Call limit bill does not restrict speech nor empower govt

Rep. Cameron Henry triggered an interesting debate about political speech with his prefiled HB 151, one which may present the politicians called upon to enact it and to enforce it a false dilemma.

The bill would make political campaigns subject to the state’s Do Not Call requirement, where almost all unsolicited telephone calls are prohibited. Calls from campaigns currently are exempt, but the bill would remove that and allow households to opt out through the registry that is kept and violations of enforced by the Public Service Commission, initiated by the household.

Its practical impact would be to chill slightly political speech. Having to police their lists, political marketing firms will raise the price of voter contact, pricing some campaigns out of this tool. But government has done this for years, with local authorities empowered to restrict campaign signage, for example.

Roemer divorces GOP, plans binging with new mate

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer today announced he’s getting a divorce for the second time, citing lack of spousal affection despite the fact he’s such a great catch, but also partly to blame for the situation by his infatuation with another.

Roemer, who divorced Democrats over two decades ago, said goodbye to the Republican Party, whining that he should have gotten more support from Republicans because he’s a former Member of Congress and governor. So what; at least another Republican ex-governor, Harold Stassen, kept running and losing nominations for the presidency without being taken seriously – even when he had comedian Pat Paulsen as a competitor – and didn’t blame everybody else but himself for his lackluster showing.

He now formally confirmed he would seek the quasi-party Americans Elect pseudo-nomination, as well as that of what’s left of the Reform Party. Neither looks promising to promote the Roemer brand. With AE, he has his own comedian problem, as the way this organization works – its leaders vet prospective candidates for what they see as congruity with its message, then present finalists to be chosen by Internet voting to represent the group in whatever states it was able to secure a ballot place on – he might end up having trouble making the cut when he can’t get more people excited over his candidacy than non-candidate funnyman Stephen Colbert.

Regents must take holistic view in evaluating study

Next week, the Louisiana Board of Regents will undertake a review of a recent report issued concerning possible scenarios dealing with my institution, Louisiana State University Shreveport. It members would do wise to look at the question in a holistic manner, rather than an insular view of what would serve individual campuses.

The report, while encouraged by local leaders and the Board, was resisted by the Louisiana State University System. Its primary recommendation was to merge LSUS with Louisiana Tech, creating two equal campuses in one system, with LSUS administration subsumed into Tech’s and the University of Louisiana System.  It secondarily recommended separate institutions but LSUS transferring into the UL System.

At the micro-level, the conclusions make sense, and provide a reasonable path for improving higher education access in the state’s third-largest metropolitan area. It would be good for both institutions. Unfortunately, at the macro-level, its recommendations do not make sense, relegating larger questions about statewide delivery of higher education and, with the merger concept, ignore the fundamental question about whether clients and taxpayers are getting their money’s worth from what is spent on higher education, and whether this is the best tactic for improving provision of higher education statewide.

Argument for less efficient government debases debate

From the tone of a recent piece about the slow but steady sloughing off of jobs from Louisiana state government, one might get the impression that an important policy objective of government ought to be ensuring that taxpayer money gets used as inefficiently as possible.

In an opinion piece, Associated Press reporter Melinda Deslatte notes the reduction discussion addresses little the fact that when the state eliminates jobs, whether through outright ending or scaling back of the service or through privatization, people become, at least temporarily, unemployed. In it, she writes, this “has forced thousands of people from their jobs, a consequence the [Gov. Bobby] Jindal administration tends to gloss over as it touts the lowest number of state workers in decades.”

And: “the administration seems to dislike acknowledging the side effect of privatization in a down economy: hundreds upon hundreds of workers given pink slips.” And, “Jindal doesn’t want to offer the detail that by getting to the lowest number of state employees in more than 20 years, he’s also added people to state unemployment rolls in the already poverty-ridden state.

Union protects self-interest in criticizing budget impact

Dog bites man: a huckster who makes his living off of transferring as much of the taxpayers’ wealth as he can to members of his special interest group complained that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget plans will make for potentially, well, fewer members of his group that will make it harder for him to justify his salary – in the process, ignoring completely the factors that have encouraged right-sizing of state government, and proffering counterproductive approaches to solving for them.

Leonal Hardman, president of the Louisiana Council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a public employee union, moans about how the plan will eliminate some 6,400 jobs – although less than half currently actually are filled. He further bemoans that a large portion of those ticketed for layoff are in the classified civil service; naturally enough, since almost nobody in the unclassified service would be expected to be in a union. He justifies an approach to lay off a higher proportion from the latter because their salaries are higher.

Report points way to future LA tax cutting, simplification

The Tax Foundation’s annual report of state business climate, or at least a segment of it calculated on the basis of state and local tax burdens, reminds again of Louisiana’s unusual tax structure, giving some commentators an opportunity to make declarations ranging from the timid to ludicrous, but also highlighting that some minor tweaks could create a more efficient system that stimulates growth in tax revenues by shifting revenue sources around to allow room for tax relief.

The report notes the state ranks 32^nd of the states and District of Columbia. Actually, on most parts of the index, which research has shown to be a good measure of economic growth potential, Louisiana doesn’t rank that poorly, in the upper half (meaning lowest half of aggregate rates) of individual income tax policy and property taxes, the upper third in corporate income taxes, and fourth-best on unemployment insurance taxes. What really knocks it down is its third-highest score on sales taxes, with a weighted state/local average of 8.85 percent.

This perturbed Treasurer John Kennedy, but who didn’t make anything other than a general recommendation about changing it by than repeating the truism that lower rates and broader coverage made for the most efficient system. He did say specifically what he called “unnecessary” individual and corporate income taxation exemptions should be eliminated, which would create a broader base.

Education reform opponents fail to offer cogent critiques

Supporters of bigger government and reduced individual choice are scrambling to find arguments against Gov. Bobby Jindal’s as-yet general proposal to expand nongovernment school options for students in average-or-worse public schools. As indicated by remarks of theirs, they offer nothing anywhere close to compelling.

Director of the leftist Louisiana Coalition for Progress, Melissa Flournoy, at a recent appearance gave it a go to oppose the proposal, which would allow any student in a school rated C, D, or F to receive a scholarship voucher (both terms being used interchangeably so why not combine them), at present guessed to be at the $4,000-5,000 range, from the state to pay for a child’s education at a private school (the legislation may end up allowing it to be used at any public school as well). In presenting her case Flournoy, who served from 1992-96 in the state House but who alienated her constituents so quickly that she ran for election for the Senate instead and lost, made errors both in argumentation and in logic that demonstrate these tactics should be insufficient to stop this policy from being enacted.

First, Flournoy claimed that a limited segment of the population could benefit from the program. She asserted that the tuition at Baton Rouge schools, for example, was too high for the presumed upper limit that Jindal’s proposal would allow, meaning that only family’s with additional resources could take advantage of the program.

Even partial agenda success makes Jindal transformative

Veteran politicians know what these guys know when negotiating what they want – don’t be afraid to climb those golden stairs, ask for the maybe the moon but not the stars (going overboard makes one look unserious), and, while you’re unlikely to get what you initially claim you want, you still might get a pretty good deal. Gov. Bobby Jindal knows that, and his budget proposal with the necessary allied policy changes shows that, gives clues as to where policy might head, and provides a marker that assesses the degree of policy change success he seems likely to enjoy.

In each of the three big controversial policy objectives Jindal forwarded in the document released last week (although the details of the allied legislative changes necessary have yet to be submitted as legislation), relative to Louisiana’s ingrained political culture that condones government as wealth redistributor and livelihood provider, he takes a big, but not ridiculously so, whack. He wishes to ratchet back the gravy train afforded to state employees by altering its generous retirement provisions, to jumpstart institutional and individual education reforms to increase achievement, and to begin replicating what he has started to do in the health care field, induce greater efficiency through having functions performed outside of government bureaucracy when they can be done at least as well and for less, in the area of corrections. For each, there are some things he must be willing to modify and/or let go in order to get the rest.

Adley should help out, show genuine ethics reform desire

Gov. Bobby Jindal looks to introduce more ethics laws changes that he says will work out kinks that have cropped up from the changes he backed four years ago. It'll be interesting to see if one of his holier-than-thou critics signs on and serves as a workhorse in the effort. Given his actions in another ethics-related matter last year, he may just sit on the sidelines and continue merely to act as a showhorse for when it's politically convenient for him.


Last fall, as the election season cranked up, state Sen. Robert Adley remonstrated greatly about the legality of an arrangement between 26^th District Attorney Schuyler Marvin and one of Marvin’s assistants. In 1999, Patrick Jackson was hired as an assistant district attorney by Marvin’s predecessor. Later, he became employed by the Bossier Parish Police Jury to represent it and his private practice, which continued, was employed by the Webster Parish Police Jury, both of which comprise the district. But state law mandates, subject to exceptions that neither parish pursued nor qualified for, that the appropriate district attorney provide representation to parishes without them separately having to hire it.

Last year, Adley asked the Louisiana Legislative Auditor to look into these deals, and it duly issued a report. The LLA argued that, if anything, Jackson appeared much more to be an employee of the parish than of the DA, considering the lack of documentation about his hiring and performance with the DA but which is present for the parish, that the vast bulk of his salary comes from the parish, and he was in the retirement system for parishes, not for DA employees.

Budget continues progress in right-sizing LA govt

Not a lot of surprises emerged in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget, but what ones did come from the specifying of details after months of general discussion were good to see, and brought Jindal nearer to his stated desire to see smaller, more efficient state government.

This one as a whole shows a small net spending decline despite small forecast increases in both the state general fund and federal funds, because of a roughly one-tenth decline in dedicated fund revenues. “One-time” monies total around $230 million, below the $377.5 million increase in the general fund revenue forecast between this budgeted and the fiscal year after, significant because of the House of Representatives rule that requires a two-thirds instead of simple majority vote to use such funds if they total higher than the forecasted change. (If this fails, the budget would cut from health care expenditures.)

As far what was known to be coming, the Jindal Administration will hope to breach the education special interests whose support of the current way of doing things continue to shortchange Louisiana’s children, but since that aggregate spending amount largely is cordoned off from politics, all Jindal could do was say no increase would come to that amount beyond that necessary by formula – appropriate as the state continues to shed students in its public school systems, even as reforms previously taken show some hope in reversing that. Jindal’s proposal to increase vastly parental choice is not budgeted in, but past data suggest it could drop spending levels and produce outcomes as least as good.