Politicized meeting no help in broadband funding quest

If one had hoped that discussion about the state’s recent loss of a federal government grant opportunity at the recent Public Service Commission meeting could produce positive activity to produce more widely available broadband capability, that got dashed with the spinning of wild conspiracy theories that entirely lack credibility, contractors and agencies trying to cover themselves, and a state government that only too late realized it had headed in the wrong direction and then ran up against partisan political realities when it tried to salvage the situation.

Although the PSC has no jurisdiction over the matter, Commissioner Foster Campbell wanted it discussed. Almost two years ago the state, using the Board of Regents as the lead agency, was awarded a grant to link broadband access off of a high capacity line connecting the state’s northern universities that would have expanded access to public state and local agencies as far west as the Texas border and as far east as Baton Rouge. It was hoped that the lowered costs would encourage private sector providers to latch on and lower provision costs so more households and businesses could get this kind of service, supplementing slower current networks.

But as the project fell way behind, months ago the Division of Administration stepped in with, compared to the original, a very different plan that removed the state in large part from building and operating the network to a leasing arrangement.

Uncompetitive assessors' races deserved more scrutiny

While higher profile races may have gotten more attention, voters in Caddo and Bossier Parishes delivered a verdict on an intriguing question in the contests for the same minor office – do they care about what a parish assessor does or can do?

Democrat Incumbent Caddo Assessor Charles Henington got his first challenge in a dozen years from Republican attorney Royal Alexander, a past state Attorney General candidate and who worked on Capitol Hill. Alexander made as his main issue the fact that Caddo residents paid the most in property taxes and declared that, generally speaking, comparable properties in Caddo were assessed at a higher value than elsewhere.

Henington responded by saying Caddo never had been cited by the state for having values out of line with what assessments ought to be.

Dardenne policy should focus on taxpayers, not ambitions

So Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne breathes a sign of relief, after two statewide elections in two years, and four in the past five, now that he appears to have plenty of time to govern rather than campaign. Mind you, the campaigning part was his own choice – he didn’t have to run for Secretary of State in a special 2006 election, then run for the regular job, only to seek successfully to abandon it in 2010 for this job. And now this progressive ambition threatens unwise prioritization of Louisiana tax dollars.

Unsatisfied with the opportunities provided by the secretary of state’s job, when assuming his current position after the special election in 2010, Dardenne must have felt even less fulfilled. Given this job-hopping pattern, it’s unlikely that Dardenne does not aspire to something even higher and with far more policy-making importance than this or his previous job. And to parlay his current position into that future, he must depend upon a historical fluke that without would make the leveraging power of his position virtually nil.

The Louisiana Constitution provides the lieutenant governor with no power. This was as the guiding force behind the 1974 (the latest) Constitution, then (before becoming Prisoner #03128-095) Gov. Edwin Edwards, intended.

Songy record problematic in achievement, legal issues

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education District 6 runoff between Republican incumbent Chas Roemer and Democrat challenger Donald Songy has taken the most ideological tone of the remaining undecided contests. But also the “professional” vs. “outsider” theme needs reviewing to judge the qualifications of the candidates.

Roemer, a businessman, has argued that his approach, promoting school choice such as by facilitating charter school operation and dismantling counterproductive institutions and processes by means such as tying teacher evaluation more closely to performance, will move the state out of dwelling at or close to the bottom of educational achievement statistics. Songy opposes many of these reform efforts and contends that his three decades of working in public schools, the last four year before retirement as superintendent of Ascension Parish schools, makes him more capable of creating improvement.

Songy, of course, must address the obvious question of using his career and approach as examples of qualifications when they took part in an educational system that has performed poorly; was he and his outlook then not part of the problem?

Grant discussion wise to resist politicization, find solutions

While perhaps the request by Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell does not really fit the mission of his governmental body, it does provide an opportunity to help chart a course to salvage a federal government grant awarded to the state, now revoked, by avoiding politicization of the issue.

Campbell asked that at the Nov. 9 meeting of the PSC it discuss the matter, even though the regulatory purview of the PSC makes it questionable whether it has any legal input at all regarding the issue of build out of telecommunications infrastructure by the public sector before it operates. It concerns a statement from Washington that the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s grant office has told the state it had serious reservations about whether the state could come up with a plan it deems workable for a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant by its deadline.

The BTOP program, created by the initial Pres. Barack Obama spending bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, funds in three areas, two of which Louisiana pursued:

Backwards step on state pay plan invites Jindal veto

Once more, the third time in the past three years, the State Civil Service Commission has come up a pay plan to change from the current blunt, mostly useless current instrument. And, once again, past history suggests that, despite Gov. Bobby Jindal now having most members of it appointed by him, that he will veto the measure.

The current system sets five gradations for evaluation of classified employees, where anyone scoring in the top three merits a four percent pay raise, no more, no less. Supervisors perform evaluations just prior to the employee’s hiring anniversary. Historically, around 99 percent of employees who outside of their first year of employment have gotten placed in the top three categories, but any raise occurs only when funded through the budget process, which it has not been for the past two years.

Past criticisms of the system, among them levied by Jindal, include that the rolling, ongoing evaluation process created confusion, the fixed amount allowed no flexibility, and that all agencies had to accept the same amount.

Analysis shows Jindal did get 2011 electoral mandate

Observers of the recently-conducted Louisiana state elections have wondered whether Gov. Bobby Jindal’s victory constitutes a mandate. Some have suggested, by pointing out that Jindal actually drew several thousand votes fewer than in his similar 2007 general election win, and that overall turnout for the contest was lower by about a fifth, that his win did not. Statistical analysis, however, proves otherwise.

One method that could reveal definitively that 2011’s results did not produce a mandate, or an overwhelming agreement to back Jindal’s agenda, is to look at the comparative change in turnout among all statewide elective single executive office contests. According to the logic of no mandate, increased nonvoting signals a lack of interest in the contest and, by implication, tepid endorsement by the entire public of the winner’s platform.

If that is the case, then the comparative loss to turnout in the governor’s race should be greater than for other executive offices.

Voters may not see luck on their side with new casino

Bossier City voters may be forgiven if they feel as if they are staring down the barrel of a .44 magnum, held by their city government snarling, “You’ve got to ask yourself a question: do you feel lucky?” The answer either can lead to adding a little economic boost to the underperforming suburb, or end up being yet another economic development mistake in a city that has made a habit of unwise spending and frittering away genuine opportunity.

Because, in reality, it’s multiple questions needing answers as a result of the state deciding to allow transfer of a casino license to a projected operation in Bossier City, which would make it the fourth riverboat docked at least partially in the city. State law requires an affirmative local option vote in the parish of the berthing.

The antecedent question for voters addresses the moral aspect of the decision, whether increased gambling opportunities make, in the aggregate, the parish a better place in which to live.

Jindal pick shows he should stay, will aim very high

Now that Gov. Bobby Jindal won a second term in historic fashion, creating a mandate if a nebulous one, does his backing of state Sen. John Alario signify renewed emphasis in creating a record in office worthy of higher things, and then pursuing them?

As observers vent and exercise over the choice of the increasingly conservative, obviously skilled, but very baggage-laden good-old-boy for Senate president, one view to understand the choice (besides the fact that the master politician Alario had made his election an accomplished fate that only substantial Jindal exertion might have stopped) is that Jindal recognizes in a body where perhaps half the members can be counted upon to vote for conservative principles most of the time, he needs an experienced hand to guide his agenda through. And, it is asserted, this agenda at the very least aims to leave a lasting imprint on the state, and perhaps promotes Jindal as ready for high office at the national level.

It’s a logical thesis, and, given that conservative policy is good for what ails Louisiana, its people will be better off for it.

Huge money advantages aided Democrat incumbent wins

Much has been made about the fact that Republican operatives, statewide officeholders, and interest groups hoped to target and knock off several Democrat incumbents with strategic infusions of money into Republican challengers’ campaigns, and none of these attempts succeeded. Yet nothing has been made about the real reason only one such race ended up with the challenger close to the incumbent – because of the vast disparity of resources in favor of the Democrats.

Any, but in many cases all, of organizations led by Republicans Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. David Vitter, the state Republican Party, and organizations sympathetic to conservative policy, sent resources, in some instances totaling as much as five figures, to GOP candidates challenging incumbent Democrat state Sens. Eric LaFleur and Ben Nevers, incumbent state Rep. Gary Smith vying for an open Senate seat, and incumbent state Reps. Robert Johnson, James Armes, Bernard LeBas, Jack Montoucet, and Neil Abramson. Only Nevers faced a squeaker to win reelection, while the others won with much more breathing room.

While some observers cite these results due to the races being local in nature and thus more resistant to outside resources swaying them, or that incumbency delivers an extra resource, in reality these incumbents enjoyed significant, if not monstrous, money advantages in the final three weeks of the campaign, enabling them to outspend enormously their challengers in the most crucial segment of the contest. In the majority of instances, the advantage was overwhelming.