Win may push Landrieu onto gubernatorial fool's errand

The past pair of elections for New Orleans mayor set up intrigue, because in both instances then-Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu ran and a victory meant statewide ramifications upon his leaving that office. But in 2014 as mayor, his ability to retain that office does the same.

That’s because some argue reelection may encourage Landrieu into a bid for statewide office, almost certainly the governor’s post, in 2015. Democrat officials hope so, because they widely (if privately) believe he is the only one who could be competitive against a field already with a strong Republican, Sen. David Vitter, and with another as strong who has all but formally announced a bid, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, with perhaps other competitive GOP candidates to follow.

As Democrats are the distinct minority among the statewide elective boards (the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education), the top judicial organ (the Louisiana Supreme Court), and entirely absent among state officeholders, just to snare even get one post, especially the one at the top, is enough to make them salivate. However, even with a Landrieu win tonight, such a Pavlovian reaction likely is unwarranted, if foremost because Landrieu might pass on it, for some good reasons.

Decision brings LA reputation win, Caldwell electoral loss

When does the loss of a potential $330 million to the state of Louisiana equal a win? It does when it’s consequent to a defeat of jackpot justice, making the only real loser here Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell.

The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that Caldwell, on behalf of the state, failed to show that the manufacturers/marketers of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal had attempted to place false claims with the state. And very properly so, for the case was riddled with weaknesses throughout. While it began about a decade ago, the award – with $70 million going to private lawyers – was made initially by a district court in notorious litigant-friendly St. Landry Parish.

The argument allowed to go forward by this court was that the state had been defrauded not because it actually had paid out taxpayer money on the basis of several thousand letters, eventually corrected, with a claim the Food and Drug Administration said was misleading and tens of thousands more visits made by pharmaceutical representatives in the interim, but because of the mere fact that the letters had gone out and the visits made. A court majority wisely rebuffed the minority’s, and Caldwell’s, view that a literal reading of the state law in question that actual payments by the state for a false claim billed by a party should be expanded in this instance to include entities not billing and rejected his definition of “misrepresentation” on which he built his case. In other words, in contrast to some other recent rulings, the Court rightfully refused to engage in judicial activism (even as one dissenter very erroneously substituted the idea that to not stretch statutes beyond their intent as he argued itself constituted a form of activism).

Reasonable new LA abortion rules opposed by profiteers

In evaluating the issue of new rules concerning operation of abortion clinics in Louisiana, never forget that from the perspective of these merchants of death, it’s all about the money, and that should have no bearing on these new regulations.

Last year, in response to legislation passed earlier in the year, emergency rules regarding operation of abortion providers were issued effective Nov. 20 by the Department of Health and Hospitals, which will stay in effect until DHH issues permanent rules to be guided by a hearing occurring next week. The 20-pages worth in the Louisiana Register update requirements regarding licensing, reporting, staffing, facilities, and procedures, and has sent proponents of abortion on demand into a tizzy.

One shill for the industry called the new rules “convoluted and dense,” and designed to hamper it if not shut it down. In particular, its representatives objected to procedures to challenge citation issuance, with the shill claiming it was biased, to having licensed nurses present during the extinguishment of the unborn, and that a certificate of need would be required to open a new facility, to reopen one closed because of violations, or if there is a change of ownership or location. A specific complaint about room size requirements DHH said will apply only to new or renovated facilities in the permanent rule, and another that requires a 30-day window between drawing blood for laboratory analysis prior to aborting DHH said would be excised from the permanent rule.

License fee issue again evokes legislative demagoguery

With a $25 billion spending plan up for grabs and related issues such as the use of nonrecurring funds in it, legal imperatives to pay back the state’s rainy-day fund, and absence of any counterproductive Medicaid expansion, it turns out the biggest gripe that legislators have with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposed budget is convenience fees for drivers’ licenses?

After presentation last week of the document, a few legislators seemed more upset than anything else over the Office of Motor Vehicles plan to expand service offerings through private entities for an increased fee. Currently, about 120 private operators perform some services dealing with titles, registrations, and insurance reinstatements, but now two also can perform license and identification issuances and renewals, for which the Department of Public Safety allows them to charge an additional fee. DPS wishes to expand this program statewide.

No hue and cry emerged from the Legislature in 2001 when the original set of services was let to private providers with their additional fees. But this one seems to have struck a nerve among the more excitable, if less cogent, legislators. Indeed, state Rep. Kenny Havard – no stranger he to making stupid statements in trying to prevent making government smaller – wailed that the Legislature ought to have final authority over every change of tax or fee but implied it was obligated in this case because the higher charge amounted to a tax. The Constitution states that the Legislature must approve of all tax increases by a two-thirds vote.

Less controversial budget to challenge Jindal differently

The most remarkable thing about Louisiana’s fiscal year 2015 budget is that it was received almost entirely non-remarkably, despite some spending choices that might have attracted more notice had the state’s funding situation turned out differently.

Perhaps that’s the consequence of a budget that, in operating terms, contains more money than last year’s (as in its posture at the end of 2013) by almost $200 million in state general funds, even as the overall budget was down more in total than that three times because of mainly reductions in federal funding. However, much of that federal dwindling comes from reduced disaster recovery aid. This kind of outcome tends to cut down on the carping, and last week in preemptive fashion the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration accentuated this by in piecemeal fashion letting out its plans on this largesse, addressing matters that perhaps were not the most pressing but which received the most attention and political pressure on their behalf.

By far the biggest SGF boost came in the area of higher education at $375 million, where an overall operating increase of $141.5 million was announced, with $87.7 million of that coming from tuition increases. Interestingly, the FY totals of total spending are actually several million fewer being spent than last year, but this is because of apparently about $150 million in non-recurring expenditures, much having to do with the transition of medical education largely being done by publicly-run hospitals to now almost exclusively by hospitals (including those owned by the state) run by the private sector. With this greater efficiency, the state will now be spending per student (using fall, 2012 student numbers) about $11,820 compared to FY 2008’s $13,544, or a decline (unadjusted for the changing mix of senior/junior college enrollments) of almost 13 percent per student.

Motive for insipid Perkins comments on Cassidy unclear

Maybe it’s because there’s an odd kind of imitation as the sincerest form of flattery going on here. Or perhaps it’s an unwritten new rule that anyone who at some point has served in the Louisiana Legislature who contemplates getting elected to Congress from Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District is required to infect himself with athlete’s mouth. These are the more rational explanations as to why Tony Perkins damaged any elective political career he had left in the state with just a few short words critiquing Rep. Bill Cassidy.

Republican Perkins, who a dozen years ago served in the state Legislature and was out of the running for defeat Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu in her first reelection attempt, last week with seemingly little provocation or cause opined that Cassidy, running this time against Landrieu and increasingly perceived as gaining the upper hand over her, could not defeat her. Indeed, he argued that “I think his problem is his record. He’s been pretty weak on the issues. If the Republicans want to win, they actually need to find a stronger candidate.”

Perkins does not see himself as that candidate, but declined to endorse as a better candidate either of the two Republican alternatives presently announced, state Rep. Paul Hollis and military retiree Rob Maness. He did not preclude running for the Sixth or for the Senate in 2016, if in the latter case Sen. David Vitter will have won the governor’s race in 2015 and therefore have vacated the latter spot.

Latest request dispels myth of LA higher education doom

Observers and participants got an early view of a big part of the fiscal 2015 budget to be proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal tomorrow when earlier this week he laid out plans for higher education. If what is expected comes to fruition, what passes in the legislatively-approved budget will end an exceptionally misunderstood budgetary era regarding funding this state government function leaving Louisiana with a different, and healthier, system of higher education going forward.

Jindal announced that not only does he want to boost higher education with an additional $14 million in state general fund money, the first boost in half a decade, but he also wants schools to take advantage of tuition increases that are projected to draw an additional $88 million and be able to tap into a $40 million fund that rewards on the basis of program expansion in areas of study identified as high need. It continues a pattern over his terms in office of reshaping higher education delivery based upon results largely shaped by his budgetary choices ratified by the Legislature.

A mythology, largely driven by disgruntled higher education employees and Jindal critics, formed over his years in office asserting that in this time period higher education suffered nothing less than catastrophe. They point to the $2.814 billion budget, just about half of which was funded directly by state government in the last budget before Jindal’s arrival, as compared to the current fiscal year’s budget that contains only about $525 million in that general fund financing, feeding the narrative of cataclysm.

Favorite Vitter's entry defines LA's 2015 governor's race

What observers were 99.44 percent sure about became 100 percent yesterday when Sen. David Vitter announced he would run for Louisiana governor in 2015. He immediately becomes the favorite and his decision and a potential win as a result dramatically alter the state’s political landscape.

Not really for Democrats, with one exception. This should discourage New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu from running for governor (assuming he wins reelection this spring where he is the favorite; a defeat most likely snuffs any thought of statewide office). Vitter’s strength comes from his ability, unparalleled among current state Republicans, to unite both traditional, principled conservatives and populist conservatives. Perhaps the most populist-oriented state in the country, and certainly the most in the South given its political culture and history, as a consequence there is a significant Republican component among populists as well as with Democrats, which in most places is their natural home. Not only can Vitter grab a good share of the former, he also can pick off some of the latter, shielding them from Landrieu or the only announced Democrat in the contest, state Rep. John Bel Edwards. Landrieu can hope for victory only if he can corral a good portion of white populists, the chances of which diminished considerably with Vitter’s entrance. Landrieu is more likely to consider substituting for his sister Mary should she lose to Rep. Bill Cassidy in her reelection bid in 2014 should Vitter win in 2015 in the 2016 contest to succeed Vitter.

Also discouraging his entrance should be the presence of state Treas. John Kennedy, the only real competitor Vitter has for conservative populists. While many consider that Vitter now removes Kennedy’s oxygen from the race, Kennedy’s recent announcement validating fundraising prowess may indicate he eventually will run regardless of Vitter. This certainly dampens Kennedy’s chances should he enter, but should he this creates even more competition for the populist vote. Meanwhile, at this point Vitter had a clear path to collecting the large majority of the principled conservative vote – despite the fact that this vote largely allies itself with Gov. Bobby Jindal, who does not hang with Vitter.

Paring of LA congressional request best for U.S. interests

While most observers could heave a sigh of relief at the federal budget deal passed into law last week, some felt disappointed at the failure to retain in it a special line item relevant to northeast Louisiana. Such feeling is misplaced.

Last summer, Sen. Mary Landrieu in the Senate version of what would gravitate into an omnibus appropriations bill got inserted a provision that would allocate $700,000 directly to the World Heritage Centre. That represented about one percent of dues owed in arrears for the past year to the organization’s parent, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, representing that portion for operating the WHC.

Despite being the chief architect of UNESCO, the U.S. has had a contentious history with the organization. In 1984, it withdrew as the organization, run by a 21-member board, increasingly promoted an anti-open society, anti-free enterprise agenda while tolerating administrative waste and aggrandizement. Internal governance changes led to the U.S. rejoining it in 2003, but in the interim laws had been passed that forbade the U.S. to contribute money to organizations that recognized as a full member, connoting that it is a state, what today is the Palestinian Authority.

Nevers hopes legislator, public stupidity passes expansion

State Sen. Ben Nevers apparently needs some extra exercise, so he decided to flog the dead horse called Medicaid expansion. But he does so on the usual mistaken beliefs of its supporters and on the erroneous thinking that the voting public as a whole is actually dumber than state legislators.

That latter group would have to be pretty dumb to support the idea. The state has the choice to include individuals at 25-100 (or perhaps up to 138) percent of the poverty line in Medicaid because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) to stay consistent with the Constitution cannot compel states to do this. The most reliable study done on the matter, by the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals last year, indicates rejection is the most cost-effective policy, showing that within a decade the state will pay out $92.5 million more a year than without it, by then the extra payout increasing by 15 percent a year and only going higher.

No expansion also will provide the best medical outcomes. Recently, a study in Oregon demonstrated that the worst outcomes were recorded by those utilizing Medicaid services, compared to those with private insurance and no insurance at all. Both that and why the current method of serving the uninsured through uncompensated care reimbursements saves money compared to expansion are explained by a fact of which Nevers either is unaware or won’t admit in order to advance his agenda.