Caddo Democrat Board majority may play for keeps

So, how many times do residents of southeast Shreveport who have sent Republicans to seats on the Caddo Parish Commission and Caddo Parish School Board for the past three-plus decades have to put up with Democrats imposing somebody not a Republican on them as their representative for months at a time? As long as it takes for Democrats to gerrymander their way to a majority in parish-wide governments, it would seem.

That may be three times pulling the same trick, pending a decision early next month about the District 8 School Board vacancy declared when Republican Christine Tharpe had to resign upon moving out of the district. Too late to have the matter placed on the fall ballot, the new elected member to serve out the remainder of her term at the end of 2026 will be held in the spring.

Tharpe’s resignation gives Democrats another chance, which history shows they will take, to give themselves at least a 7-5 majority for a few months, and crucially during consideration of the budget. And maybe in that stretch they could take a lesson from the Commission and rig things permanently their way.

Good week for LA, not so for CAGW acolytes

A bad week for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts nationally was even worse for their Louisiana counterparts.

Since their taking of offices, Republican Pres. Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress have turned off the firehose of tax dollars going to the renewable power industry. Additionally, greater administrative scrutiny and more precise application of existing environmental and conservation law have held the permitting and startup of solar and wind to a higher standard, if not outright banning their presences in federal offshore waters, with the latest announcement this week that eligibility for financial aid would become further curtailed.

This mean Louisiana may have no wind projects going on for years to come. None were active before Trump announced a permit moratorium earlier this year, and now that subsidies have been yanked and the permit process presented with an end date even the contemplated one at Port Fourchon looks like it never will get off the ground (pun intended).

Story takes shot at Fleming stalking horse

Readers of the Baton Rouge Advocate/New Orleans Times-Picayune received an excellent reminder of how the media try to promulgate their political agendas with a story about one of the state’s leading talk show hosts as a stalking horse.

Written by veteran political reporter Tyler Bridges, it examines Jeff Crouere’s multifaceted professional career, which at present includes radio station owner and manager, talk show host, online columnist both in print and video, political consultant, entertainment master of ceremonies, and communications director for Republican state Treasurer John Fleming. In the past, he also worked as a GOP functionary and political organizer. (As a side note, we attended Vanderbilt University at the same time and I’ve known him since his return to the New Orleans area upon our graduations, having over the years on a few occasions appeared on his radio show.)

As part of his political communications, he has been stumping for his boss’ run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy. Crouere, like Fleming, was on the GOP Pres. Donald Trump bandwagon well before most Republicans and never has been shy about enunciating his support of Trump. Nor has he in recent years been shy about criticizing Cassidy who famously tried to convict Trump of bogus crimes.

Opaqueness keeps Bossier Jury from getting busted

As Maj. Reisman in The Dirty Dozen told prisoner Wladyslaw, in the stockade for shooting a deserter, “you only made one mistake, huh … You let somebody see you do it.” That’s why the Caddo Parish Commission majority Democrats are in trouble, and why the Bossier Parish Police Jury continues to skate, largely by its own design of secrecy.

This week, Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrell lowered the boon on the seven commissioners, charging them with violating open meetings law. The precipitant event was during a visit to the area by socialist provocateur independent Sen. Bernie Sanders presenting him with a laudatory proclamation not voted upon by the entire Commission in an open meeting. Republican Commissioner Chris Kracman caught this and publicized the matter, lodging the complaint (which led to retaliation against him).

It gets worse. Even after Kracman publicized it, the suit contends the majority did something similar twice more. The eventual penalty is more embarrassing than punitive, with the suit asking for what would be minor civil penalties, court costs, and acknowledgment of future compliance.

New vignette begs end to elected police chiefs

 As if Louisiana policy-makers needed any more reminders of why every municipality should be rid of elected police chiefs, there is this story.

Last year, independent Michelle Lafont narrowly defeated incumbent no party Troy Dufrene for police chief of Golden Meadow. Dufrene had been appointed to a vacancy in 2020 and won the office later that year. He had served as a Lafourche Parish School Board member while employed with the Greater Lafourche Harbor Police for nearly three decades, where, interestingly, Lafont’s husband worked during that span.

Lafont had decided to run in the constituency of over 1,100 voters when she saw social media critical of Dufrene’s accountability launched by Republican Mayor Joey Bouziga, now in his seventh-plus term. This led to a confrontation between Dufrene and Lafont when he heard she was running to replace him, with him as the aggressor.

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.