Monroe Council majority outs its obstructionism

The cold war to date that has evolved between Monroe’s City Council majority Democrats and independent Mayor Friday Ellis erupted to hot – and at taxpayer expense – as the majority councilors admitted to their intentions, but just in time for their bargaining position erode over the issue of a new fire chief.

Twice Ellis has nominated experienced individuals to the post, and twice the majority has turned him down for changing reasons that on the surface seem more like excuses rather than serious objections. Multiple attempts by Ellis asking for Council majority input on the matter were ignored almost entirely. But then Ellis made an end run by encouraging what would become statute giving Republican Gov. Jeff Landry the power to appoint the chief.

That touched off a special Council meeting earlier this month with the issue revisited at the last regular meeting. At both, the Council majority – Democrats Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods – initiated a long shot law suit to overturn legally the statute, Worse, that measure allowed the Council to bypass city counsel and hire legal help from the outside, guaranteeing extra needless expenses imposed on taxpayers because it is constitutionally correct for the state to override portions of charters it grants local governments and it was done in a procedurally correct manner.

GOP-led Bossier Jury endorses dumb leftist issue

The yokels who populate the Bossier Parish Police Jury got sucked in, and maybe more of Louisiana’s local government will follow their lead in endorsing a deal that’s good for politicians but bad for taxpayers.

Last week, the Jury resolved, unanimously with one juror absent, to urge creation of a national infrastructure bank by Congress. The idea can trace its roots to the controversial Bank of the United States nearly two centuries ago, and the idea has kicked around Congress in earnest since the start of the century.

This institution, following recent legislation and as pitched by its leading interest group backer, would be a creation of Congress with directors appointed by it and $5 trillion to lend. Its capital would involve swapping $500 billion in Treasury debt with the private sector for equity in the bank, the proceeds from then would be loaned to state and local governments at low interest rates. Interest payments would pay off the equity dividends and create a reserve for bad loans, plus administrative expenses. The principal would be loaned again and again.

Taxpayers, ratepayers save with solar program end

Denying Louisiana grifters of $156 million in federal taxpayer funds wasted on cost-ineffective energy tactics leaves everybody else in the state better off.

The Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its continuing reorientation away from politicized decisions about the environment, under Republican Pres. Donald Trump recently halted a federal spending program known as Solar for All. The move came when the recently passed budget reconciliation bill yanked its $7 billion authorization.

Louisiana, with its version known as “Solar for Y’all, had its $156 million allotment cancelled. The program was to provide solar energy panels and batteries for lower-income households and an opportunity for renters in multi-unit residential complexes to subscribe to a share of a solar farm. In both instances a net metering regime would be established that would allow a credit on power bills for the solar power fed back into the grid. The Democrat Pres. Joe Biden-era program alleged that participants would save 20 percent on their bills and increase the resiliency of the grid by having in the wings a power source for the grid when outages occurred. It was part of a larger program costing $27 billion supposed to reduce carbon emissions.

Some district teaching results strain credulity

Stupid kids or adult gamesmanship? Only one of these two explanations can answer why Bossier Parish students score decently but not all that well on normed exams while nearly three-quarters of their teachers score highest on state evaluations -- with a similar relationship observed in other parish and community school systems in Louisiana as well.

Recently, the Louisiana Department of Education released the latest evaluation scores by local education agency of their teachers, following up last month’s release of LEAP 2025 scores. LEAP test passage is required for advancement and ultimately graduation of students. Earlier this year, the ACT organization made public statewide results of its exam and the College Board released Advanced Placement test numbers; these are tests taken by high school students for admission and college credit purposes.

Within the state, Bossier Parish students performed above average, often just in or close to the top ten districts on the various LEAP measurements for 4^th, 8^th, and 12^th grade, as well as on the ACT and various AP exams. While LEAP exams are specific to the state, the others are national and when stacking up Bossier students with their national peers, they underperformed by the numbers. (The National Assessment of Education Progress test for 4^th and 8^th grades is national in scope, but NAEP doesn’t publicly have figures broken down by LEA although by state which shows that Louisiana, while improving recently to some of its best results ever, still ranks below average overall).

Aced Monroe councilors plan tantrum with tax bucks

Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis showed the Democrat majority on the City Council there was more than one way to skin a cat, and its members are not amused to the point they’ll waste taxpayer dollars to vent their frustration.

For months the two majoritarian branches of city government have been locked in a stalemate over appointment of a fire chief. Ellis has sent up one in-house nominee popular with the rank-and-file, only to have the Democrats reject him as nit scoring highly enough on the civil service exam. Then Ellis forwarded the highest scorer, who the Democrats then rejected as only having been a chief in a smaller department.

So, Republican state Sen. Stewart Cathey stepped into the frame, with Ellis’ blessing. He sponsored SB 220, now Act 452, this past legislative session that adjusted local government powers relative to operating their business enterprises. At the session neared it end, having sailed to passage with only one vote against (oddly, the House speaker’s on initial passage), he signaled rejection of the slightly-altered Senate version and the bill went to conference.

Chandler's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Bad 10 Days

New Bossier City Council, same dynamic as the old: spirited dialogue between councilors and speakers. But in this version, instead of now-departed councilors berating inquiring citizens, it’s embattled Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler and members of his administration suffering political defeats and fending off inquiring councilor minds that could lead to much worse for him and some staffers.

The first days of August have not been kind to Chandler and his subalterns. The day prior to month’s beginning the Council altered, over his objections, a new fee schedule for sanitation that will negate collection of several hundreds of thousands of dollars this year and every year to come. Then, without prior warning to the Council his administration called a public hearing for a property tax increase of about a million bucks a year that within a couple of days every single councilor publicly opposed, making the scheduled Sep. 9 meeting futile.

Days later, SOBO.live’s Wes Merriott published evidence that Chandler, his Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham, Public Information Officer Louis Johnson, and the city’s Assistant City Attorney Richard Ray were illegally operating city-owned vehicles – Chandler, Nottingham, and Johnson because their vehicles were unmarked as city vehicles and Ray because, although his was marked, he is a part-time employee without authorization to use such a vehicle. Under R.S. 49:121 every vehicle owned by the state or any political subdivision, including cities, is required to display the name of the public body to which it belongs except in instances used for undercover law enforcement.

Caddo stuck on stupid by subsidizing pickleball

It only took Bossier City government over 30 years to wise up, yet despite that example Caddo Parish is about to launch itself further into stupidity when it comes to supposed economic development.

Over the past few years, the Caddo Parish Commission slowly but surely has been careening farther off the rails. If it’s not general inanity such as commissioners exhibiting Trump Derangement Syndrome or attempts to violate the Constitution, it’s flailing about with useless symbolic gestures opposing everything under the sun out of its jurisdiction but crossways to the majority Democrats’ sensibilities or advancing wasteful spending based on economic ignorance. And, of course, there is flouting of open meetings law that may bring civil penalties. But now it’s entertaining graduate studies in economic development asininities.

The tipping point seems to have come with an alleged agreement between the parish and a truck stop in an economic development district narrowly defined to include only it at present for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes for improvements made by the business that the parish apparently got snookered on. Unwilling to wait out an apparently extremely long payback period, the parish then authorized this spring a special sales tax increase at the location even as the business was subject to a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the fallout of both leading the enterprise to sue Republican Commissioner Chris Kracman – who blew the whistle on the open meetings violation – for negative comments he made about the business and the raid (and who the parish refuses to defend; payback, anyone?).

LA needs trigger law to reckon with inevitability

Louisiana needs to have better preparation for the inescapable future when Medicaid spending meets reality.

With Democrats far out of the mainstream on the issue, with them and their media allies still spreading the falsehood that there are “cuts” to the program over the next few years (when, in fact, the recent budget reconciliation increases spending over the next several years), the state still should prepare itself for reduced federal allocations. The active authorizations moving forward over the next several years assure the state will continue to receive the same federal funding in proportion to the portion of individuals eligible to receive services.

However, if the state is cross-subsidizing Medicaid recipients, that will be inconvenient. That means that the state takes advantage of the cynical and purely political apportionment designed by Democrats when rammed into law of federal Medicaid assistance: the far healthier expansion population has the state paying for only 10 percent of the costs – over $400 million annually at last count in Louisiana – while for the far less healthy adult population receives (varying slightly from year to year) the state must pay around 25 to 35 percent (this year about 32), an arrangement that beggars the less-healthy and provides no better care for all than if they were uninsured. If the latest budgetary changes result in fewer people qualifying for Medicaid – because they were (about a third) ineligible in the first place or they are unmotivated enough to try to qualify – those excess federal dollars from this population can’t be shuttled over to the needier population.

Report confirms renewable power blackout cause

A report last month confirmed much of the blame for the Caddo and Bossier Parish blackouts of Apr. 26 rested with the pell-mell rush of power providers into use of less-reliable renewable sources of energy.

Urged by the Public Service Commission, this document by American Electric Power-Southwestern Electric Power Company (AEP the parent of SWEPCO) and the regional transmission organization to which it belongs the Southwest Power Pool detailed why tens of thousands of structures were left without power for several hours. It claimed essentially that a degraded environment for power provision suffered bad luck that could be mitigated to some degree in the future with changes to more conservative procedures until that environment improves.

The environment, it explained, was degraded for two reasons: insufficient transmission capacity and local generative capacity. What it didn’t explain was the more general transition away from fossil fuels by utilities towards especially wind and solar sources, and particularly by SWEPCO, were the root causes of less capacity and therefore greater need for transmission lines into the service area.

Decision signal to impact LA govts at all levels

The U.S. Supreme Court gave its strongest indication yet that it would rework, if not abandon, reapportionment jurisprudence that increasingly has pushed creating maps where the proportion of representatives mirrors the proportion of racial minorities in the population – based on a Louisiana case that also would affect Louisiana cases at other levels of government.

The first shoe dropped when in late June the Court issued a statement it would rehear Louisiana v. Callais, an appeal to a ruling that the state’s congressional districts had been drawn impermissibly on the basis of race and the only case it heard all year on mandatory appeal, this fall. Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying the facts were clear and that the Court shouldn’t avoid addressing conflict between current Voting Rights Act judicial interpretations and the Constitution about to what extent race could be used as a criterion in apportionment.

Thomas got his wish when the other shoe dropped last week. The Court scheduled submission of briefs essentially asking that question. Further, it did it on a timeline that portends the hearing with that additional question at the start of its term, which could set things up for an early decision in time to govern the 2026 election cycle for the state.

BC must reject graybeard legacy of higher taxes

Just like herpes, the mismanagement of Bossier City by several former city councilors and mayors over the past three decades flares yet again to inflict pain on its citizenry, this time with the specter of higher property taxes.

In last year’s budget workshop, Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham noted that the city had to make two major revenue upcharges to keep the budget balanced. The first shoe to fall was fee hikes on sanitation and related activities that started early this year, but which also included excising a break multiple occupancy owners were getting by not charging them by the occupied residence (typically, apartment complexes have just one or a handful of meters where renters pay a fixed water rate in their rent and the complex does its own sanitation) the public works fee that covered roads upkeep and pest/animal control on public thoroughfares.

That controversy flared up earlier this summer when many of the few apartment complex owners, apparently inattentive to their own businesses, found their bills skyrocketing and complained to the city. After some negotiation, this week the Council  adjusted the enabling ordinance by charging for 80 percent of residences (assuming a fifth at any given time were unoccupied) and suspending its implementation until next year in order to give owners a chance to adjust rental contracts and rates.

Best constitutional outcome delays new LA map

It’s best that Louisiana hold off on a congressional reapportionment special session, even with a powerful argument to proceed with one posthaste.

As signals mount from the U.S. Supreme Court that it plans to decouple race from partisanship in deciding the role race plays as a factor in reapportionment except in instances where a jurisdiction deliberately intends to discriminate against a community defined by a form of racial solidarity, calls have come from the White House on down that Republican-led states should proactively begin the reapportionment process, years ahead of the next census results that would necessitate this. Driving this desire is an expected close House of Representative election next year that could go either way. In fact, the coming election has threatened to trigger a line-drawing arms race where several states controlled by one of the major parties have vowed, or even started to, redraw their maps in the hopes of seizing partisan advantage without race playing such a prominent role as the judiciary has assigned it since the operative Alabama cases opened the door to having states draw boundaries in rough proportion their racial compositions.

Which the Voting Rights Act specifically denies without a showing of deliberate discrimination intent and is why the Court seems on the verge of saying any rationale for giving race such prominence needs review in the light of changing times, deemphasizing that outcome necessarily must mirror intent. Section 2 by word prohibits specific mirroring of the proportion of district majorities to population proportions but by judicial interpretation has erred on the sides of results bearing a large role in determining intent. That seems set to change with a Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais to be decided next year that likely will redefine case law addressing Section 2 away from this thinking or excising it completely on the basis that societal conditions have made the results-equal-intent view timebound and no longer applicable.

Elected police chiefs increase corruption chances

As noted yesterday, one good reason not to have elected police chiefs in Louisiana is increased chances of reduced administrative competence complemented by greater confusion when parceling out public safety from other executive functions. But there’s a far more insidious and damaging reason for rejection of that selection method: reduced oversight that makes the office more prone to corruption.

There’s nothing new here; scandals among elected Louisiana police chiefs have occurred all too frequently, unfortunately. Yet recently an alleged wide-ranging scheme only emphasizes the point.

Earlier this month, acting Western Louisiana District Attorney Alexander Van Hook along with other federal criminal investigators announced grand jury indictments against three present and past police chiefs and one marshal (an office itself prone to corruption) and a businessman for a criminal enterprise involving fake crime incident reports over a decade that claimed nonexistent crimes committed against noncitizens as a method to illegally grant these noncitizens legal status in the country. The businessman would solicit money from the aliens to pose as crime victims or witnesses to qualify for the visas designed to aid authorities in criminal investigations.

Elected police chiefs stoke governing confusion

There are two good reasons to get rid of elected police chiefs in Louisiana, one of these being just the confusion in city administration that occurs which can allow interpersonal conflicts to flourish that, in at least once instance, prompted the law to be disregarded in multiple ways.

The drama unfolding in Minden stands as prime example. Through a quirk in statute that allows a marshal to serve as a municipality’s police chief and be elected, it’s one of the largest cities in the state with an elected police chief, a selection method which separates from an otherwise unified administrative structure perhaps the most important function of a city. Likely that’s why the interrelations between no party Police Chief Jared McIver, two officers, no party Mayor Nick Cox, and the City Council produced a bizarre sequence of events that still are far from resolved.

Early this year, veteran Minden Police Department officer Chris Hammontree made an arrest connected to what is described as a “well-known” Minden resident. In February, he also made a stop of a couple passing through town that eventually involved his opening a stuffed animal that carried a container which he opened, holding the ashes of the woman’s child. A dispute has arisen as to whether he had sufficient probable cause to do so.

LPSC must follow through on good data center deal

Louisianans racked up a big win as parameters of the impending Meta, Inc. data center in Richland Parish put the effort on course for delivering maximal economic benefits with minimal consumer costs.

A number of special interests tried to prevent that. Some were anti-fossil fuel/pro-catastrophic anthropogenic global warming believers who primarily oppose the effort because it would encourage significantly more natural gas use and secondarily as they desire guaranteed greater use of more expensive/less reliable renewable sources of energy for the project. Others are aggrieved large-scale consumers who want to create alternative paths for energy acquisition without having to go through Entergy Louisiana, the supplier for the project.

Over the past few months, activity has involved attempts by opponents to delay the expedited approval process, but an administrative law judge sidetracked multiple efforts to do so. This led to a two-day hearing earlier this month that will lead to a recommendation by the judge about the parameters for approval by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, but public aspects of that already have been worked out in a settlement agreement among all parties. The LPSC must give eventual approval because Entergy wants to build and operate three natural gas plants as the bulk of power for Meta’s operations.

Skrmetta entrance increases Cassidy headache

As another likely competitive candidate enters the Republican Party Senate primary, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s chances become dimmer.

This week, Republican Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta joined the fray in challenging Cassidy. The incumbent already faces Republicans Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez among candidates with the resources to knock him off.

Given Cassidy’s intraparty vulnerability, a third competitive challenger wouldn’t spell out good news for him. Because he placed a wrong bet – he thought GOP Pres. Donald Trump was history after the 2020 loss and, for whatever half-baked reason, decided to hitch his fortunes to Trump’s opponents and to play footsie with Democrats – he essentially divided Louisiana Republicans into three camps: those against him, the modal category; those for him; and those that in the absence of someone they perceive as a quality challenger will stick with him (who likely comprise a big portion of the undecided vote, and some of the Cassidy intended vote).

Disingenuous lies spread on Medicaid reforms

Ignore the panic that the political left tries to foment in Louisiana about changes to Medicaid. Instead, consider how their lies crumble against the reality that the new law will improve program delivery for those who truly need it.

The biggest falsehood to emerge from the left’s talking points is the myth of Medicaid “cuts” (excoriated on the floor of the Senate recently by Republican Sen. John Kennedy). There are absolutely no cuts in Medicaid spending in the reconciliation bill now known as the One Big Beautiful Law. In fact, Medicaid spending is set to increase by an average of three percent annually over the next decade.

Nor will any eligible person lose Medicaid coverage who is a disabled adult or one who has dependents younger than 14. The only change here is that able-bodied adults without all but older dependents will have to meet a community engagement requirement of employment, enrollment in an educational program, or volunteering only 80 hours a month. In fact, most ABAWDs already meet these criteria.

Switch to new accreditor should start now

You don’t need a task force: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry should have simply ordered each university system in Louisiana to prepare for exiting the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges instead of studying the idea of transferring accreditation to the new, depoliticized incipient higher education accreditor the Commission on Public Higher Education, if CPHE is approved.

Last month, six southern states created the CPHE as an alternative to SACSCOC, concerned over the increasingly ideological meddling SACSCOC was enabling as part of the accreditation process. Federal law allows forming such agencies for self-policing of institutions to ensure they provide a legitimate education and have the means to do it, where an institution must be accredited to enjoy federal government largesse such as grants and the ability for students to receive federal government aid.

The effort started in Florida, kicked off when SACSCOC pressured a university system in Georgia and a university in Florida from accepting as candidates for leadership individuals who ideologically appeared at odds with the near-monolithic leftism infused throughout academia. It accelerated when states began to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion schemes as foundational parts of admission, instruction, and employment regimes at institutions. And it came into fruition when Republican Pres. Donald Trump earlier this year issued an executive order to make it easier to transfer among accreditors and to start new ones.

BC debt surge impeded crime reduction spending

The Bossier City Council graybeards may be gone, but the negative impact of their misrule will reverberate for years, even decades, a recent story about public safety demonstrates.

It seems a home security firm called Reolink published data from the first part of 2025 that not only establishes Bossier City as more violent crime-ridden than Shreveport, but also concludes by these metrics that the city is the tenth-most dangerous municipality in Louisiana. It reviewed Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting data for violent and property crimes. (It must be noted that the majority, but not all, of the state’s 304 municipalities complete the UCR, and that crime figures can vary dramatically in different parts of the same city.)

The numbers show that almost five percent of residents will endure a property crime, such as larceny, burglary, and automobile theft, while almost one percent will suffer a violent offense. Shreveport didn’t appear on the list. This outcome turns the argument on its head, often floated by city boosters in and out of office, that a reason to move across the river to Bossier City is it is presumably safer.

Official journal law two-edged sword for papers

There’s another argument increasingly relevant in the longtime practice of state and local governments paying for public notices in an official journal: the economic leverage governments can use against newspapers, as exemplified by recent choices in Caddo Parish.

Last month, all of the major government in the parish – the parish, school district, sheriff’s office, and Shreveport – threw their public notice business to the Shreveport Times. That had to be a lifeline to the Times, which has been in steep decline in readership since the turn of the century, prints just a few pages per edition now (and misses a day a week in print), and has hardly any local staff and hard news coverage.

That turn for the worse accelerated when the privately-owned Georges Media Group planted an affiliate in the area, eating more into the Times’ revenues. The incoming largesse from government will boost its bottom line, although it has backup by being part of the USA Today Gannett Network, owned by a private equity firm.

Taxpayer cuts shouldn't threaten LA public media

Don’t worry about the recent recission of federal funding for public broadcasting insofar as Louisiana Public Broadcasting goes, as if you couldn’t tell from comments made by the organization itself.

Of course, before the Republican Congress triggered the cuts starting Oct. 1, there were all sorts of panicked howls coming from the political left about how the country would fall apart with the billion or so bucks missing from coffers of public broadcasting. This reaction was, or course, disingenuous, such as the argument that rural areas would be cut adrift from emergency warnings when there exist so many other less-costly way it could be done, and without the relentless liberal bias effused through public broadcasting (most recently displayed through woke older social media posts and statements made by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s head and blog posts made last year by a former senior employee outing the virulent leftism within the organization).

Naturally, this crisis on the left isn’t shared by the American people. A recent survey showed nearly half of respondents thought the federal government shouldn’t use taxpayer resources to fund public broadcasting, while only just over a quarter thought it should.

Closed primary hastening GOP registrant takeover

The reintroduction of semi-closed party primary federal elections in Louisiana is hastening the registration decline of state Democrats, with the historical antecedent telling us the other major party the Republicans benefits differently at different times but on course to take over as they state’s largest party to match their overwhelming electoral success.

July figures for voting registrations show Democrats with about a 46,000 lead with 36.7 percent of registrants over the GOP with 35.2 percent. Consider that 21 years ago Democrats more than doubled up Republicans and had a lead approaching a million potential voters, having back then 56.1 percent of all registrants.

However, the state keeps records not published on its website of a subset of active voters or those who haven’t missed two consecutive federal election cycles. John Couvillon of JMC Analytics and Polling, a political research firm, obtained the master file of voters from the state and calculated among active voters Republicans actually now lead in registrations by around 38,000.

Time to send packing Orleans sanctuary sheriff

If you’re going down, you might as well do it clinging to your beliefs as erroneous and contrafactual as they may be, Democrat Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson looks eager to prove.

Hutson has been little more than disastrous in her role mainly of running the Orleans Parish Prison and overseeing those prisoners when off the premises. First coming to fame for monitoring as established by referendum the New Orleans Police Department for irregularities, she has a history very much for a soft on crime approach, although the sheriff’s office doesn’t directly engage in public law enforcement.

A surprise winner over the long-time Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office incumbent in 2021 elections, since then she has embroiled herself in controversy after controversy. These include  opposing a jail expansion that the courts ultimately ordered her to undertake, paying lavishly during Carnival festivities for senior staff and in a manner which violated state and federal law (which she called “misogynistic”), proposing a ballot measure raising taxes hugely only to see it gain support of fewer than 10 percent of voters, suffering a mass jailbreak that appeared a consequence of lax procedures (which she blamed on lack of funds even though the OPSO is sitting on $14 million in reserves), and, perhaps most poetically, gigged by federal jail monitors for deteriorating conditions. Most recently, she was held in contempt of court for failing to provide deputies as required to oversee prisoner courtroom activities on Saturdays.

Term limits bills set parameters for Bossier

If the dynamics present at the Louisiana Legislature this past session remain, the Bossier Parish Police Jury may be a step closer to term limits, thanks to a forthcoming special election.

No parish without a home rule charter has term limits, and among those only Lincoln Parish by statute is authorized to seek them (the allowed referendum never has been called). But Bossier Parish Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh tried to give two parishes a chance to have their police juries potentially subjected to term limits in this past session. One bill, SB 103, would have given Sabine Parish residents a chance to vote on whether to impose a prospective three-term limit prior to the next round of parish elections, while SB 113 originally would have done the same retrospectively for De Soto at some indeterminate date. Seabaugh represents the southern half of De Soto and all of Sabine.

The De Soto Police Jury previously on a couple of occasions had voted on the issue, most recently at the beginning of last year where a narrow majority resolved to ask for the citizen vote on term limits applied to them. By contrast, the Sabine Police Jury had just a couple of its members articulating a desire for limits with the remainder in opposition, but a significant portion of the public voiced support, as reflected in communications with Seabaugh and through a local radio talk show. The Jury has been a consistent magnet for criticism in recent years, featuring its insistence on raising taxes, citizens rejecting tax propositions several times at the ballot box, accusations of wasteful spending especially on a new library, ineptness in dealing with grant monies, and calls for resignations of if not recall petitions filed against multiple jurors.

Monroe Council games continue with tax hike

The Monroe City Council majority Democrats want to raise Monrovians’ taxes in their quest not only to secure reelection but also to push independent Mayor Friday Ellis out of office.

 

At its last meeting, the Council failed to ratify property tax rates for this year. Typically, local governments in Louisiana do this in June and July, which then gives parish assessors time to calculate and send out assessment notices and go through the appeal process before making the rolls final by November, with property owners’ payments due by the end of the year.

 

Instead, Council Democrats Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods rejected the measure, which provokes a small crisis. Instead, they wanted to raise rates using the “roll forward” option. That requires a public hearing that has to follow public notice laws, meaning it will be at least a month before that can occur. This delays considerably the process and means that final notices will be late. The process cannot start until the Jul. 22 meeting.

 

Muhammad, noting the Council had previously continued a vote on millages, complained that the Ellis Administration didn’t submit to the Council an agenda item to roll forward, claiming the majority’s preference to raise taxes had been articulated previously. Of course, while typically ordinances come from administration, councilors may place their own on the agenda.

 

Although Monroe collects several different property taxes, almost all are for discrete purposes and almost all are at their adjusted maximum millage, which is the rate to which the Council could raise by a simple majority. Conspicuously, the one millage that both is general and not at its adjusted maximum is the general alimony at 10.18 mills presently.

 

Muhammad made vague mention of spending he claimed was needed and alleged the hike would pour another $1 million into city coffers. That seems consistent with a raise to the maximum authorized millage, but which requires a two-thirds majority that Republicans Doug Harvey and Gretchen Ezernack seem unlikely to approve. Boosting to the adjusted maximum, or 11.99 mills, would raise around $828,000. However, if the maximum authorized, or 12.35 mills (and most of the others have a slightly higher maximum authorized than adjusted maximum), is not attained by the end of the assessment period, then it cannot be reached again unless quadrennial reassessment reveals an overall decrease in city property values.

 

The Council majority could push through the lower hike, but then as an ordinance Ellis could veto it and with the minority’s support sustain that. Yet this would launch a game of chicken that threatens to disrupt entirely the city’s ability to collect property taxes for this year.

 

Throughout, the majority seemed blithely unconcerned that they wanted the city to swipe extra money from the citizenry. Its thinking is entirely political: increase programmatic spending disproportionately in their districts — to their constituents and to related special interests — especially as, because theirs overall have lower property values than the minority’s districts, owners in their districts would pay disproportionately less of the increase.

 

Meanwhile, in 2028 citizens might take out their vexation over the hike on Ellis as mayor, the city’s most visible politician. It’s the same bad faith the majority has practiced over the past year, exemplified again in the meeting when the Council passed without any councilor comment a measure to match a state grant to improve Jackson Street. This came after the prior meeting when McFarland in particular extensively hinted at sinister motives behind Ellis pursuing this matter of about a dozen years’ standing and surreptitiously despite the administration’s above-board informative efforts.

 

That what was so controversial one meeting becomes nothing worthy of discussion the next again demonstrates it’s all political theater with this crowd, that appears to treat Ellis’ mayoralty as an illegitimate aberration standing in the way of its redistributive politics.

 

New budget energy policy to drop LA power rates

Contrary to the fevered fantasy of leftist catastrophic anthropogenic global warming acolytes, the federal government’s shift to a realistic energy policy will result in lower overall payments for power by Louisianans if not also greater economic development.

 The recent federal budget bill that made profound changes in taxing and spending policy included among other things the imminent end of subsidies for wind and solar sources, effective elimination of fuel standards for vehicles that will encourage fossil fuel usage, and the ability of individual states to leverage those standards higher. This of course has created a panic attack on the left, with a particularly useless Democrat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission pontificating that the discouragement of the renewable sources will doom consumers to higher rates, under the facile assumption that the lower costs utilities paid for renewable generation will go higher without taxpayers footing part of the bill and that markets don’t prevail.

 

Of course, in that view there’s no consideration of those very taxpayers that include Louisianans who as a result of the budget reconciliation will see both permanently lower taxes and a reallocation of spending that better matches the genuine priorities of the people. And the supposition of higher-priced retail prices differs from assessments of energy policy experts generally, who note historical data show a distinct positive correlation between electricity pricing and proportion of power generated by solar and wind sources. They also note the inherent dishonesty in having hidden in subsidies the extra amount that citizens pay for greater wind and solar usage rather than out in the open in the form of higher charged rates.

Mapping case may add to LA policy leadership

It looks increasingly likely that Louisiana again will lead the policy-making field, this time through a decision on the U.S. Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais.

 For decades seldom has the state participated in ground-breaking policy, far more often lagging the field. But that trend has started to reverse as of late, beginning in 2022 when Louisiana became the first state to require age verification to access sexually-explicit web sites. Other states followed and some of their laws, similar to Louisiana’s, met with court challenges. But, last month the Court rejected one setting a precedent for other.

 

Then in 2023 the state, pioneering with a few others, passed a law that required segregating of borrowing in public libraries of books with adult thematic material. Library systems had to set up procedures to distinguish minors and for those books to require parental assent for minors to access these.

Put LA public defense board out of misery

This space earlier this year mused whether Louisiana needed a board of appointees to oversee public defense. It appears recent events  reveal it doesn’t really matter as it seems largely irrelevant.

This week, the Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board met to decide whether five of the state’s district public defenders had lost their jobs at the end of last month. The Board itself had just turned a year old, having been overhauled with many of its functions transferred to the state public defender Remy Starns. However, it retained its powers over financial matters, including contracting with DPDs.

Starns, originally appointed by Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards then reappointed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, after its new formation that saw several new members as a result of its changeover, brought to the Board a changed salary plan designed to address the challenging funding environment inherent to the state’s method of providing public defense, largely dependent as it is on contingent local sources. It rejected that, because some substantial salary cuts would have occurred.

Unwise to have LA pay for weight loss benefit

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry made the right move for taxpayers when he vetoed a line in a bill that could have spiraled out of cost control because some active and retired state employees and public school teachers eat too much.

HB 463 was one of several money bills passed by the Legislature, this one being the annual ancillary expenses allotted to parts of state government spending from internal service or enterprise funds. He struck a single line item from it, that which would have compelled state employee coverage of semaglutide medication that can encourage weight loss as long as it didn’t cost the state money for the fiscal year.

Some took to social media to decry the decision not to cover drugs like Rybelus, Wegovy, and Ozempic. The Office of Group Benefits could have worked a deal from the manufacturers to allow for a free year’s worth, and with Louisiana having one of the highest obesity rates in the country, with that condition bringing all sorts of health problems this benefit could reduce health plan costs down the line which would translate soon into lower rates charged clients than would be otherwise.

Independence 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 Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is 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 Easter Sunday, Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Friday, Jul. 4 being Independence Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to this page.

New BC Council impresses, but conflict may come

As if the tinted windows were thrown open to let in sunshine and fresh air, the Bossier City Council with its new membership took the first steps towards hauling city governance into the 21^st century – and promising more to come, which may lead to a showdown, whether visible, with Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler.

Four new councilors took over from the graybeards that had practiced financial profligacy and insider politics to the hilt. They joined reformist holdovers Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons, leaving only former graybeard ally Vince Maggio as the lone representative of the old guard that had dominated Council proceedings for decades.

The vibe was noticeably different from the start. Over the past term, tension typically hung over Council meetings; replete with instances where Republican former Councilor David Montgomery would launch into an opinionated-drunk-at-the-end-of-the-bar rant when graybeard actions were questioned by citizens or reformist councilors, or votes were taken representing obvious power plays against reform measures that in some instances ended up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing, or there occurred councilor behavior designed to avoid criticism that bordered on the illegal or unconstitutional -- all of which put both councilors and citizens viewing on edge.

Skrmetta right to urge LA utilities move to SEEM

As if things haven’t become bad enough for the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming crowd in Louisiana, now it has to deal with a Public Service Commission member like a matador waving a red cape in front of a bull.

Last week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB 692 by GOP state Rep. Jacob Landry into law. To sum it up, it created anti-renewable portfolio standards for state energy policy. An RPS is a mandate that regulated utilities have a certain mix of renewable fuel sources, which because of the unreliability of wind and solar sources and infinitesimal existing battery power elevates substantially costs for consumers.

Louisiana by law or through regulation issued by the PSC doesn’t have one, although New Orleans, uniquely separately able to regulate power provision within its borders, has a quasi-version that allows for both natural gas and nuclear sources to count as “clean” like a renewable, source, for now. The new law does the same in considering the pair of sources, but it also in demands for reliability pushes providers in the direction of fossil fuel usage.

Monroe Council needs to govern, not grandstand

All right, Democrat Monroe City Councilor Rodney McFarland, we’ll take your word that you’re “far from being a fool.” But so are others in government, the citizenry, and the general public who are on to your game that puts a political agenda and its associated theater ahead of responsible consideration of the people’s needs.

At the last Council meeting, the independent Mayor Friday Ellis Administration brought back a proposal to improve the Jackson Street corridor from DeSiard St. north of St. Francis Medical Center south past Interstate 20, a bit more than one and a quarter miles. Originally approved in 2012 by the state with a local match of just under 20 percent, the Democrat former Mayor Jamie Mayo Administration did nothing with it. Ellis resurrected the project as part of his Downtown Strategic Plan, but after Council approval in 2021 when it went out to bid the city ended up rejecting those it received as these came in substantially higher than the allocated funding.

Since then, the state came up with more dollars that broadened its scope to include accessible sidewalks, traffic control devices, and lighting. After the city reworked the plan, the state authorized it again to move forward but with an increased local match from $479,000 to $777,000, so this increased price tag required additional Council approval.

Court punt likely means LA back to two M/M map

Today the U.S. Supreme Court sent the consolidated Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais into overtime. As a result of the Court’s refusal to decide on this case concerning Louisiana’s reapportionment of congressional districts heard earlier this spring, three major implications follow.

The current congressional map is likely to survive through the 2026 election cycle. The Court’s embracement of what has become called the Purcell Principle means that, realistically, unless the Court renders its decision no later than early 2026 Louisiana will end up using its current map that produces two out of six majority-minority districts for the 2026 election cycle. Lawmakers made this more likely in 2024 when they created semi-closed primaries for congressional elections that bumped up the qualifying date from early summer to late winter, just after they scrapped a single M/M district map that a federal district judge had ruled unconstitutional the previous year in favor of the present one, which itself didn’t seem too different from one the Court rejected three decades earlier that profoundly shaped reapportionment jurisprudence which itself is at the crux of the current case.

Next week the Court should release a 2025 Term schedule. If the case doesn’t appear very early on for argumentation, the clock will run out if changes need to be made and even if eventually found defective the current two M/M map will be used, essentially guaranteeing an additional Democrat elected to Congress.

Bossier Parish feels Landry line item veto heat

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry may have received 71 percent of the vote in Bossier Parish, but he might be somewhat unpopular these days among the courthouse crowd after some vetoes he cast to the state’s capital outlay and supplemental appropriations bills – perhaps all of it over votes cast on a bill Landry strongly backed?

In his first year of governor, Landry didn’t veto that much, and the pattern that emerged from that – indeed, he stated as much in his veto message – was he had to see an “appropriate government function” with an “efficient and effective use of state resources” involved. This time, he vetoed even fewer items.

When the dust settled, Landry cast vetoes on three items in HB 2, for capital outlay. His veto message stated he did so, and for projects where ground had yet to break, because the bill contained about $1 million in spending than authorized money available. Fair enough, but the three items totaled about $15 million, so something else additionally must have been at play.

New tort reform should spur economic development

In a change from typicality, the honor of the longest bill to become law for the 2025 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature was not the operating budget for most of government, HB 1. Instead, SB 244 by Republican state Sen. Bob Hensgens takes the cake, and for the better.

SB 244, just signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, provides for a massive overhaul of matters energy and conservation; indeed, it renamed the Department of Energy and Natural Resources – itself just renamed 18 months ago – into the Department of Conservation and Energy come Oct. 1. It dipped its toe into many matters, predictably enough given its length, starting out at 66 pages just to reorganize the department, and then burst into a 227-page substitute bill as more stuff got piled on.

Aside from its reorganization focus, the most significant change it triggers comes in how legal questions surrounding land use for fossil fuel energy purposes are to be handled from Sep. 2027 on. Principally, it addresses legacy lawsuits, or legal actions taken against former owners of land used for fossil fuel extraction purposes for alleged environmental damage. It attempts to bring consistency and clarity to the area of legal controversy, mainly by putting more power in the hands of administrative processes at the expense of the judiciary. Courts could override only if they ruled for a much better plan for remediation using a much higher legal standard.

Smaller LA govt takes small steps backwards

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry promised a “standstill” fiscal year 2025-26 budget. What the Legislature spat out ended up as a 6 percent increase. How could and why did this happen?

Back when he introduced it, Landry in fact foresaw a cut in spending of nearly a billion bucks from the budget as it existed last Dec. 1 to $49.4 billion. General fund spending he thought would fall from $12.5 billion nearly $350 million. Falling statutory dedications to the tune of nearly $700 million would surpass an expected more than $600 million in federal funds.

Instead, when the dust settled it shot up from $50.4 billion to $53.5 billion. Federal funds ballooned almost a billion smackers beyond what had been offered, but that was nothing compared to statutory dedications that far from a reduction exploded nearly $1.7 billion. Indeed, aside from a small increase in self-generated funds only a bit larger than the general fund settling lower by about $70 million fewer than estimated, almost the entirety of the escalation came from these two sources.

Higher hopes exist for lesser LA fiscal reform

Aided by a better election calendar, at least some chunk of fiscal reform stands a good chance of making it into the Louisiana Constitution prior to hammering out the fiscal year 2027 budget next year.

After the defeat of the Third Extraordinary Session of 2025’s Act 1 that became this spring’s Amendment 2, due to a motley coalition of big government advocates on the political left and panicked conservatives, reformers went back to the drawing board to try again. This time, reformers offered an omnibus bill like previously but also filed four others taking parts of that bill that could be decided upon discretely.

The omnibus bill this time around, HB 472 by Republican state Rep. Julie Emerson, mutated by substitute into her HB 678 which then stalled in Senate committee. The reduced bill would have represented the portion of the amendment that basically would have folded the Revenue Stabilization Fund into the Budget Stabilization Fund and redirected mineral royalty funds. It floundered because some of the emptied fund could have gone to prop up tax cuts proposed in other bills if revenues dipped too much as a result of the cuts.

BC worse off than exiting councilors found it

While they may have gone out with varying degrees of class, the four departing Bossier City Council members leave with a legacy of managing not to break the city, but having blown an incredible opportunity to make the city much more than what it is – America’s biggest small town – leaving it worse off than when each had entered office.

At the final Council meeting prior to a new panel taking shape at the start of next month (and meeting initially almost immediately after taking their oaths of office), the four outgoing councilors – Republicans David Montgomery (24 years) and Jeff Free (12 years) and Democrat Bubba Williams (28 years), who had eschewed reelection attempts, and independent Jeff Darby (32 years of the last 36), defeated in his reelection attempt – were feted through proclamation by their colleagues, all rookies, for their willingness to show them the ropes of governance and for service. Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler also joined in the presentations from the city for service.

In their speeches, continuing councilors (Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons; the GOP’s Vince Maggio was absent) and Chandler were gracious in listing several significant policy decisions stretching back to the era of Darby’s first election, 1989. The problem was, few of these listed were positive accomplishments.

Miguez Senate race entry further damages Cassidy

All in all, the entry of Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez into the GOP Senate nomination for the 2026 contest actually doesn’t change much the dynamics so far working against incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Miguez joins heavyweight candidate GOP Treas. John Fleming and lightweight hospital administrator Sammy Wyatt. He has conservative credentials that match Fleming’s, if not his experience in Congress and in the White House, and becomes easily the youngest candidate in the race.

Cassidy’s problem is that, for reasons when analyzed rather unconvincing other than personal dislike for Trump, he voted to convict Republican Pres. Donald Trump of spurious impeachment charges, as well as cozied up to fiscal elements of Democrats’ agenda in the first half of the Democrat former Pres. Joe Biden’s term. It’s not been forgotten and while Cassidy’s campaign has a formidable bankroll to try to induce that memory lapse among GOP voters Fleming’s has more than enough to remind them of that.

Monroe fire chief selection addled by race

Maybe the Monroe City Council should build their own Monroe Fire Department chief, if that even would be possible given the contradictory signals they continue to give in rejecting independent Mayor Friday Ellis’ choices for the job.

Ellis now has had two choices to helm the department shot down by the same three black Democrats who comprise the majority of the Council: Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods. His first, longtime MFD firefighter Daniel Overturf, occurred last year. While Overturf was considered a highly popular choice as a poll of the department revealed, the so-called “Brown Bombers” then said his middle-of-the-pack scoring on the state exam all municipal chief candidates must take and alleged communications from constituents against the pick led to their rejection.

The next choice, Bastrop Fire Chief Timothy Williams, seemed to negate these complaints. He scored highest of all on the exam, was the only one among the five finalists with chief experience, and no alleged opposition in the community against his nomination was noted. Further, prior to his becoming Bastrop chief three years ago he had guided the department to the highest fire rating possible, as part of a history of achievement within the department. And, multiple times Ellis had solicited input from councilors about this choice, without receiving any.