Duke fixation sends parties, candidates off message

One ignorant peon needlessly has managed to interject a lot of anxiety into Louisiana’s U.S. Senate contest, because those involved with it inflate his importance.

The candidate in question, Republican former state Rep. David Duke, got the executive directors of both of the state’s major political parties all bothered when the former Ku Klux Klan official polled just enough for inclusion in next week’s televised debate. Both the GOP’s Jason Doré and Democrat Stephen Handwerk wrung their hands over his earning a place at the dais. “[H]e absolutely should not be given any extra time from anyone,” complained Handwerk, and Doré moaned that “if I were a decision maker … I certainly wouldn’t have him as part of the debate.”

That a Democrat official should wish to censor debate should not surprise. Increasingly over the decades the political left has advocated limits on free speech, most recently most visibly in Louisiana by arguments that public facilities should not host speakers that could offend somebody’s sensibilities and nationally where the Democrat nominee for president Hillary Clinton argues that certain voices need limitation when making arguments about ideas and candidates.

LA early voting initial results favor Republicans

Varying by degree only in whether early voting has matured within the electorate, Republicans initially have received good news from the practice this election cycle in Louisiana.

Now in its eighth year in the state, the last round of statewide elections topped the one-fifth mark for proportion of vote that came prior to election day. After so much experience, to understand how early voting may signal the direction of an election, we must consider whether it has come to approximate final returns, or whether it remains a phenomenon unrepresentative of actual outcomes.

In any given election, the proportion of individuals with certain characteristics in the electorate that end up voting can be to the advantage or disadvantage of parties and candidates. A crude method to determine this begins with the concept of a normal vote, or one where turnout essentially matches the characteristics of the aggregate of registered voters.

LA Senate race reverts to form: advantage Kennedy

Maybe back to the future explains how the state of Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race seemingly has reverted to its position of over a month ago, as campaigns have adjusted to burgeoning interest in the contest to produce the same top two then as now.

Until the middle of September, polling had shown Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy leading the field with around a quarter of the vote, and then several points behind Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell. Then a couple of polls emerged that saw Kennedy falling back close to other main rivals Republican Reps. Charles Boustany and John Fleming, and Campbell retreat back to his main rival Democrat, former lieutenant governor candidate Caroline Fayard.

The theory went that Kennedy for Republicans and Campbell for Democrats served as placeholders for an electorate minimally engaged, with their familiarity translating to default answers in surveys for people in reality undecided. With the proportion of the undecided still remaining high, it could have been that as some respondents began paying attention they detached from the pair and declared themselves undecided, while others of the undecided broke disproportionately for the other candidates. At the time, Kennedy hardly had any advertisements out and Campbell found Fayard picking up key endorsements from the Landrieu clan. Thus, it could be that Kennedy could win back supporters once he made his campaign more visible and if Campbell could rally his more state-centered campaign to overcome the national party emphasis on Fayard he would regain his edge over her.

Good LA tax reform idea faces daunting odds

Louisiana’s task force instructed to produce fiscal reform has suggested, very wisely, the elimination of the inventory tax. Not only will that need other changes attached, but also a lot of luck to succeed.

At present, Louisiana is only one of a handful of states to tax inventories. Many kinds of goods for sale sitting around the Constitution deems taxable, which creates not only a generally undesirable burden on businesses as a whole, but also specifically creates winners and losers in that certain businesses would have huge liabilities while other kinds little, if any. As such, typically taxation experts frown upon the concept.

To level the playing field, Louisiana refunds to businesses these property taxes levied at the local level. This only compounds the horror of the tax, because it makes the amount paid by state taxpayers completely determined by local authorities in aggregate. It becomes a crazy subsidization scheme where local jurisdictions with a high number of business with a large volume of inventories can jack up rates to suck in money statewide.

The Advocate column, Oct. 23, 2016

Angelle could be a factor in next governor's race
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_ccca5b7e-9647-11e6-ba98-4326facaa4a5.html

Links:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/congressional_race_lafayette.html
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2016/08/censure-inappropriate-for-recalcitrant.html

Maness claim signals his campaign's death throes

If we needed any confirmation that the vanity campaign of former 2014 Senate candidate Republican Rob Maness survives now only through artificial respiration, that came this week courtesy of a bizarre claim by Maness.

On the day of the major candidates’ debate – to which minor candidate Maness did not score an invitation – he alleged a bribe offering came his way to exit the contest, from somebody supposedly connected to the Better Louisiana PAC, established to support the Senate candidacy of GOP Rep. John Fleming. He contended that an official, Paul Dickson, told him “he would provide opportunities for my future, if I left the race for Senate and endorsed John Fleming;” otherwise, he alleges being told he would be “finished as a politician.” A Maness aide present claims that statement accurately summarizes the conversation, and Maness said he would “file a criminal complaint” about the incident in the near future.

Dickson, a principal in Shreveport-based pharmaceutical distributor Morris & Dickson, has no direct affiliation with the PAC. However, his company represents the one and only donor to it, of $100,000 a year ago. He confirmed the meeting but denied making such offer, saying that he emphasized throughout the conversation that he promised no deals for a withdrawal.

LA Senate debaters successfully stake out territory

While certainly less shrill and therefore not as entertaining as the presidential debates to date, the Louisiana U.S. Senate debate among the five major candidates broadcast on Louisiana PublicBroadcasting gave viewers a look at distinct strategies to advance themselves. Each may be summed by a single phrase, beginning with the rookie.

Caroline Fayard: I’m not a politician, I’m really not Bobby Jindal, and I’m especially not Foster Campbell

Democrat lawyer Fayard tried to walk an incredibly fine line to make herself appear all things to all voters. By far the least experienced candidate, she tried to turn that deficit around on a question about the necessity of experience to get things done in the Senate by saying she probably could last in it longer than anybody else (she’s about a quarter-century younger than the next youngest). She preached about government not getting in the way of individuals but then offered big government as the solution to education and environmental woes, waxed fictionally about the desirability of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and its spinoffs, supported raising the minimum wage and repeated the unequal wage myth. Nowhere did she say how government would pay for all of this.

LA 2016 amendments: first three up, next three down

If it’s fall, it’s time to contemplate amendments to the Louisiana Constitution and, as always, this space is here to help readers sort it all out. So, what do we have?

Amendment #1 would place educational or experiential qualifications on registrars of voters. None currently exist, making it easier for insiders and relatives of registrars to nab these jobs, to which parish governing authorities appoint. The experiential qualification does nothing to discourage this, particularly in smaller jurisdictions, but the other educational criteria at least prevents blatant favoritism for certain candidates. Yes.

Amendment #2 would move tuition and fee authority in higher education from the Legislature to the four college management boards. While statute gives some authority for this to happen presently, that could change and put Louisiana back entirely into the situation where it and one other state are the only ones whose legislatures micromanage in this fashion, making flexibility more difficult to achieve in optimal pricing decisions. This change would not produce runaway increases, not only because market forces control pricing, but also as elected officials, who will not want that scenario to occur to stay in voters’ good graces, appoint members to these boards. Yes.

New NO housing plan's basis sets it up to fail

As if we needed another example of how both the Pres. Barack Obama Administration nationally and the Mayor Mitch Landrieu in New Orleans fall prey to ideology over how the world really works, here comes an “Assessment of Fair Housing” document that puts wishful thinking ahead of the realities of human behavior.

A few months ago the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs promulgated a final rule under the Fair Housing Act alleging to address the propensity of its Housing Choice Voucher Program – better known as Section 8 – recipients clustering. Most properties participating in the program appear in lower-income, higher-crime areas, and as racial minorities disproportionately comprise recipients (about 25 percent Hispanic and 45 percent black nationally), this tends to concentrate minority participants in those areas given typically lower incomes of minority households. The rule seeks to desegregate racial concentrations by having jurisdictions compile data and make policy to steer minorities involved towards other, typically higher-rent neighborhoods.

As 98 percent of New Orleans program users are racial minorities, concentration particularly occurs. Unlike many local governments who fought the promulgation because it essentially creates an unfunded mandate of record-keeping, the city opened it with welcome arms, becoming the country’s first jurisdiction to cough up the plan required to continue gathering federal dollars to fund the program. It banks change on using new flexibility to increase ceilings on reimbursements to landlords, considering to require builders who utilize the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to guarantee below-market rates for a longer period of time than the law’s minimum (an option left up to jurisdictions, as well as the proportion of low-income residents required), and on creating of a housing registry that could identify units deemed substandard and declared ineligible for program participation.

The Advocate column, Oct. 16, 2016

BESE battle points to other issues ahead
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_9cbdf306-9150-11e6-b61c-97025801f532.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_ceb82166-7f6b-11e6-b777-7f901ee69b3a.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_727ec7f6-8fb5-11e6-8d6e-3b3e8d39152e.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_b0c83362-8cbd-11e6-955f-5bbc3ec56cf1.html
http://house.louisiana.gov/housefiscal/DOCS_TENYEAR/HB%201%20Tracking_06072016.pdf
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2016/09/needed-reform-rankles-la-education.html
http://www.natefacs.org/Pages/v32no1/v32no1Hartwick.pdf