Hammons sets sights on taking down good old boy

Regardless of the outcome, Bossier City Republican Councilor Brian Hammons’ entry into the city marshal’s race should shine a needed light onto a largely-superfluous office and presents a chance that taxpayers could save some bucks.

Almost 50 cities in Louisiana, some with populations in just four figures, have a city court and thus a city marshal attached to it. A carryover from the 19^th century, at their basics marshals serve a court’s orders and provide for its security. But as the positions are set in statute with lots of variations, and that these offices can contract with local governments to perform additional tasks, revenues, expenses, employees, and functions can vary wildly.

Statute defines Bossier City’s marshal (technically, the constable of Ward 2) in a single place. He is allowed to appoint a deputy marshal and he is to earn at least $5,000 a year from the city and $2,200 a year from the parish. Everything else has been made up over the decades.

Keep public notice to make bills great again

A pair of linked bills potentially would pare Louisiana’s election calendar a bit and encourage more voters to vet local government bills that involvement taxation, but with a reduction of transparency that needs correction.

Two decades ago, Louisiana suffered more election dates than excess judges today in Orleans Parish. Over the years, breaching silly complaints about the necessity of having so many eligible election dates, gradually statutory changes reduced the number of eligible days so that the 46 separate election dates from 2000-04 dropped to just 26 from 2020-24.

That number may fall further with Republican state Rep. Bryan Fontenot’s bills HB 393, a constitutional amendment, that would open the door to having his HB 400 reduce the number of elections on which local taxing and referendum items may appear. Essentially, for these it would make eligible annually only a single election, in the fall in even-numbered years and gubernatorial election years, and in the remaining year in the spring except for Orleans Parish in the fall, which also would exclude general election runoffs. In other words, the eligible dates are those that promise the highest potential turnout because of other local, state, or national elections sharing the ballot.

Caddo-Bossier Port deal exemplifies CCS obstinacy

The Octopus of the Red River flexes its arms again, and that’s one reason why anti-carbon capture and sequestration efforts, as well as attempts to rein in the Port of Caddo-Bossier that have been blunted, in Louisiana seem destined to fail.

Over the years, fueled by a property tax, the Port has built up a considerable kitty, as well as increased powers the envy of governments whose elected officials actually face elections. Most prominently, the Port’s Board of Commissioners, all appointees of various local governments, can make economic development deals involving tax abatements anywhere within the two parishes that override the desires of the elected (and in some cases appointed) officials of the local governments involved.

But that power spreads even further. Recently, a Louisiana House of Representatives panel defeated an attempt to deny the use of eminent domain for CCS purposes. Given that the practice carries at best microscopic environmental or economic benefits and is driven solely by federal government subsidization through tax credits that becomes economically viable at vastly expanded scale only as part of an artificially-constructed market for carbon reduction credits, yet is full of question marks for safety and environmental degradation at vastly expanded scale, taking away the ability to force CCS on property owners made sense.

Trump endorsements not conveying big advantages

So far, Republicans in northeast and north central Louisiana and the entire state aren’t quite on the same page with GOP Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsements for the Senate and Fifth Congressional District races.

In February, Republican Rep. Julia Letlow announced her challenge to incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who last year had drawn Republicans Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez as challengers, on the back of Trump’s declaration of support for her if she ran. Almost immediately thereafter, Miguez abandoned that quest and announced for the Fifth with Trump’s endorsement.

The nods by Trump were supposed to seal the deals for Letlow and Miguez. Both were well-funded and his imprimatur would assure more dough rolling in to enrich campaigning efforts as well as loosen the purse strings of sympathetic groups to spend independently for them and would serve as a signal to distinguish these candidates from others in the field for voters. Together, observers believed these would separate them from their competitors.