist view of the state Constitution that obligates the state to consider CAGW in permitting, and echoed that approach in alleging the state didn’t consider “environmental justice” as a factor – even though months earlier the Environmental Protection Agency repudiated the entire concept in its enforcement actions.

LA ratepayers must not pay for Meta CAGW fantasy

What can go wrong? It turns out that even as Meta boosts its data center investment in northeast Louisiana, for residents there may be higher electricity rates and fewer police officers around.

Almost a year ago, Meta announced land deals aimed at plunking down a center in Richland Parish. Since then, it has bought almost as much land again and raised its cost estimate for the project, known as Hyperion (in the original Greek, “he who watches over”), from $10 billion to $27 billion.

As part of the arrangement, Meta pledged to draw a significant portion of its power from renewable sources, perhaps eventually as much as five gigawatts from all sources after starting out needing about one GW. Five GW would power over a million homes.

CCS future, not past, relevant to LA Senate race

Republican Senate candidates trying to differentiate themselves in a field where daylight barely shines among them on issue preferences should stop playing “he said/she said” and instead concentrate on telling voters what they will do on the issue of carbon capture and sequestration.

In a battle largely played out in gatherings and on social media, Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez supporters have taken to trading accusations about whether each is against CCS and when. Fleming indirectly started it when some months ago he began proclaiming that he was the only candidate not to have voted for expanding CCS at some point in his legislative career.

That hit both Miguez and, although perhaps not intended since she didn’t enter the race until recently, state Rep. Julie Emerson where they live. Since 2020, with both being members of the Legislature throughout, several matters have come through that regulate CCS in some fashion, sometimes expansionary, sometimes restrictive, that scarcely any legislator ever voted against. As late as 2024 both were voting in favor of bills expanding the scope of CCS.

While neither publicly have addressed the controversy, supporters of Miguez’s have been by trying to shoot the messenger. They claim, using a trail of web material, that not only did Fleming have a pro-expansion CCS vote while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives but also his opposition to CCS only became public when he began touting his line about CCS votes cast. They also assert that back when these votes were taken too little was known about CCS and its safety concerns and need to dislodge private property rights to hold legislators accountable for these in the present.

That’s a weak argument, akin to ignorance of the law being an excuse to break it, and could be applied as well to Fleming’s supposed 2015 vote on an omnibus energy bill where the section in question only in the absolutely vaguest sense could be read as an endorsement of CCS – it instructed the federal government that it could shovel more funds to CCS research if an evaluated project seemed promising. Keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong in conducting CCS research, or even in having CCS as long as it has adequate safety measures attached, buy in from local governments, and that government isn’t subsidizing it.

A recent executive order by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry touched many of these bases but could not address the single biggest failing attendant to CCS: federal government tax policy favoring, to taxpayer detriment, the highly uneconomical practice. Outside of enhanced oil recovery, there’s no use for captured and stored carbon at present that pays for itself.

It’s done in most cases only because of a lucrative tax credit known as Section 45Q. So, the relevant issue for the campaign is preference regarding the retention of that credit, regardless of when opposition really began or whether everybody was asleep at the wheel.

Fleming has publicly spoken about it, saying it should be repealed. We also reasonably can infer that the remaining major candidate, Republican Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, even if he has yet specifically to address publicly the issue, would be against it since he is on the record in a public forum, a year prior to launching his Senate bid, calling CCS part of  a “scam.”

So, let’s hear from Miguez and Emerson about 45Q credits. And if they pledge to try to dump them, then voters can take note that only GOP incumbent Bill Cassidy, to the chagrin of state voters, among quality candidates shows any genuine backing of CCS, giving them another reason to toss him out of office in favor of any of the Republican front runners.

LA case may moot recent Democrat election gains

Recent election results that cheered Democrats may prove short-lived, if not possibly reversed, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a Louisiana case that will affect its electoral maps on multiple levels.

The Bayou State now waits upon the Court’s decision in Callais v. Louisiana to determine whether race will be allowed to be used as a proxy for partisan goals. A decision to rein that in and to provide new, likely more restrictive, parameters for when racial categories can become relevant and legal in drawing district boundaries would give the state a chance to revert back from a map gerrymandered to produce two majority-minority districts almost guaranteeing two of six seats won by Democrats to one where only one such seat exists and Republicans likely would win five of six seats in a state where a third of voters are black.

The whole country watches for this, especially the handful of states where such a decision could lead to new reapportionment options. One such is California, which like Louisiana over the past few decades has had an electorate become increasingly skewed towards one party, but in the opposite direction.

LSU Board chooses wisely new governance, leaders

The Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors delivered a welcome surprise this week with the hiring of a new system president paired with a reorganization that stands to make the delivery of education by the system’s institutions more relevant and vital to improving the state’s quality of life.

The Board hired McNeese State University’s current president Wade Rousse to lead the system. But instead of also making him chancellor of the Baton Rouge campus additionally, it hired a late applicant, University of Alabama Provost James Dalton, to serve as LSUA&M’s leader, returning the governance structure to what it had been a dozen years ago.

Perhaps there was a plan beyond what appears to be a last-minute decision to spit the jobs had they once had been. It isn’t unusual for a search firm to solicit candidates, but apparently after the deadline had closed when Dalton wasn’t even initially a semi-finalist for the combined post is an atypical process. Regardless of the provenance, it’s a wise move.

BC to weigh new fee to stem white elephant red ink

If at first you don’t succeed, knock seven dollars off the price and call it something different to stem the red ink from the white elephant known now as the Brookshire Grocery Arena.

Just over three years ago, ASM Global, the management company decided it would institute a $12 parking fee at Bossier City’s arena, where $2 would go to the company handling the parking through a cashless system and the other $10 would be split evenly between ASM for operations and the city for capital expenditures. As if to highlight the city’s acceptance of the deal, at the next City Council meeting discussion about taking $350,000 out of the 2017 LCDA Bond Fund to buy a new generator for the facility focused on how the new bounty would offset such costs, particularly as the arena has lost money since its inception 25 years ago, over $10 million cumulatively.

That idea went over like a lead balloon. Almost as suddenly as it had appeared it quickly disappeared. But the problem remained. Despite barely making money for only the third time in its history in 2024, not only does the facility continue to hemorrhage funds generally, but also this is on top of capital improvements being made. The 2022 dip into the 2017 LCDA bond fund actually came as part of a one-time effort to perform capital improvements. Over the past several years, over $15 million has gone to that purpose, with a typical budget of $250,000 each year reserved out of the Hotel/Motel Taxes Fund from occupancy and related sales taxes for this purpose.

Suit, recall latest challenges to Monroe's Ellis

It was take-your-shot at Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis last week, in the courts now and maybe later at the polls, early.

As previously threatened, the three Democrats on the City Council, plus local publisher Roosevelt Wright, filed suit against Ellis, as well as Republicans Gov. Jeff Landry and Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill, plus new Monroe fire chief Timothy Williams. This involves the selection of Williams by Landry for his post that a new state law allowed. Ellis had mentioned that the City Council, led by the Democrats, twice turned down (for conflicting reasons) Ellis nominees for it, including Williams, to GOP state Sen. Stewart Cathey, who then authored and had passed into law a bill giving the governor the power to appoint the official from qualifiers for cities about Monroe’s size (only Alexandria also could qualify) when conflict between a mayor and council dragged on for too long.

The suit goes all over the legal map, alleging both race-based claims prejudicial against blacks and violation of home rule provisions. To say the least it is a long shot in arguing just because a majority-black populated city didn’t have a black fire chief appointed that racial discrimination occurred, and in its claiming the state usurped home rule powers when in fact state law supersedes conflicting charter provisions.

Democrat session overreactions serve their agenda

The special session on pushing 2026 election dates back a month was done and dusted this past week after just a few days. But it seemed to last forever because of caterwauling by Democrats seeking to distort and obfuscate the issue, using false alarmism to shore up their deteriorating political position.

For the supermajority Republicans in the Legislature and GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, it was all pro forma: as the U.S. Supreme Court looks extraordinarily likely to declare invalid the current congressional map – one that Landry prodded the Legislature to accept in a way that favored Democrats because of a court declaration (then still in dispute and not close to being resolved) that the previous version was unconstitutional – the majority wanted to buy more time to draw a new and constitutional map. That’s all it did.

But legislative Democrats disingenuously tried to equate new election dates with something beyond the state merely giving itself the best chance to be in constitutional compliance, in asserting changing dates meant that the Republican majority was trying to bring representational matters back to the point they had been prior to the current map – having gone from one of six districts being majority-minority to two, that this would be junked in reversion to a map with just one M/M district or even zero. This cynically conflated the issue of constitutional compliance with reapportionment politics: the former stands independently of the latter, even if the latter depends upon the presence of the former.

Like herpes, BC water scare stories reappear

Like herpes, celebrity scare artist Erin Brockovich is back to plague Bossier City with her money-generating brand of alarmism for alarmism’s sake.

Seven years ago, Brockovich – who launched a career in environmentalist quackery when she helped to con a huge lawsuit settlement payout from a California utility using faulty scientific conclusions and reasoning that brought her a hit movie deal – drummed up negativity about Bossier City’s water system in the wake of the discovery that naegleria fowleri, popularly known as the brain-eating amoeba, had infiltrated a line outside the city system but connected to it. The city commenced with a lengthy chlorine flush to negate that, but in the interim Brockovich and a colleague moaned about the allegedly dangerousness and ineffectiveness of it all, even though scientific evidence said otherwise.

Now she’s back, griping again about chlorine flushes after somehow spotting word that city water customers were complaining about the smell. That odor is a byproduct of when pure chlorine, rather than its related chloramine, comes into contact with organic compounds and produced byproducts of trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids.

N.O. takes pass on chance to adopt sane policy

At the start of this week, Republican Treasurer John Fleming had no idea that his schedule would fill up so suddenly – only to watch it empty out quickly because New Orleans elected officials can’t face disempowerment caused by their past policy sins.

Fleming as treasurer sits on the somewhat-known State Bond Commission, as chairman. It meets regularly to approve of requests by state and local governments to authorize and sell bonds and to schedule ballot propositions. But it received an unusual request earlier this week.

New Orleans came to it asking to sell $125 million in short-term revenue bonds, in response to a “surprise” $160 million deficit. The SBC agreed to meet on the matter, but it became clear that its members weren’t at all jacked about the idea, pointing to lax fiscal administration by the city.

Emerson likely closes quality GOP Senate field

Likely the field of competitive candidates for the U.S. Senate, all Republicans, now is set with the entrance to the contest of GOP state Rep. Julie Emerson.

With Democrats flailing for finding an even remotely credible candidate, Emerson joins a field of potential winners Treas. John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, and incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy. In fact, of the five Cassidy may have the longest shot of winning, as with the reborn party closed primary election for a nomination into the general election for 2026 in place Cassidy remains behind the eight ball for his questionable, to conservatives, policy votes early in his second term and hostility towards GOP Pres. Donald Trump by voting to impeach and convict him for no good reason.

But as Cassidy now claims to have over $10 million in his campaign kitty, any competitive candidate will have to raise at least a couple of million. Fleming (mostly his own) and Miguez (mostly from others) have done that, while Skrmetta, who entered the race in September, still hasn’t reported his campaign finances.

Disregard meaningless closed primary poll

Don’t believe the propaganda campaign designed to prevent greater conservative governance that will come in Louisiana and from its members of Congress through its modestly modified electoral system.

A special interest group representing leftist and Beltway Republicans commissioned a poll trying to discourage the institution of semi-closed primary elections. This kind of election nominates candidates to run in a general election, almost always with a runoff provision, by allowing only voters who affiliate with a major party or not with the other major party to participate in one major party’s primary. Currently for all offices, Louisiana uses a blanket primary system, which isn’t really a primary but a general election (with a runoff provision), as any voter regardless of affiliation may vote for a candidate of any or no party who all run together.

But last year the state changed the method for congressional, Public Service Commission, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Supreme Court contests from blanket to semi-closed. This creates a purer expression of partisan will for general election candidates because it prevents the other major party affiliates from trying to influence which candidate members of a party prefer.

Grifters squawk, but Landry capture order sensible

You can tell the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry Administration has taken with the issue of carbon capture and sequestration is sensible because profiteering special interests are squawking about it.

Starting Aug. 1, the (renamed for the second time in fewer than two years) Department of Conservation and Energy launched an initiative culminating in an executive order earlier this month by Landry that has the effect of creating a chokepoint for entities that wish to engage in the CCS practice. It all began in the opening days of Landry’s term when the federal government awarded the state the ability to regulate the practice, in lieu of the federal government.

A law regulating it had been passed several years ago and another couple this year addressing the process, and DCE has issued a few regulations since outlining and facilitating the process. But the guidance has become much more explicit since Aug. 1, which with its updates set in motion several things. First, it stated it would give precedence to one project at the permit issuance stage followed by five others (there are over three dozen in various stages of the permitting process; this half-dozen is the farthest along). Second, it imposed additional requirements such as public engagement (translation: it must record citizen and local government reactions and whether they approve of a request) and adhering to pipeline regulations both current and future when issued by the federal government. Third, if any extant project made all but the most cosmetic change to its application, it would go to the back of the queue.

Session gives LA decent chance of new 2026 map

As the Louisiana Legislature enters a special session to adjust the election calendar to change potentially its congressional map, Democrat legislators responded with futile attempts to reduce the state’s chances at complying with the U.S. Constitution.

The session would give the state greater latitude to respond to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could invalidate its current map. It’s unpredictable when the Court will rule, but last year cases heard in October on average took about four months for a decision to come out (least was about two weeks, most was almost five months), so that would place the decision in the middle of February.

Essentially, three bills to date have been introduced on this issue, two of which essentially duplicate each other in the different chambers. These push back the electoral calendar four weeks that would place the first deadline, for non-major party general election aspirants to turn in nomination petitions to secure a place on the ballot, in mid-January. If the Court hits that average, that would be the only deadline potentially altered, because if then a new map is drawn then the petitions might not have enough signatures matching a new district. Close would be qualifying by major party candidates, which would become mid-February.

Nungesser anti-closed primary arguments fail

As the Louisiana Legislature plans to double down on its use of semi-closed primaries in a special session to commence this week, Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser managed to talk some nonsense about the electoral system.

Nungesser continues his long-standing opposition to this system with his preference being the blanket primary currently used to elect all local and legislative, single executive, and judicial except for the Supreme Court offices, under which he gained office. He alleged that closed primaries were a major force in divisive politics and would return the state to the blanket primary system for all contests.

(Note: the term “open” primary is carelessly used interchangeably by some, including Nungesser, with what actually is a “blanket” primary. Actually, an “open” primary has general election nominations decided by party primaries, where a voter regardless of affiliation picks one party’s primary in which to participate. A “blanket” primary is one where candidates run together regardless of affiliation where all voters regardless of affiliation may participate. A “closed” primary is one where only those affiliated with a party may participate only in that party’s primary. Louisiana’s semi-closed system for some offices allows voters not affiliated with either major party to participate in one major party’s primary along with that party’s affiliated voters.)

BC fiscal prudence in vogue with new councilors

This is the kind of governing that Bossier City should have had since the turn of the century, City Council 2026 budget deliberations show.

It wasn’t that in the first quarter of the 21^st century that Bossier City overspent and put itself in financial jeopardy. Rather, it budgeted conservatively for operating expenses while enjoying bounties first from gambling and then from shale oil. But what it did do is within those parameters blew money fast on all sorts of unneeded concrete: a white elephant arena, a parking garage for a private developer, a high-tech office building that failed to attract its intended client, alternative fuel station, and a $50 million-a-mile duplicative road. This waste cost in the neighbor of $200 million for things the city easily could have done without and should have left to the private sector to build and own.

This created a huge debt overhang contributing to, at its peak, putting the city on the hook for almost half a billion dollars, half of which was unrelated to its water provision. It has come down a little since then – consider that in 1997 (right before arena construction started) the total was just a tenth of that – but even today if it hadn’t wasted bucks on those capital items the city would have zero non-enterprise debt. Instead, today it still owes around $375 million with the non-enterprise interest payable of $63 million through 2044, after paying from 1998 through 2024 $173 million.

Regents can promote inquiry over indoctrination

Louisiana should try a different strategy for now to join the vanguard of states that demand that their institutions of higher learning cultivate critical thinking, not indoctrination.

Sensing incorrectly and severely overplaying its hand assuming that the voting public would accept its judgment that a majority of the mass public were systemically, if not irredeemably, racist and badly in need of corrective action emanating from it, much of higher education now has gone into full-scale retreat over woke “anti-racism” ideology it has peddled. More nakedly that ever it displayed this in classroom instruction in the first half of this decade.

Louisiana colleges weren’t exempt from this fusillade. By way of example, at one time my university suggested we incorporate various forms of this propaganda into out teaching were applicable; for example, recommending use of the deeply-flawed and historically inaccurate 1619 Project materials that noxiously hypothesize racism as a fundamental and inescapable part of American culture from its start. Courses at institutions across the state have been taught with this notion as foundational to their purposes.

New map rules from LA case to wash out peak woke

More than just potentially fundamentally reshaping reapportionment jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais may signal that, finally after five tortuous years, peak woke has been jettisoned sufficiently from public policy-making.

Understand that what oozed into larger society during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic had incubated for decades, even more than a century, in academia. What we now call “woke,” or coming to understand the faith that America is systemically and irredeemably racist to the point that, as one of its leading exponents phrased it, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination” – in other words, as allegedly subconscious racism against blacks was inevitable despite a stated conscious desire not to be prejudiced against blacks, thus policy had to favor deliberately blacks at the expense of the majority’ supposed oppressiveness, is nothing more than a mutilated Marxism where race replaces class, with both versions equally discredited by the data.

The pandemic allowed government to vastly expand its powers playing upon people’s fears and prejudices during the last year of Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s first term, effectively neutering his agenda as well as setting him up for defeat, then with Democrat former Pres. Joe Biden following in office and courtesy of his rapidly diminishing capacities letting the far left run amok in both policy-making and in pressuring society to follow it. Like an opportunistic disease neo-racism posing as anti-racism metastasized into the nation’s bloodstream.

Court poised to junk LA map, old map thinking

There is no doubt that Louisiana’s current congressional map that jackknifes into it two black majority-minority districts of six will disappear sooner than later, argumentation in front of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier today revealed, but just how little of a role race will play in apportionment going forward remains to be seen when the Court’s ruling on the consolidated Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais comes out.

From the start, the Court majority, those justices picked by a Republican president, unambiguously signaled the current map soon would hit the ash heap, confirming lower court rulings, precisely because of the dominant role race played in its creation. GOP Gov. Jeff Landry successfully urged the Legislature to draw the current map after the Court refused to resolve the conflict between statute (Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act) and the Constitution (the Equal Protection Clause) as to how prominently race could be used to precent potential discrimination by race.

Too far, as the Louisiana case that the Court’s previous ruling impacted demonstrated. In that instance, for the first time ever a court ruled that, despite the actual wording of Section 2, that if a state had a discrete minority population of a certain proportion that the number of seats that were M/M roughly had to correspond to that. This was the logical extension of a bedrock assumption drawn into the jurisprudence of the VRA, that regarding race outcome mattered, not intent, when districts were drawn: if you could maximize the number of M/M or opportunity districts for a plenary body that avoided not having at least a poor argument justifying the ways in which it could violate traditional principles of map-drawing in order to cater to race, you had to maximize.

Edwards acknowledges reality, smacks Democrats

He may be out to lunch on desirable policy preferences and not exactly honest, but Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards knows how to spot whether a campaign is winnable, to the chagrin of Louisiana Democrats and perhaps the delight of Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Edwards bludgeoned the fantasies of some in his party when this week he declared he would not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2026. He was the last Democrat to win statewide office, leading to the wild hope that he would enter the race and, as in both his gubernatorial victories in 2015 and 2019, keep out of the way as internecine Republican battles could permit him to sneak into office.

That became a pipe dream when, during his second term, Edwards took off the mask and showed his true leftist ideologue self. He won twice because he was a fraud, trying to convey the impression he was some kind of centrist, even conservative (only in the context of the extremists controlling his party nationally) while governing from left-of-center to the far left, depending on the issue, carrying himself as a blank slate in his first campaign and in his first term keeping in the dark or fooling enough people who didn’t follow closely enough politics to narrowly gain reelection.

Don't sleep on Seabaugh DA victory chances

Don’t write off the chances of Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh to become the next First District Attorney in 2027.

This week, Seabaugh will announce formally that he will purse the job of Caddo Parish district attorney, despite the fact that incumbent Democrat James Stewart, even if getting a bit long in the tooth by the end of the term when he will be approaching 80, shows every sign of seeking reelection. The news was met by some disparaging his chances.

That may not be a good bet. The uphill road that Seabaugh, or any white Republican, has to face is the parish as of late has turned to electing black Democrats, given that voter registration totals in the parish show whites with a majority of about 500 out of nearly 145,000 registrants in he foreground of a history of little black crossover voting but greater, if still small, white crossover voting. Stewart gained the office in a special election in 2015 over a white Republican but was reelected even more comfortably in 2020 over a white Democrat, while the only other parish-wide office focusing on public safety, sheriff, saw in 2024 a narrow win by black Democrat Henry Whitehorn over white Republican John Nickelson.

LA can't guarantee new House map for 2026

Louisiana can increase its chances of having congressional elections occur under new rules for 2026, but there’s no way it can guarantee that given the jurisprudence and timing of elections.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear whether statute and the Constitution conflict on drawing district boundaries. If so decided, that means the state can engage in a mid-cycle reapportionment to return the state to having only one of six majority-minority districts as opposed to two that the state felt forced to implement by previous judicial rulings for 2024.

To permit such a scenario for 2026 elections, the state must change its federal election dates. Already, petitioning for ballot access has begun for party primary elections scheduled Apr. 18, but unless the Court rules relatively quickly that would make changing boundaries to meet existing deadlines impossible. The deadline to turn in a petition to make a party primary ballot is four months prior to the election.

Sheriff's race aside, NO elections disappoint

Admittedly an extremely low bar to hurdle in terms of quality of governance, New Orleans possibly will be slightly better off after 2025 elections.

Maybe barely, by default, for the city’s head honcho. The dingbat Democrat LaToya Cantrell, under indictment, will give way to Democrat Councilor Helena Moreno, whose policy preferences are a mixture of anodyne appeals to better procedural execution of service delivery and wackiness by its nature that will overwhelm the former. For example, she’s all in on forcing more expensive renewable power onto Orleanians and talks of government pumping more regulation into housing provision, as if that already hasn’t left the city with a significant affordable housing shortage. It’s an agenda designed to drive even more people away and to put more into poverty, but at least the hope is she won’t be corrupt.

The incoming City Council may offer more hope. All the incumbents able to run won, and even the least awful of those who have served, District A Democrat Joe Giarusso, will be replaced by one of two of his former staffers who promise to be about as obnoxious in policy, although one, Democrat Aimee McCarron, in those terms might be a slight upgrade. And replacing Moreno for one of the two at-large posts, Democrat state Rep. Matthew Willard represents more of the same policy rubbish.

Arceneaux facing tough reelection road

Getting an early start, Republican Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux formally announced his bid for reelection in 13 months, just as an example of controversy flared that will make a second term an uphill proposition.

History instructs and numbers don’t lie. Arceneaux, a white Republican in a jurisdiction then where over half the voters registered as Democrats and even a higher proportion were black, in an upset captured the office because he ran against an unpopular incumbent and entered the runoff against a longtime, controversial black Democrat who had made enemies within the black community. Now facing an electoral environment where currently 55 percent of the electorate is black and a half Democrats, if he faces off against a quality black Democrat without the baggage other such candidates carried in 2022, he will be an underdog.

To win, Arceneaux had to have a near-perfect mayoralty, and he has done well. Taking a much more grounded and serious approach than his predecessor, he has tried to solve street-level problems that tend to transcend partisan boundaries. The most recent example, and perhaps his most effective and popular, has been to aggressively go after blighted properties and some big ones at that to, at least, clear areas of them.

Past EPA politicized agenda now costing LA

That the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seems a bit slow in doing its job in Louisiana is the wages of its now-excised obsession with conspiracy theories centered on race.

The EPA has come under criticism for a seemingly-slow response to an accident at Smitty’s Supply in Tangipahoa Parish, where an explosion and fire have spread chemical residue far and wide. Concerns have mounted about environmental contamination and both the EPA and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, with the state response somewhat tethered to the EPA’s, have pledged and pointed to increased urgency in the cleanup.

Unrelated but another complaint about slowness in EPA response comes from researchers at Louisiana State University. They have developed an environmentally friendly and humane method to put to death outlaw quadrupeds of the porcine variety. Feral hogs do considerable damage to agriculture and even flood control efforts, and this method of scattering rubber ball-sized bait that seems to light up their taste buds but doesn’t harm other wildlife promises to be a much more effective tactic in population control than hunting. But the product isn’t in circulation because the EPA has to approve of it and the process is long and convoluted that with attention paid to it could be streamlined and hastened.

BC budget presents chance to reshape fiscal mgt

Bossier City this year took a small step towards smarter fiscal management. Its 2026 budget reveals other opportunities where sweating other small stuff can add up to significant savings.

Tomorrow, the City Council takes up the separate budget ordinances, which largely reflect a measure of prudence. Typically, the city budgets conservatively which has paid off in recent years with a growing general fund balance – until the recently-exited long-in-the-tooth councilors concocted a city-wide pay raise built on political, not fiscal, reasons that promises to deplete that healthy surplus in a matter of years unless the city implements compensatory actions.

The Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration has in a few ways, one of which was a nonstarter: property tax increases. But it did get Council approve to muscle through water and sanitation fee increases that were eating away at reserves, hopefully obviating the need for subsidization from general tax revenues. It also apparently has called a halt to the drunken sailor spending by the departed graybeards on shiny baubles that boosted egos but were fiscally imprudent for the general value they imparted to the citizenry, by making a verbal commitment to using one source of funding for these wasteful capital projects – a sales tax that dumps into the Parkway Capital Project Fund – for its legally-permissible alternative of funding city operating activities.

Still, the level at which the 2026 budget draws from this, about $10 million, isn’t sustainable as only $4 million is budgeted to replenish the $10 million remaining, so that can’t work in the long run. Another trick up the sleeve may try to ameliorate this: a proposal by the Chandler Administration to unlock, which would not happen next year but could be incorporated into the 2027 budget, the $18 million in the Public Safety and Health Trust Fund which would require voter approval. The idea would be to stake some of this as a reserve for paying out health benefits for city employees and retirees, preventing the need to dip into tax revenues.

Guard deployment must fit larger commitment

It’s as bogus, if not disingenuous, as it gets when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s request for National Guard troops to be activated for use in crime-fighting efforts in Louisiana’s three largest cities is disparaged.

Last week, Landry asked for the state’s National Guard to be deployed by his administration in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, at federal government expense. Other than that, plans are as yet indeterminate as to the details of the operation.

Some Democrat officeholders, predictably, have complained about this effort, where ironically enough the loudest at the local level seem to have come from those whose areas they represent have experienced for decades the worst amount of crime. They moan about militarization and sending a negative message, although perhaps what really concerns them the appearance of troops may highlight that politicians of their stripes have been in office forever with no improvement in crime reduction and that voters might catch on to this cross-generation failure.

Closed primaries: more accountability if fewer run

If you expect candidate choice to go down significantly as a result of Louisiana expanding its (semi-)closed primary election roster, you would be wrong. If you think it would increase accountability, you’d be right.

Starting next year, closed primary elections return for federal offices and will become implemented for Public Service Commission and Supreme Court seats. But along with that, qualification methods changed beyond what was necessary to create a primary system.

Until now, to qualify under the blanket primary system, candidates had two options: get up a petition turned in by a certain date with varying numbers of signatures and locations of signers depending upon the office, or just pay up a certain amount during qualification that varied in amount as to office and what category of political party, if any, in which the candidate would enroll where the two major parties had the highest fees. Both methods remain but now are very different.

Against past type, BC better on pickleball

There is the right way of government doing business and the wrong way. Bossier City did it the right way and Caddo Parish didn’t when it comes to going from zero to 30 pickleball courts in the area.

In September, the Caddo Parish Commission voted to sink $10 million into building a 19-court facility. The appropriation would come in the from of a revenue bond, which means the parish has the chance of being paid back, as user fees it hopes will cover the principal and interest. Even if that happens, the parish will have indirect costs in putting the deal together and keeping the operation of it going, as it plans to farm out the managerial task.

This is the biggest part of the scam, as the facility will be built, and likely not opening until 2027, on land leased by the Northwest Louisiana YMCA at one of its locations, which will be the operator. In other words, the Y is leveraging parish government to get itself built for free a facility it eventually will own.

LA higher education win over DEI far from certain

Declaring victory too soon can lead to an ultimate defeat, the Louisiana Board of Regents chairwoman should know.

Recently, Regent Misti Cordell, who last year was appointed to the Board and ascended to its top position, declared and end to the state’s battle against institutionalized diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education. These efforts, whether in the form of programmatic attempts to privilege students and faculty members on the basis of protected characteristic categories, usually by race, or in the form of behavioral requirements to do the same such as forcing job applicants to explain how they would do that, have stoked controversy as they rely upon the hypothesis that government and societal institutions are irredeemably racist or discriminate against others in certain protected classes, requiring discrimination in favor of the alleged victim classes that thereby becomes discrimination, if not harassment, against those not members of the favored classes.

Cordell asserted that “the DEI nonsense is DONE. The Legislature killed it. The Regents stripped it out. Louisiana is not going back. If it shows up in old paperwork, that doesn’t change the reality – those bad ideas belong to the past, not our future.” But little of that statement actually is the case in any permanent sense.

Case for LA film tax credits weaker than ever

Even the presence of tariffs doesn’t seem likely to halt the root wastefulness of Louisiana’s Motion Picture Production tax credit that doesn’t change through many its iterations — especially when there are better uses for that money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets.

Republican Pres. Donald Trump has reiterated his threat to place tariffs on movies made in foreign countries. Increasingly, film production has moved out of the country, mainly because of lower labor costs. However, the mechanics of doing so don’t lend themselves well to setting up a regime that would provide the benefits of protectionism. And part of the problem also is the falling tide of movie-making and television series because of the rise of streaming services that empty theaters and keep people from surfing the dial as demand for that kind of product diminishes.

Workable tariffs could help Louisiana’s film and television production, which has been losing ground relative to other locations both foreign and domestic. Part has to do with changes last year to the tax credit, which had its cap lowered from $150 million annually to $125 million even as other states are raising theirs. But foreign competition has been most challenging, and not just impacting negatively the state but other states as well.

Elected chiefs bad idea in Monroe, anywhere

Monroe’s politically contentious fire chief appointment saga shouldn’t be the impetus to opening the door to greater folly in the quest for the political power by other elected officials.

After a year-plus political tussle between independent Mayor Friday Ellis and a Democrat-majority City Council over naming a new fire chief, with the Council majority rejecting two appointees for somewhat conflicting reasons, the deadlock was broken this month when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, under authority granted him by a law backed by Ellis, appointed one of the two Ellis nominees previously rejected. The issue took an ugly turn when members of the Council majority, who are black, called Ellis, who is white, “anti-black” because both nominees are white who would head up a department in a city whose population is almost two-thirds black.

In the wake of the resolution, two of the majority, Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad, speculated that perhaps Monroe, in a move that would require changing the city charter, should have both its police and fire chiefs chosen at the ballot box. That’s an idea that if it ever made it onto the ballot should be rejected by voters.

Recent act adds impetus for jettisoning RTOs in LA

And this is why, even if it became the first state to adopt an anti-renewable portfolio standard, Louisiana isn’t out of the woods from its energy policy being affected in negative ways by other states’ faith in the existence of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

This summer, the state passed a law that essentially made it state policy to pursue the most reliable and inexpensive energy as possible. By doing so, it disallowed the Public Service Commission if it ever desired to do so from trying to impose an RPS on power utilities operating in the state. An RPS would force production of that power through the use of renewable resources to reach a certain proportion of all produced. Almost half of states have one, and in some the eventual target as early as 2040 is 100 percent.

As the higher the proportion of renewable sources reaches the more average expense is attached to that production for consumers, because of both the technology required and the vastly higher degree of production unreliability endemic to relying on renewable resources, Louisiana’s new law guards against consumers having to bear this burden just to kowtow to the myth of CAGW that increased renewable sourcing theoretically alleviates. But, as a recent incident illustrates, state boundaries can’t stop foisting the unneeded RPS costs onto ratepayers’ power suppliers not even subject to an RPS.

New LA bishops bring hope to resolving bad pasts

It’s been an interesting month for Louisiana Catholics in the state’s southeastern corner, hopefully presaging the beginning of the end for turbulent times.

The pederasty – and make no mistake, that’s what it is as 75-80 percent of all sexual abuse cases known against priests involved male minors – that was tolerated among a small coterie of priests (about four percent of the total) claimed an unfortunately high total of victims in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. So much so that the archdiocese declared bankruptcy to avoid financial ruin and shamefully has been lowballing a settlement.

But earlier this month a new offer of $230 million was made to the several hundred members of the affected class. If enough accept, the settlement will become official.

Prudent BC budget still must avoid landmines

Bossier City’s 2026 executive budget exemplifies a greater commitment to transparency, and in doing so highlights the sins of its policy-making past and warnings to avoid their consequences  in the future.

The budget doesn’t see much increased spending past the expected 2025 baseline, although reviewing general fund numbers might belie that. This is because of an accounting change that moves expenses for all of the ancillary functions attached to the sanitation fee on utilities bills that the general public mostly associates with trash pickup. That became a controversial point over the rate increases instituted this year where apartment complexes that previously had been billed for only a few addresses, or even just one, the city began to bill for all units. Complex owners argued that they had their own waste removal and so shouldn’t have to pay, but they discounted the ancillary functions the fee covers such things as mosquito abatement, sweeping and mowing, beautification, and animal control.

A compromise was reached that billed at 80 percent of total units. Perhaps as a result, the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration now plans to budget separately for those items and transfers their functions to Public Works. Thus, the portion of the sanitation fee that covers these functions for bookkeeping purposes now appears in the general fund, inflating year-over-year spending. It’s the right move to make for greater transparency and accountability.