Katrina +20: No NO silver lining to offset it

The silver lining from the Hurricane Katrina disaster was that its major victim, New Orleans, eventually would come out of it a better place to live. We now know in fact that hope has faded away.

I was more optimistic in my review five years ago, where I concluded things were better both at the state and local, New Orleans, level despite a disaster that cost around 1,400 lives and, in inflation-adjusted terms two decades later, over $200 billion to sort out. In New Orleans, I noted how there had been positive change in terms of education and flood protection that came from overcoming political hurdles the dismantling of which became possible because of the widespread devastation that made revolutionary reforms possible.

The hope was the momentum would continue, for several reasons. With traditional populist-based political networks disrupted, perhaps candidates and organizations focused more on getting stuff done than dividing spoils among supporters would strengthen. Perhaps attitudes would shift to place greater emphasis on industriousness to benefit private sector activities that would include less government intrusiveness that catered to special interests and ideology. Corrupt activities would diminish and more attention would be given to sore spots such as crime fighting.

Cassidy digging deeper hole on vaccine policy

Chalk up a W for Republican Rep. Clay Higgins and an L for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, resulting from Food and Drug Administration decisions on Wuhan coronavirus vaccines.

This week, the FDA, under the Department of Health and Human Services, ended blanket emergency use authorizations for these vaccines, reducing availability from 6 months on up in age to those individuals who had a co-morbidity risk. The process starts with an assessment by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, at panel with eight members at present, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another HHS component.

That panel made news recently when HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dismissed all members because he felt it had a slavish mentality towards acceptance of widespread and indiscriminate vaccination recommendations. Kennedy prior to his assuming the top position at HHS made his name as a critic of indiscriminate vaccinations, questioning whether the benefits outweighed the harm to individuals although sometimes these featured claims with thin scientific evidence behind them.

LA gives roadmap to negate current VRA assumption

Louisiana has given a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court what it wants, argumentation to cancel one of the greatest con jobs in legal history.

Today, the state turned in its brief in Louisiana v. Callais as requested by the Court. Heard last spring, the Court took the unusual step of delaying any decision on the case that has invalidated the state’s congressional map, pending the addressing (scheduled for Oct. 15) of the question whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act conflicts with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The state had complained there was conflict, claiming it had to follow the Allen v. Milligan precedent that said states had to follow jurisprudence from Thornburg v. Gingles on down, which fleshed out Section 2. That line led to the assumption that if a minority group in a jurisdiction met certain criteria (the “Gingles Preconditions”), no matter whether there was any discriminatory intent it was assumed that any reapportionment plan, regardless of how well it adhered to traditional principles of reapportionment (such as keeping communities of interest together, contiguity, reasonable compactness, etc.), if there wasn’t some kind of rough equivalence of the proportionality of majority-minority districts among all to the proportionality of the minority race in the constituency then this constituted “vote dilution” that by definition was discriminatory, justifying the use of race as the preferred criterion in drawing a map.

Order may bring end to Orleans cashless bail

New Orleans is in the crosshairs again of the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration with his executive order designed to determine which state and local jurisdictions use cashless bail regimes and then find means to withhold federal dollars from recalcitrant ones.

Orleans Parish will make that list because of an initiative begun several years ago. New Orleans eliminated bail for anything but more serious crimes, and Orleans Parish courts further circumscribed its use partly by choice and partly because of law suits. Worse, the “progressive” prosecutions sought by Democrat District Atty. Jason Williams have caused a voluntary disarming of sorts by his office on even major crimes asking for reduced bail amounts, if not outright dismissal of felony charges.

Naturally advocates of more lenient measures to ensure court appearances have gotten into an uproar over this, although whether the order will make a significant difference remains to be seen. Much will depend upon the degree to which jurisdictions actually practice cashless (or very reduced) bail policy as well as the potential leverage with what federal monies could be withheld. For example, New Orleans would have about 5 percent of its revenues at risk should Trump be able to cordon off federal funds (that $47 million does also include state money, so this would be even less), an amount if forgone which may or may not convince its elected officials to abandon the experiment.

Monroe Council Democrats seek veto-proof majority

Monroe City Council majority Democrats are determined to overcome the agenda of independent Mayor Friday Ellis with their own and by increasing taxes to do so, the Aug. 12 Council meeting demonstrated.

At it, the three Democrats, who are black, passed a resolution authorizing study of district boundaries with an eye towards mid-cycle reapportionment, which municipalities nationwide rarely do and is unprecedented in Louisiana. Those councilors spoke of potential demographic changes since the 2020 census, even though only those data legally may be used for reapportionment purposes, as well as alleged citizen dissatisfaction over the 2022 exercise hammered out by the previous Council that since then gained two new members.

By the census, Monroe has a 65 percent black population with its councilor districts having black proportions in percentage points of 14.63, 45.41, 86.35, 80.32, and 95.62 percent. In fact, District 2 has a white proportion of only 45.17, meaning Monroe has three majority-minority and one opportunity, or black plurality, district out of five, which suggests a 70 percent or more black population. And given Monroe’s population concentrations and somewhat sinuous borders, with tentacles shooting north and south, it seems difficult to draw a map that could pump up much District 2’s black population proportion.