Regional, partisan imbalance in the new Legislature?

As I mentioned previously, while it seems the ordinary citizenry couldn’t care less, the “political class” appears upset at the distribution of committee chairmen slots for the incoming Legislature. I was going to present an analysis of House picks by apparent new House Speaker Jim Tucker in addition to Senate picks as it was said he would release them today. Apparently he has not and I’ve held off this posting long enough, so I’ll just add them when I find out. Below then is an analysis only of the Senate selections made by presumed incoming president Joel Chaisson.

Perhaps most frequently expressed have been complaints about a lack of representation for North Louisiana. In the Senate, three of the 17 charimanships went to senators from north Louisiana (defined her as north of the Beauregard-Allen- Evangeline-St. Landry-Point Coupee boundaries lines), or 18 percent. Keep in mind that this part of the state has about 27 percent of the population, so any bias towards the southern part of the state is not that great. Also consider that in the Senate, of the 11 districts (29 to 39) that could be declared “northern” in geography, only five featured returnees to the chamber (plus a couple of transfers from the House and a previous house member) of which three of these – Adley, Sherri Smith Cheek, and Lydia Jackson – are among the most junior incumbents and are at odds with much of Jindal’s agenda which reduced the pool of potential chairmen.

The other major complaints have been about partisan distribution, a surrogate for the capability of incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal to pursue his conservative, reform agenda. In the Senate, only four of the 17 picked were Republicans, or 24 percent, where (now with the recent surprise partisan switch of Robert Adley to the GOP) 23 of the total membership are Republicans, or 41 percent. Keep in mind, however, that the minority Republicans always have been disproportionately underrepresented in the past, even with other GOP governors around.

Further cheer for reform forces should come from some individual selections of who got what and who didn’t. In the Senate, Adley despite his late switch was denied chairmanship of the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee because of his insufficient track record when it came to reducing the size of government and returning the people’s money to them. State Sen. Joe McPherson, a sworn enemy of meaningful health care reform that would pass power from institutions to people, was stripped of his chairmanship of the body’s Health and Welfare Committee.

So at first glance concerning the Senate, there’s a bit of an imbalance to the Senate but to some degree this can be explained. The House figures will provide more definition.

Blanco must halt revisionism, search for relevancy

On behalf of the state of Louisiana, I would like to make a request of lame-duck Democrat Gov. Kathleen Blanco: give us an early Christmas present and just go away quietly.

We’re tired of your inane, even mendacious, attempts to explain away your failed governorship. You blame your inadequate response to the hurricane disasters of 2005 on Republican-instigated “partisanship,” yet your own words and e-mail messages show you were the one interjecting partisanship from the very beginning into your actions which detracted from your ability to pursue better policy. In fact, despite having gone through simulated and real disasters, you still didn’t know simple intergovernmental procedures to have gotten aid faster, and you deliberately delayed to try to get partisan advantage.

You also blame partisanship on the much slower pace of recovery in Louisiana than Mississippi when in fact it was your own dithering that hampered the receipt of federal recovery dollars into the state. Then your people disregarded federal rules in the distribution of that money which tied it up bureaucratically and bankrupted the program.

Dead zone reveals problem of govt economic intervention

On the back of the man-made global warming fraud, many taken in by it argue society must move away from the use of hydrocarbons and increase use of renewable sources of energy. Regrettably, the federal government for years has subsidized the production of ethanol and Louisiana joined in a year ago for the future with the state requiring sellers of gasoline to sell ethanol if statewide production reaches a certain level and politicians decide it’s not really more expensive than gasoline. Now these decisions are starting to haunt us and point out yet again an enduring lesson that hubris prevents too many from realizing fully.

In the past year, production of corn has increased significantly which is the most common renewable crop used to produce ethanol. It’s not just government subsidies and federal regulations requiring its use in many metropolitan areas that now drive production, but higher oil prices. The consequence of the increased production, which is supposed to help the environment, is actually to degrade it in a way significant to Louisianans.

Corn takes more fertilizer, typically nitrogen-based, than typical crops. Unfortunately, when carried south down streams that empty through the Mississippi’s delta, the nitrogen runoff of thousands of miles away creates a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico where aquatic life can’t exist. Not only does this constitute an ecological problem, it is makes for commercial difficulties as fishing industry vessels must travel farther from port to harvest potentially less seafood, obviously negative for Louisiana’s industry.

Irony abounds in this scenario. Ethanol is supposed to help air quality and reduce “greenhouse gases” that allegedly are responsible for significant global warming. Yet in the mania to produce it, it harms not just another aspect of the environment, the ecology of the Gulf, but in pursuing this forces fishing vessels to use more energy – which is hydrocarbon-based and produces more greenhouse gases.

Thus revealing the folly of government intervention into the economy. Human history time and again has shown when there is a presumed public policy problem dealing with economic inputs and outputs, government intervention produces unintended and/or suboptimal outcomes. If government policy wasn’t forcing so much ethanol production, that production would be responding only to market forces, which would have the salutary impacts of reducing corn production (and prices for basic food on top of that) that would reduce the ecological consequences of it, and supplying greater incentives to spur technological developments such as ways to use fertilizer more efficiently and to extract and burn more efficiently petroleum products.

The environment always is best protected by market forces. If degradation becomes too much and/or a less-friendly process thereby becomes too expensive, consumers demand changes. Government fiat only interferes with outcome and, if Louisiana policy-makers want to get series about not contributing to the dead zone problem, they will repeal R.S. 3:3711 as soon as possible.

Merit, not parochialism, must guide offering decisions

It’s not politically correct, but it’s true what University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors member Michael Woods says about the Louisiana Board of Regents’ hesitancy in granting Louisiana State University Shreveport even a part of a Ph.D. program – it’s territorial and could delay or excise entirely the ability of LSUS to offer a doctoral degree in its own back yard..

Add to LSUS alumnus Woods’ comments the observation about the Board's position made by LSUS Chancellor Vincent Marsala: “short-sighted.” The program would offer a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and computational biology, contemplated for and developed over years by LSUS, which fits in nicely with a collaborative effort made with the LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport and Louisiana Tech University. The program has even more value now that it appears more likely than not that the Air Force will base its Cyber Command Center at Barksdale AFB in Bossier Parish.

The program has received cautionary approval by the Regents who must authorize any new degree offerings in the state. The report does not at all indicate that the program should not be offered, nor that LSUS could not contribute significantly to it. Rather, it expresses reservations that LSUS ought to be a part of it, noting that the higher education master plan while not prohibiting LSUS from offering doctoral degrees does not explicitly permit such offerings.

However, the Regents chairman Pat Strong personally seems to question whether the bringing of a doctoral program will really enhance the Shreveport metropolitan economy – “a doctoral program being that important to economic development.” That might make sense if it was a Ph.D. program in political science being discussed, but it seems pretty clear with the medical industry there and Cyber Command probably coming that there are going to be economic benefits, possibly substantial ones.

And if the Regents are so wedded to the plan, perhaps it needs changing. There’s no reason why the state’s four-year comprehensive university in the state’s third-largest metropolitan area should not have the ability at least to collaborate on such a program. It already is forced to collaborate for masters degrees with outsider Louisiana Tech – a school 70 miles distant from the area.

Woods also was courageously candid about that aspect, pointing out Tech has long sought placement in the Shreveport market. This brings up an entirely different question about the overbuilt nature of Louisiana higher education but if that’s not going to be addressed, then the next best thing is to give preference to universities in their areas – and that means LSUS in Shreveport, not Louisiana Tech.

Part of the problem is, historically, the insistence of the LSU system to base as much as it could in Baton Rouge. LSUS began only 40 years ago (over a century after the modern incarnation of LSU Baton Rouge) and spent its first decade as a junior college. It’s not just Shreveport either: there was no LSU campus in New Orleans until 50 years ago, it took several years to establish its own identity, it could not offer graduate degrees until 40 years ago (even as it became the second-largest in the state in enrollment) and it wasn’t until the 1970s that doctoral degrees were allowed there. The LSU system would not even allow dormitories to be built there until several years later and until the 1990s not for LSUS (and still vastly restricts their capacity both places). (For the record, not only am I obviously an LSUS employee although not its spokesman, but I also received my Ph.D. in political science from the LSU member institution in New Orleans, the University of New Orleans.)

This lingering desire to keep system campuses outside of Baton Rouge more as adjuncts to the flagship school than as separate entities has encouraged other universities wishing to poach on the natural LSUS market, and creates another red herring argument to prevent LSUS expansion through its involvement in this degree – that it would be the smallest school that could offer a Ph.D. in the state. But, as Woods points out, why shouldn’t this be allowed given it is the third largest market in the state and facing competitive pressures from out-of-state nearby institutions? (And the LSU system is giving full support to LSUS in this matter.)

If this is point of contention, then it also is natural to ask why Louisiana Tech, in an area with a population of about 20,000, gets to offer five different doctoral degrees most of which are in areas in which LSUS offers degrees? (What makes more sense, offering a Doctorate of Business Administration in the booming, thriving commercial capital of Ruston, or in the metropolitan area that is 18 times its size? Or a Doctorate of Education in an area with 67,000 students or one with a ninth of that number?) If degrees are going to be offered where the people aren’t, shouldn’t different degrees that have economic development value be offered where they are regardless of the size of the school as long as it has the capacity to deliver that education?

Woods’ remarks demonstrate there are just no clothes on those who bring up the questions of mission or size to deny LSUS not even wanting to offer a doctorate on its own but just to do so in collaboration. Market forces and economic development considerations must take precedence over parochialism in deciding the worth of this program.

Forecast argues for tax cuts, spending changes

Louisiana’s Revenue Estimating Conference confirmed that revenues are slipping in the state as the infusion of federal recovery dollars begins to taper off. Once again, this fact reinforces the need for prudence in future spending commitments and for fiscal policy that will boost revenues in the future.

These realities may have been overshadowed by the fact that a healthy surplus both for the current fiscal year and predicted for the next were declared by the Conference. Focusing solely on that aspect, however, misses the larger picture if drawing the conclusion that the state now has “extra” money to spend on things which, absent changing expenditure priorities, would be the worst possible decision to make.

A retreating revenue picture demands caution with any new commitments, which are prudent only if revenues look likely to increase over time. Rather, the current scenario dictates that new spending be sparse and that reprogramming of current commitments takes place to ensure that a fairly flat revenue forecast does not strain future state resources as inflation erodes and unexpected but necessary new commitments eat into these revenues.

Policymakers must understand the surplus exists only because spending demands in some areas (obviously not in areas of recovery expenses) have declined. Bluntly, with 300,000 or so few citizens displaced by the 2005 hurricane disasters of the socio-economic class most were in, the majority absorbed more, often much more, in state resources than they contributed. It’s not that state revenues have and will continue to go up for anything to do an improved state economy or fiscal outlook, it’s that with significantly fewer people to support off of government money that programmatic, nondiscretionary spending has gone down noticeably in some areas such as education and health care.

If current practices don’t change, this means revenues will remain stagnant at best while expenditures will rise. This argues that policy must change to increase revenues, entailing alterations in both the revenue area (designed to increase the gross take) and in the spending area (reconfiguring the mix of expenditures in a way which will maximize the gross take).

An example of the former would be cutting income taxes. Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal has stated his preference of reducing if not eliminating these. Not only would this allow revenues to grow within the next few years because of the greater economic activity produced, but also the approach solves a political problem: the Constitution caps spending by the state and if Jindal wanted to spend all of the surplus he would need a two-thirds vote of both Legislative chambers to secure this. Tax reductions lower the spending levels for cap purposes.

An example of the latter would be passing legislation diverting transportation-related revenues to be spent only for transportation purposes. Under-funded transportation infrastructure has held back the state’s economic potential thus tax-generating potential of state business. The surplus dollars would cushion the amount removed from the general fund by this reform the transfer of which would boost future revenues.

Typical policy of the past in Louisiana would have this “surplus” blown on a number of new commitments, may of dubious value. Hopefully, Jindal and the new Legislature will understand the opportunity presented and take full advantage of it through tax cuts and reprogramming of spending.

No trick reading Jindal intent, judging future performance

I guess I’m not part of the “political class” that keeps “busy with a new pastime: reading tea leaves” concerning what Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal will promote as policy when he takes office. Maybe I’m just too simple, but it seems like to me it’s all been made very obvious to us – which will give us clear benchmarks by which to assess his performance in the future.

It baffles me why one cannot go to Jindal’s campaign site and read what he has to say about important issues of the day. One columnist claims there’s only issue he seems to be clear on – ethics reform – and then thinks everybody must guess what he’s going to do. Well, it’s not hard to figure out, so let me assist:

Closed primary to alter substantially election dynamics

Although the closed primary is common among the states, it’s new to Louisiana for congressional contests and, further, will debut in a special election in early 2008 for the House seat to be vacated by incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal. This could pose questions for many and, as a highly-trained specialist in this area whose graduate education in political science partly was paid for by Louisiana taxpayers, I’ll provide for its citizens some answers concerning this subject.

First, as has been pointed out by one of my colleagues, that no runoff election exists to give a final general election winner an absolute majority not only is unremarkable for federal elections in the U.S., it is practically nonexistent. A very few states have super-minority kinds of requirements such as if nobody gets at least 40 percent in the general election that there is to be a runoff, but no state requires an absolute majority for declaration of a winner as a result of federal elections held on even-numbered years the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. (In fact, only about a dozen states or so even require runoff elections for any election, almost all of them in the South.)

Second, for the foreseeable future it will be rare that a winning candidate does not get an absolute majority in the general election, even if more than just a Republican and Democrat nominee run. As weak as the major parties are in Louisiana, the state of minor parties is much worse and the closed primary legislation was designed to strengthen the major parties without commensurate benefits for minor parties. It is difficult to imagine than any minor party candidate could get more of a small sliver of the vote in these kinds of contests any time soon when both major parties put up a nominee.

Third, however, the exception could be well-(probably self-) financed independent candidates along the lines such as recent gubernatorial hopeful John Georges. But even their effect will be diminished because the new law implicitly has what is called a “sore loser” provision. In their explicit versions which many states have, the law flat out mandates that a loser of a party primary cannot run in the general election. (One state that does not have any such law is Connecticut, a lacking that Sen. Joseph Lieberman exploited last election cycle when he lost the party primary to a fringe far-leftist; he then ran as an independent in the general election and won.)

Louisiana’s version is implicit because its sets qualifying for candidates who do not go through a primary nomination process at the same time as those who wish to vie for a party nomination. Normally, but not in the case for Jindal’s 1st District seat because it is a special election and all things are accelerated, that would occur four months prior to the actual general election. Thus, for a regular election in the first week of July, candidates must irrevocably choose their routes, either contesting a party primary or passing on them and going straight to the general election by qualifying as a minor party candidate (assuming these parties have not yet met the organizing threshold set by state law that would enable them to have their own nomination elections) or as no party (colloquially termed “independent”). This prevents candidates from contesting a primary and if losing it to change registrations to no party and getting in on the general election.

Thus, for federal elections we won’t see any last-minute switches less than two months to the primary/general election, such as Georges when only a few days before qualifying began he announced he would run as an independent despite having for months campaigned calling himself a Republican. Any candidate in essence would have to declare much earlier and fight all the publicity being monopolized by the races for the major party nominations. It will make a strategy of going independent more difficult to pull off successfully (although the compressed time frame of the special election might mitigate these obstacles to some degree).

Fourth, any registered voter may participate in the primary election, but not exactly because of the law’s literal wording. It gives the option, identical to the already-existing system for presidential preference primaries, of letting the qualifying (currently only the major) parties decide whether to allow non-party members to participate in their primaries. As it is, the Republicans refused to allow this but the Democrats will allow this. Thus, anybody not registered with a major party will be able to vote in the Democrats’ primary until the party decides to change it.

Fifth, the new law benefits Republicans, conservatives, blacks, and reduces the political power of white Democrats. Currently, a substantial minority of registered white Democrats routinely have voted for Republican candidates in national elections. The GOP’s complete closure of their nomination process means these individuals will have to switch registrations to Republican if they wish to participate in nomination decisions for the party whose candidates they typically have supported. In turn, this will create a more conservative nominating electorate for Republicans, and thus produce candidates who are more conservative.

This same dynamic will drain whites from the Democrats, strengthening the power of black voters in the party. It does not necessarily mean more black Democrat registrants, since non-party members will be allowed to vote, but black independents support Democrat candidates at a level close to what those registered with the party do. Still, the proportion of blacks participating in party primaries will increase relative to whites, meaning nominees are more likely to be black and liberal.

Thus, the “moderate” white Democrat will become an endangered species as a candidate and this process is likely to produce a white conservative Republican matched against (depending on district demographics) white or black liberal Democrat for House elections. Given the electorate generally is right of center in Louisiana, this means more Republicans who are more conservative will get elected. It could be, depending upon census numbers and who has control of state government after the 2011 elections, that this system will produce an entirely Republican, conservative slate of members of the House after the 2012 elections. (The dynamics for Senate contests are just as interesting, but that’s a subject for another time.)

Thus, the closed primary system for Louisiana federal elections will alter substantially election dynamics in the state.

Adley switch paints stripes on horse, calls it zebra

You can’t paint stripes on a horse and call it a zebra. State Rep. Billy Montgomery found that out when he changed parties prior to this year’s elections, then was defeated by a genuine conservative and Republican when he tried to extend his legislative life into the Senate. Now his ideological and Bossier Parish fellow traveler state Sen. Robert Adley has done the same.

New Republican Adley claims he chose now to switch, almost two months after his reelection, because of his enthusiasm for the agenda of the Republican incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal. One wonders whether he spent too much time campaigning against a lightweight Republican challenger to be aware that Jindal’s agenda hardly has changed since he last ran for governor in 2003, so why didn’t this happen before the election?

Instead, it’s almost comical the reasons he stated for the switch now, describing himself as a conservative reformer, saying "I'm excited we have a new governor with the same philosophy, and I want to be as effective as possible in dealing with him." Of course, his record in the Senate just from the past year violates truth-in-labeling.

Jindal repeatedly has said ethics reform is his top priority; Adley was one of the two senators most responsible for killing meaningful reform in the 2007 session. Jindal also has stated he would like to see the reduction, if not outright elimination, of income taxes; Adley in Senate committee hearings has publicly disparaged the idea and help ram through only the most miniscule tax relief despite an enormous budget surplus. Give Adley some credit for a skill most people can’t perform (although politicians often can), talking out of both sides of his mouth.

The real reason why Adley switched likely is he realizes his power and privilege in the Senate is endangered under a Jindal Administration. Currently vice chairman of the Senate’s Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee, his past contrary stance to Jindal’s agenda leaves him less likely to retain that position under the anticipated election of Sen. Joel Chaisson to the Senate’s Presidency, especially as Chaisson, supported by Jindal, wishes to increase Republican representation on key committees and to give leadership positions to more Republicans. For example, this committee ended the session with Democrats holding an 8-3 advantage in a chamber where there were fewer than two to one Democrats over Republicans, and both leaders of it Democrats.

The proof will be in the pudding, if Adley does vote a much more conservative line starting next year. Still, this switch, like Montgomery’s, seems more of convenience than from actual belief, if Adley’s past actions compared to current rhetoric apply.

Jindal agenda appears to grasp real cause of poverty

If there’s any consternation at all about incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal not having an explicit policy on poverty reduction in Louisiana when it seems he’s got a policy suggestion for everything else, it comes from misunderstanding that in most cases in no direct away can government do anything lasting about poverty.

For about four decades now, there has been a persistent failure on behalf of many elites, borne of the invalidity of political liberalism to explain the human condition, in comprehending the causes of poverty. There are two of these, each requiring a different public policy approach in order to minimize poverty and simultaneously improve the life prospects of those caught up in it.

One cause of poverty is bad fortune, both temporary and permanent, but with the same basic solution. Say a short-term illness drives a family into poverty; in this instance, government may provide relief designed solely temporary in nature until the crisis has passed and breadwinners are able to return to the workforce. This would include people whose bad choices brought the problems onto themselves, where government policy must be not to facilitate that behavior. If it’s a long-term illness, disability, or the like, government should provide a minimal, decent standard of living at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer.

McCrery departure surprising but politically astute

Apparently, the frustration of a bifurcated life between career and family and an inability to pursue the agenda he wanted combined to have veteran Republican U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery decide against running for reelection for Louisiana’s Fourth District. The timing of the announcement of his decision, however, additionally likely included partisan factors.

It was well known that McCrery was leaving sooner rather than later, given his past sentiments about the disruption his career caused to his family not only for him but of his wife and two boys. Something which may have encouraged him to hang on was his high position in the House GOP, at present the ranking member of perhaps the most powerful committee in the body, Ways and Means.

The problem was, if not for the Democrats taking over control of the House last year, he would have been chairman of Ways and Means, and in position to write fiscal policy that emphasizes greater individual freedom, less government intrusiveness, pro-growth and greater efficiency. By contrast, Democrats have tried to push an agenda that takes more of the peoples’ earnings to favor special interests, would rather sacrifice prosperity on the altars of various causes such as the environmentalist anti-growth religion and other forms of political correctness, and thereby refuse to reform government programs to make them work better.

Unfortunately, McCrery found out very quickly few of his ideas had any realistic chance of seeing the light of day, and the political trends of next years elections offer no assurance that Republicans could take back the majority. While Democrats might follow the suicidal path of nominating Sen. Hillary Clinton for the presidency, the large number of announced retirements from the House (his being the 18th so far) by Republicans make their chances only even of retaking the House even with a Clinton nomination.

And, partisan politics may have played a role in the timing of the decision. He might have taken the chance to see if a Clinton meltdown would vault him into the chairmanship, then if not depart in 2010. But even as that would have led to two more years of decreased presence in his teenagers’ lives, a 2008 exit might also increase Republican chances of holding the district. With Clinton likely heading the Democrat ticket, that would be poison to any Democrat trying to succeed McCrery.

McCrery definitely will be missed in both the district and the state. Louisiana would be fortunate if his replacement is of such quality.