An eternal lesson: keep close watch on all govts

As 2011 approaches and observing that Bossier Parish seems to have no difficulty, even in trying economic times, in finding money to service road construction, as well as reviewing the past year and digesting the renewed enthusiasm that the people have acquired courtesy of over-reaching national government to monitor the activities of government, it makes me think back some years ago about an object lesson concerning how government operates. The specific example is Bossier Parish's, and the apparent whimsy of situation might amuse save for the unsettling consequences implied had things turned out differently.

Perhaps somebody remembers in the days leading up to the 2006 fall elections that a sign touting an affirmative vote for Bossier Parish raising property taxes essentially threefold, at what was then the southern end of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, was moved a short distance away only a few days before that election. Blame me for the consternation.

I first noticed the sign on Sep. 21 and became simultaneously curious and concerned. It didn’t state who sponsored it, and it was in a spot I thought might be part of the public right-of-way, and certainly was on public property (Bossier City’s). Obviously, it was an attempt to encourage passage of the measure which should bring pause to anyone who believes in fairness by government: Bossier City was permitting a pro-vote sign, supporting a Bossier Parish measure which would enrich the parish coffers by $2 million a year, to be placed on its property, regardless of whether its citizens supported such a measure.

Change, merge before expanding LA higher education

The call for increasing the capacity of Louisiana’s community college system underscores the mistakes of the past, and illuminates the pitfalls of the future regarding the state’s overbuilt system of higher education. From these observations, we can learn how to go about creating a more efficient system.

State Sen. Ben Nevers recently bemoaned that fact that the Florida Parishes area and central Louisiana had a paucity of community college choices. What he neglected to add was it had more than enough in terms of higher education and technical schools, the former condition a result of political machinations.

Long ago, in the former Gov. Huey Long era, smack in the middle of the Northshore area Southeastern Louisiana University was promoted from junior college status despite its fairly light area population and being only 50 miles away from the flagship school Louisiana State University Baton Rouge. In part this was as a result of the animosity of Longite forces towards New Orleans, considered the hotbed of anti-Long sentiment, in order to continue to deny the placement of a state university in New Orleans. In fact, that did not transpire until the 1950s and only about 50 years ago did New Orleans, through today’s University of New Orleans, gain an independent baccalaureate-and-above public institution.

Landrieu earmark defense illogical, disingenuous

While earmarks are just a relatively small contributor to the massive debt being rung up by the Pres. Barack Obama and (former in the House) Democrat leadership in Congress that threatens meaningful economic growth, their elimination by the new Republican House of Representatives leadership provides some savings and larger symbolic signaling. Yet at least one Louisiana federally-elected official continues to support the concept by framing in it in terms of a false dichotomy.

Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu contends that eliminating earmarks, or the process of federal spending targeted to a specific agency and/or area of the country inserted at the request of a Member of Congress to spending bills not recommended by the president, would give the executive branch all of the power of spending designated to the Congress (and is not shy about promoting this view). This view also to some degree Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander supported although he now is on the record as opposing them (with reluctance), and present lobbyist but former Rep. Bob Livingston has said the same.

Couching the argument in terms of constitutional powers makes for a good argument, but sloppily reasons that the only alternative to having Congress have no input in spending decisions is to have earmarks. This thinking is decidedly uninformed and disingenuous. At least two alternative approaches commend themselves for Congressional input.

Recall that one kind of earmark essentially asks that federal taxpayers foot the bill for a purpose that benefits only a geographically narrowly-defined range of individuals that, as a concept, to some degree runs afoul of the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause just as the Democrats’ health care provisions changes do. Others of them reflect agencies trying to make end runs around the White House to rectify what they consider unsatisfactory budgetary outcomes. This is what makes earmarks controversial in the first place and why they are thrown in all together into giant spending bills, to facilitate logrolling. That is, Members count on each other to vote for everybody else’s earmarks so everybody gets a piece of the action.

So the solution is to require that any line-item amendments to a presidential budget, either in insertion or removal or earmarks, be subject to a separate vote during floor debate and not be dealt with as a package at the committee level. Then, instead of everybody rubbing each other’s backs, each project will have to stand on its own merits. The time this will take and the publicity from the exposure will ensure few and only very worthy projects that have at least some national purpose will get added. The particularly would happen with the more local kinds of earmarks, where every Member who votes for a use of their constituents’ funds for another’s state or district would have to defend that vote.

As for projects that really only benefit specific areas of the country, if Congress wishes to provide more discretion to state and local governments in the use of federal money, there already exists an entire, if inefficient, grant structure replete with fairly unrestricted block grants. It can shovel more money to these, allowing states and local jurisdictions to apply on behalf of more projects. The earmark process as it has existed only subverts this and makes it work even more poorly.

These are extremely workable avenues by which Congress may impose its will on the spending choices of the federal government. To assert as Landrieu does that earmarks are the only method by which Congress may do so is a red herring designed to obscure rather than to clarify the debate, besides exhibiting a lack of critical thinking skills important to have in our policy-makers.

Proper spending priorities needed, mill saga reminds

As Louisiana grubs for money in what seems to be an approaching difficult budgetary year, a past mistake continues to haunt taxpayers and may be become worse next year, providing a harsh lesson.

As part of his multi-decade reign of error, former Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom conned the state into fronting $45 million for a processing plant in Lacassine to take sugar cane and extract it into syrup, arguing against the evidence that it would provide a needed service to farmers that would enable the state to pay for it. To make matters worse, he backed it by taking money intended to go for boll weevil protection (and also apportioned it to other capital projects) and then on top of all that brokered an $11 million unsecured loan for facility equipment.

Naturally, the wrong economics ensured the facility never has produced this syrup that would cover costs, and currently produces none because of that. In addition, Odom tried to get an ethanol plant built next to it to take cane refuse instead of paying to deal with it and offered a tremendous sweetheart deal to a company with no expertise in the field, Andino Energy, majority owner of the enterprise known as Louisiana Green Fuels, to own the existing facility and to build the other plant, after a deal to see to the Lake Charles Cane Cooperative fell through although the farming group has stayed in as a 20-percent owner. The Colombian-based majority owner has had to make minimal payments in the early years to the state, which for its part must take up the slack if the company can’t make full payments as the racetrack-generated revenue stream does not back the loan.

Numbers show coming clash of LA redistricting plans

Now confirmed that Louisiana will lose a seat in the House of Representatives beginning in 2013, the redistricting issue involved that did not seem so unclear may get much murkier when the results get released in February, 2011.

Conventional wisdom would assert that today’s Third District, with freshly-minted Republican Rep.-elect Jeff Landry to take the helm within a couple of weeks, would be the odd man out. The Second District, currently just the black-dominated areas of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, will have to stay majority-minority to satisfy legal requirements but, because of population loss, also expand. It can’t head north across Lake Pontchartrain because geographically boxed-in First District is mostly there, except for grabbing white dominated areas of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, the latter particularly important because its incumbent Republican Rep. Steve Scalise resides in Metairie.

So, only two real choices exist. One would be for the Second to head south and west, taking in parts of the Third. The Seventh would move east as it would be shaved from the north by the Fourth and Fifth reaching down. The latter also would impact the Sixth which would expand all but to the north, in fact being pushed down from there, also impacting the Third. Dismantling the Third also seems likely because of Landry’s freshman status where all other members of the unprotected districts, Republicans like him, have at least a term’s seniority on him and presumably more clout with state policy-makers making the reapportionment decision.

Using 2009 estimates, with six seats each district equiproportionately would have about 747,000 residents, and using the White v. Weiser standard (even as the judiciary has never laid down a single, determinate formula that signifies malapportionment) with a population variance of ±4 percent from that, except for splitting Jefferson along the lines it is presently, the other 63 parishes can be fit into six districts meeting this qualification and this plan (as well as the judicial standards of compactness and contiguity). But from the perspective of some legislators, the problem may be that the Second, which also would have all of Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Lafourche, St, James, and St. John the Baptist Parishes, would have a black majority of only about 21,000. Despite it being a very friendly district to Democrats with a 9:2 ratio of them to Republicans, some black politicians may think this is cutting it too close to ensure that a black politician wins, especially after outgoing Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao managed to win (under admittedly special circumstances) prevented that with even less favorable numbers.

Perhaps in response, one of these black Democrats, House and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rick Gallot, who will be one of the most important figures in redistricting, suggested an alternative which would create, in essence, a north Louisiana district and a coastal district although the reason he cited was along the lines of another judicial standard, “community interests.” He argued the present Fourth would have to gulp in Calcasieu and Cameron, while the Fifth would reach to the borders of East Baton Rouge. The former isn’t necessarily the case – it can be done without those two parishes but with Jefferson Davis – but he’s basically correct on the latter, which would curve around and take in Point Coupee and the Felicianas. The question here becomes whether Jefferson Davis has all that much in common with Caddo and Bossier, as opposed to Calcasieu, and whether the Felicianas do with Ouachita relative to East Baton Rouge or Livingston.

Gallot hints that maybe a more tortuous Second, snaking up the Mississippi River, might work. This would then require a coastal district because then St. Bernard, Plaquemines, and Lafourche must be accounted for, and also a snaking (presently) Sixth District as well. This would end up creating a sprawling district in the middle of the state with potentially huge community of interest questions – do any of Jackson, Tensas, St. Helena, and Jefferson Davis have that much in common?

It’s much more complicated than this because of side deals – trading support for a Congressional plan in exchange for it for one dealing with legislative districts, for example – but, all things equal, this sets up the potential conflict. If the path of least resistance is followed, the ending of the Third as far as plans go creates more contiguous and compact districts and fits the community of interest stricture at least as well as the alternative. Whether interests such as black or southern state legislators agree is another matter.

Resignation may complete GOP legislative takeover

When waiting upon the switching of parties didn’t prove to be fast enough, perhaps Gov. Bobby Jindal thought he might accelerate the process of a Republican takeover of the Louisiana Legislature by dangling appointments in front of sitting senators who were not Republicans.

First, Troy Hebert got tabbed for state government, although his exit merely got expedited as he had said he would not run for reelection. But with the announcement by state Sen. Nick Gautreaux that he would head out to take over the Office of Motor Vehicles, this removes a Democrat who previously had given no indication he would resign or not run for reelection anytime soon.

Still, that Gautreaux was rumored to be a switch possibility gave a hint that another Democrat domino was to fall in the Senate which his departure now sets up a probable 19-all tie between the two major parties in the upper house early next year as long as the seat remains unfilled (if there are no more switches). This comes on the heels of the latest, most opportunistic switch that gave the GOP the lower house majority of 53 (versus 48 Democrats and four independents).

Switch highlights need for vigilance by conservatives

The latest party switch that gives the GOP an official majority in the Louisiana House of Representatives brings a lot of irony for the nakedness of the ambition behind it that contradicts the ideological realignment behind why the majority coalesced.

State Rep. Noble Ellington made it official by calling himself the 53^rd Republican in the House, but the irony is that policy views appeared to play a minor consideration in the decision. Over the past three years, using the ideology/reformism index from the Louisiana Legislature Log, Ellington scored 50, well below the average Republican House score of 71.96 and not too much more moderate than the House Democrat average of 44.10. (However, Ellington is the chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is composed of state legislators who back principles of free enterprise, limited government, and federalism.)

Compared to all the party switchers since the end of this year’s session still in the Legislature, Ellington is the only one who was not at or above the chamber’s average Republican score, so theirs could be argued as the correction of a misalignment in identity to label. Yet this clearly is not the case with Ellington, even as it gained him laurels from the state Republican Party’s Chairman Roger Villere who hailed the switch – again, with irony since Villere did not aggressively welcome most of the other switchers as, while they did not make a majority, they have behaved more consistently (at least in the last three years) with the party’s platform.

Rather, ambition appears as Ellington’s main goal as he has spent about three decades in elective office with plenty of opportunity to build support. He tried for the Speaker Pro-Tempore spot this spring and lost narrowly to Joel Robideaux who was backed by Speaker Jim Tucker. With Tucker facing term limits at the end of next year, Ellington has proclaimed he’s like to take that job.

Robideaux, an independent (in yet another irony, because of internecine Lafayette politics ran under that label instead of as a Republican initially and has stuck with it), if reelected probably has a better chance of getting Tucker’s spot if, as trends suggest, even more and more conservative Republicans get elected next fall who will view his conservative/reformist three-year current score of 80 much more to their liking. But with personalistic politics still playing a significant role in these kinds of decisions within the Legislature, and with a good-old-boy grandmaster like Ellington tacking with the political winds better than winners of the America’s Cup with the real thing, who knows how it will turn out?

Symbolically speaking, the confirmation of Republican House rule coming from a marginal believer pursuing opportunism may not feel satisfactory to those who see the Louisiana Republican Party as the best hope for superior public policy, and suggests the possibility that Republicans-in-Name-Only may see switching as the more viable option to exert power than sticking with Democrats. It’s up conservative/reform voters and like-minded Republican candidates to ensure these infiltrators do not dilute the promise of the conservative/reform agenda in Louisiana.

With reform action, Jindal assures himself of reelection

It’ a good question – as we head into 2011, can Gov. Bobby Jindal not win reelection?

Of course, because anything can happen. But as far as anything likely to happen to derail Jindal, the pickings are far and few between. At 55 percent approval in the latest nonpartisan poll, that’s tough to beat, especially when he had at the beginning of this year over $7 million bankrolled for a run. In 2009 he netted over $4 million and his pace only has increased in 2010, meaning $12 million is not out of the question by the end of 2010, which would exceed his entire spending for his successful 2007 run.

Popular politicians can be brought down by scandal, but one look at Jindal and you have to laugh that one off. Does anybody seriously think he’s going to be caught with a live boy or a dead girl? Or that this guy is going to shake you down or sell decisions to the highest bidder?

Natural disaster response took a shaky Gov. Kathleen Blanco and blew her right out of any hopes to repeat. But that’s one of Jindal’s strengths the public learned early on when faced with his own set of potential hurricane disasters.

Really only one thing can damage Jindal to the point that he is vulnerable, and that is the constitutional fact that the burden on cost reduction in government in times of budgetary stress falls upon him. The straitjacketed state fiscal structure forces him to order cuts largely confined to the areas of higher education and health care. Even though it is just as much, if not more, the Legislature’s fault that a large deficit approaches for fiscal year 2011-12, because the Constitution makes him point man not just for budgeting but also in reductions to avoid deficit, Jindal is personified as the one responsible. Even though the state spends too much relative to its actual needs, negating any need for a tax increase, the Constitution and law prevents cutting in many areas lower priority area and thus the disproportionate cuts in the few permissible areas begin to hit higher priority elements.

After his State of the State address earlier this year, I noted here and elsewhere that Jindal needed to act with a certain amount of boldness in addressing the looming fiscal crisis, as, unfairly or otherwise, he would be held responsible. He backed some good legislation but, whether as a result of the oil spill crisis that exploded onto the scene three weeks into the session, he never really followed through in trying to get passed measures that would have enabled more options in response to budgetary difficulties or with negotiating a budget that better positioned the state to deal with this upcoming tough year.

Human nature makes frustrated people want to blame somebody, and their first inclination leads them to the most visible target, in this case Jindal. However, Jindal can deflect that by putting the onus on the Legislature to create the conditions by which to soften the blow, by his support of legislation, some of which would lead to constitutional amendments, to create additional flexibility that would permit better priorities being pursued.

This strategy would require a special session that Jindal could have dictated to make the Legislature act (or not) on the matter. Instead, he defaulted to the Legislature itself and it has called for its own special session. This doesn’t mean that the matter wouldn’t be taken up, but it certainly won’t be unless Jindal applies some pressure.

And perhaps that’s part of the plan, as the session, ostensibly planned for redistricting, is to last three weeks which caught some attention as far as its length. Maybe Jindal and/or the likes of House Speaker Jim Tucker got more time in there to leave room to take care of agenda items such as this. Even if the matter did not get onto the agenda, this does not mean that Jindal’s reelection is imperiled.

Yet if Jindal really wants to seal the deal, if he wants to state definitively to the voting public that he wants to address the crisis, by pushing for these changes essentially he thrusts responsibility onto the Legislature and the public itself. By doing so, he can argue that any negative perceptions from a sharp reduction in spending emanate from the inaction of the Legislature or the public’s own rejection of the solution (which seems unlikely; the main problem is in getting legislators to buck special interests who prefer unmolested funding of their pet services regardless how low priority they may be). He will have demonstrated he had the answer, only to be thwarted, and blame must be apportioned accordingly.

In making the attempt, Jindal can deflect the only potential criticism that does not make his reelection a slam dunk.

Obama panel voices sour grapes at Jindal berm success

Hindsight is 20/20, but politics always is in focus and dominating the behavior of the Pres. Barack Obama Administration, as Louisiana politicians have discovered.

Obama’s commission to investigate the oil spill that dominated the political environment in Louisiana for three months earlier this year, despite being packed with those sympathetic to special interests normally allied with Obama, has been an uneven tool for the president in his quest to cast blame upon everybody but his administration for the slow resolution of it (such as in its revelations that the Obama Administration politicized the drilling moratorium response). A report issued yesterday by the body reinforces this theme, making an attempt to dish out criticism of critics of Obama during this time period but doing so in a way that also in passing denigrates Obama’s leadership skills.

Most pertinent in the exercise, the panel concludes, lead by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal Democrat Obama apparently got bludgeoned into supporting the Jindal-backed idea of building sand berms to catch oil. Critics derided the idea because they were overly concerned about the environmental impact and thought the money, being supplied completely by well-owner BP, could be spent on what they asserted were more productive enterprises – even as many including the federal government thought the berms then could be very effective.

Yet Jindal argued all along that even if, after all was said and done the berms didn’t catch much oil, that the possibility that a lot could be coming onshore outweighed other considerations – that is, the harm potentially would be so catastrophic that an uncertain protective measure such as this was justified, a point lost among almost all of the critics. Nobody apparently knows how many barrels got caught, at least several hundred and if that were all then as the sole use of this money it would have been deemed cost-effective only if the potential harm had not been so great – but that was not the situation at the time.

The commission frames the series of events as Jindal and others pressuring the federal government which seemed skeptical on his plan, but then Obama himself seemed to cave into the pressure and bureaucrats followed. Interestingly, the report leaves out one crucial determinant of the decision-making process – that between the time Louisiana officials cranked up the lobbying intensity and the decision being made to go with the berm idea, the initial “Top Kill” strategy to close the leak – which would go on for two more months – failed. Thus, likely in the minds of all involved including Obama and scientists, a tidal wave of oil very realistically could have hit the Louisiana coast where Jindal and the others argued for the berms to be built.

In that respect, the commission failed to understand the gravity and uncertainty of the situation – after all, if someone is being ravaged with cancer, typically doctors go for the most aggressive treatment possible even if its cost is tremendous, it may not be effective, and even if so treatment of much reduced severity and cost may have worked just as well. If the choice was an ecological disaster or not constructing berms, at least the berms had some chance of stopping some oil whereas not building them would give no chance of that outcome, regardless of how much oil might make it to that part of the shoreline. That the report claimed the use of funds for building berms “is not a compelling cost-benefit tradeoff” is absurd on its face in any realistic assessment of the threats at the time the decision.

That enormous risk alone made the building of the berms – at no expense to the taxpayer – justifiable, which the report grudgingly acknowledges in its admission that this review is hindsight. However, for the nation as a whole and especially for Louisiana taxpayers the berm building ended up being a masterstroke by Jindal, because they were built from the beginning in mind as the initial foray into a coastal restoration project. Craftily, Jindal leveraged an emergency protection measure into one that promises long-term protection against coastal erosion, putting the state light years ahead of where it otherwise would be on this priority in these cash-strapped times.

American taxpayers and, in particular, Louisianans should be grateful at the foresight Jindal and his team had on this issue, but the report barely makes reference to this in its haste to try to make Obama look better by criticizing those who carped about his lack of leadership on the issue. And with Jindal hanging around as a burgeoning national figure that can send liberalism and Democrats further into retreat no doubt added to the myopic bluster of this exercise.

Another switch confirms homing in for political advantage

As more elected state Democrats leave the sinking ship, understand the motivations aren’t really because of changing views or that their former party has suddenly lurched even more to the left, but of cool, political calculation to do what’s best for their careers.

What began as a trickle, with state Rep. Simone Champagne taking the plunge just after the end of the 2010 session of the Legislature, became a cannonball competition after the midterm election wipeout for national Democrats. State Rep. Walker Hines jumped next, followed by state Sens. John Smith and John Alario, and now state Rep. Fred Mills has joined them. But were we to compare their actual voting behavior over the past three years with their new identification we would conclude it’s simply a case of them coming home.

Using the Louisiana Legislature Log’s ideology/reformism scorecard, from 2008 we can calculate each legislator’s average score (where 100 means conservative/reform votes on all issues, weighed proportionally, used in the index) and compare it to the average Republican and Democrat score in each chamber. Doing so presents the following rank ordering, House members first:

Champagne: 76.67

Hines: 75.00

Republican House Avg.: 71.96

Mills: 71.67

Democrat House Avg.: 44.10

Smith: 71.67

Alario: 67.33

Republican Senate Avg.: 61.13

Democrat Senate Avg. 43.83

As shown, only Mills even is a trace below the typical Republican, and all score far more conservative/reform than their Democrat colleagues. If anything, with their switches they have brought their identities into conformity with their expressed beliefs. Yet the larger question is why switch now and the answer is politics. In the past they maintained identifications aberrant with their views because of the electoral and political advantages conveyed. For three reasons, for these politicians those have eroded.

Consider that, because of the blanket primary system that provides no incentive for registered voters to align their own identifications with beliefs, the historical hangover of Democratic registration advantage continues to exist in many legislative districts. Only a handful of legislative districts, by the numbers, even have a Republican plurality. And even if weakened by the perverse incentives of the blanket primary system, party identification still is a meaningful cue for many voters. (It’s no accident that all but one of these switches have occurred from the West Bank west through Acadiana, where the state’s greatest divergence is seen between districts’ national contest voting behavior and overall identifications.)

However, the imperative is dramatically empowered in the case of black voters. Conditioned by elites that, for whatever reason, they trust, many black voters won’t consider voting for anybody but a Democrat. This gave a tactical advantage to candidates who voted more conservative/reform than not who would call themselves Democrats as these votes would disappear had they labeled themselves otherwise – especially as they did not have to compete in a closed primary system where the incongruence between identification and belief would catch them out competing in a Democrat primary consisting of a much more liberal/populist electorate.

So, part of the motivation is that they now figure they can overcome the disadvantage they are going to give themselves among black voters relative to where they are now, and a much smaller one among non-blacks, with at least some additional Republican voters. But also regarding the timing is that they see (dramatically borne out by the Democrat midterm fiasco) within the year Republicans will control, perhaps comfortably, both chambers of the Legislature. Party is not as important in the distribution of power in the Louisiana Legislature as it is in Congress, but it matters for things like committee and leadership assignments which are of strategic importance to legislators in their careers and in providing material to stay in office or to advance to others.

Finally, with redistricting approaching and it becoming increasingly clear that Republicans will control the process, jumping on the winning team will enhance the chance that their districts get drawn favorably for reelection purposes. (As a public service announcement, Louisiana redistricting will be a topic of discussion at the Southern Political Science Association 2011 Annual Meeting in New Orleans at 4:45 PM Friday, Jan. 7, where I and other political scientists will take up the matter. Inquiries may be made here.)

Therefore, these switches represent not rank, obvious opportunism against (at least recent) type, but, rather, subtle moves to continue to follow a tide they largely have been riding with for some time – even as you should not be fooled by generic explanations about “how the Democrats left me” as their voting behaviors show they left that party some time ago.