Public administration has a theory regarding the
behavior of executives overseeing discrete policy areas, that over time these
individuals’ focus shifts away from more ideological approaches to greater
alignment with the culture and interests of the agency directed. After almost a
decade of running the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, current boss Mike Strain fits
this pattern.
The Republican entered office in 2008 promising to
clean up after former head Democrat Bob Odom, who left a legacy of waste and
patronage. He largely has accomplished this, slimming down department numbers
(perhaps more than he preferred, given recent state budgetary struggles) and
managing a spending drop from $102.7 million in fiscal
year 2008 to last fiscal year’s
$74.5 million.
But in recent remarks
to the Baton Rouge Press Club, Strain indicated that he has checked some other
conservative issue preferences at the door to his office, specifically
regarding the issue of Cuba. Still run by the Castro dynasty for almost six
decades, despite extremely modest changes from its Soviet model, Cuba’s
government and economy remain exceptionally closed and oppressive. In fact, the
very tepid reforms launched under Raúl
Castro seem
to have run out of steam – ironically, in part because former Pres. Barack Obama
removed travel restrictions and set to normalize relations.
He took his time, but Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards three
months after losing an injunction mooting his executive order JBE 16-11 got
around to appealing the ruling – a move seemingly more for political
consumption than with any real hope of prevailing.
At the end
of last year, District Judge Todd Hernandez ruled favorably for injunctive
relief sought by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry concerning the
order, which, among other things, added language to contracts that barred
discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” –
terms not defined in Louisiana jurisprudence. Landry refused to approve of such
contracts, noting in an official attorney general’s opinion that, because of
the terms’ absence in Louisiana law or in its Constitution, the order had the
effect of creating new law beyond the scope of the governor’s powers.
Hernandez agreed, although he deferred on ruling
whether it violated aspects of the U.S. Constitution regarding the Commerce
Clause or the First Amendment. Citing no actual controversy, he did deny the
contention of Edwards that the governor was superior to the attorney general
where a dispute about legal matters defaulted to the governor’s position, and
granted only that once the attorney general had acted to approve of private
counsel the state’s top justice officer could not retroactively review their
actions.
Standing out like a boil in the old Confederate
South, no wonder Louisiana’s Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards attracts
attention, good and bad.
With Republicans controlling every legislative chamber
in these states and only Virginia’s Terry
McAuliffe and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper joining
Edwards as a Democrat chief executive – although among the deep South states
the only Democrat-run branch of government comes courtesy of Edwards – such an
outlier does not go unnoticed. The odd
and unique 2015 election that sent him to the Governor’s Mansion and his
trials and tribulations since have prompted both speculation about his future
and actions to shape it in ways he would not like.
After the 2016 election confirmed the steep downward
trajectory of Democrats over the past six years – propped up from falling
into an electoral crevasses only by the concept known as former Pres. Barack Obama –
some argued that the way back would come from accepting less liberal
candidates, with Edwards standing out. He explicitly ran on God and guns, even
as his
anti-abortion stance seemed somewhat manufactured, while maintaining thoroughly
liberal views on the size of government and economics. Possibly, some observers
suggest, he may serve as a model to enable his party to come back.
Finally, the tunnel has light at the end, regarding
the nuisance suit attempted by a once-rogue state subdivision that sought
jackpot justice to fund coastal protection.
A panel
of the U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed
with a lower district court that the Southeast
Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East lacked standing to bring suit
against nearly 100 energy firms for alleged environmental damage they caused. A
few years ago the agency, a subdivision of the state, hired lawyers on contingency
to try to collect possibly billions of dollars with a poison pill in that
contract stating if its board dropped the suit it owed expenses that could
reach into the eight figures.
Prior members of the SLPAE-E board, despite disputes
over whether companies had acted illegally or negligently, whether the state
had felt they had acted illegally or negligently in the past, or how much, if
any, damage the energy extractors actually caused, saw these entities as piñatas ready to bust
to fund agency activities. After they brought suit, Republican former Gov. Bobby
Jindal when their terms expired began replacing members supportive of the
action with others who took a more circumspect approach to government activism.
Eventually, lawmakers enacted a measure to moot the suit, giving the state
control over any such maneuvers.
One
particularly bad prefiled bill for the Louisiana Legislature’s upcoming
regular session betrays both an authoritarian impulse and admission of policy
defeat.
HB 15 by
Democrat state Rep. Ted James
would alter state law regarding creation of new municipalities, but targeted at
just one parish. If enacted, no longer would incipient municipalities in East
Baton Rouge Parish merely need to obtain majority voter approval from those in
the area wishing to incorporate; it also would require a majority of the parish’s
electors as well.
Such policy dramatically departs not just from
Louisiana law, but that generally
among America’s states. No state allows voters from surrounding local
governments to have any say over the wishes of unincorporated areas; the
closest strictures to that are prohibition of incorporating within a certain
distance of another municipality without its consent or having the state or a
county-level government organ decide rather than putting the matter to a vote
of those in the area petitioning for incorporation. Having just one part of a
state operate under a different law than the rest of it is unprecedented.
Practically no one likes having their day disrupted
by panhandlers, and Bossier City wishes to join Shreveport in regulating the
practice largely into nonexistence. The problem is the two proposed ordinances
and Shreveport’s on the books likely are unconstitutional.
Councilman Thomas Harvey last week introduced
an ordinance to ban all panhandling by roadways and another banning aggressive
or threatening personal solicitation in and around businesses. Only Councilman
Jeff Darby objected to the measures, citing a desire to assist individuals he
claimed down on their luck.
Shreveport has had an ordinance
since 2004 essentially covering both concerns. Bossier City officials thought
that increased enforcement of this had caused a “surge” of panhandlers across
the river, necessitating the new laws that move on to consideration of final
passage next month.
With the exception of mentioning his name and West
Point’s honor code together, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards over the
past couple of years most often is heard saying “this
not the budget proposal I want to present.” But in this case, it turns out
to be the one Louisiana should want, for now.
The day after the Legislature wrapped up the First
Extraordinary Session of 2017, its Joint
Legislative Committee on the Budget went back to work by hearing a presentation
of Edwards’ budget submission for fiscal year 2018. Increased by $1.5
billion to $29.7 billion over last year’s, in terms of its general fund next
year’s budget falls $440 million under what the governor would like, according
to revenue estimates at present.
Edwards graciously provided a list of items to add
in with more funding; i.e. tax increases: paying for all of Taylor Opportunity
Program for Students awards instead of only about 70 percent; increasing the
Minimum Foundation Program that funds schools 2.75 percent, giving performance
raises for state employees; restoring old rates for charity hospital providers
and privatized prisons; matching funds for transportation that unless provided could
lose federal funds; and making a small two percent reduction from last
year’s totals to many agencies, among others. The roster did not include
deferred maintenance at higher education institutions – about $1.75 billion
worth – nor additional waiver slots to allow home- and community-based services
for people with disabilities.
A move to institute a charter school in East
Feliciana parish shows how far the educational reform ethos has come in
Louisiana and the tension it continues to introduce between families and
interests backing traditional state-monopoly schools.
Last
week, the process began for the conversion of Slaughter Elementary School,
a traditional government-run school, into a charter school. It involved an
enhanced use of the “parent trigger,” which allows families to wrest a public
school from local governance and have it run by a nonprofit entity, contracted
either to the local district or with the state.
When Louisiana conducted a massive overhaul of its
educational system in the direction of school choice in 2012, the dramatic
changes overshadowed parent trigger provisions included. And what little
publicity these received focused on parents’ ability on their own to convert
low-performing schools in R.S. 17:10.5.
