The Press-Herald column, May 9, 2018

What is up with Cotton Valley?
http://press-herald.com/what-is-up-with-cotton-valley/

Links:

https://www.ktbs.com/news/accused-cotton-valley-mayor-faces-continued-investigation/article_e04863bc-4e24-11e8-a8b3-fb20f8f066fc.html

https://www.ktbs.com/news/accused-cotton-valley-mayor-faces-continued-investigation/article_e04863bc-4e24-11e8-a8b3-fb20f8f066fc.html

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/219816518/

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/local/2014/07/30/-back-from-the-ashes-/13346213/

https://www.ktbs.com/news/volunteer-firefighter-arrested-for-arson/article_675c2bc5-6a4a-5de3-89f0-3c32b9e4b2b8.html

http://www.townofcottonvalleyla.com/town-history.html

https://www.lla.la.gov/PublicReports.nsf/3974F911B47AD3438625817000558821/$FILE/000156B3.pdf

https://www.lla.la.gov/PublicReports.nsf/52376C33E44B6384862576D300788203/$FILE/000156F1.pdf

Aftermath of killing bill shows its necessity

Yesterday’s actions by the Louisiana Senate’s Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee demonstrate exactly why HB 122, which it axed, is needed.

The bill, by state Rep. Phillip DeVillier, would bar state money going to nongovernment entities; raise local government contributions for outlay dollars with some exceptions; shuttle more money for highway, bridge, flood control and flood prevention projects, or to economic development projects; and would allow the chambers’ money committees to vet the list of projects that go before the State Bond Commission. Advocates noted that the current process prompted stuffing the list of projects beyond borrowing capacity, leaving it up to the SBC to pick and choose, over which the governor’s office held the most sway.

Thus, the bill had the salutary aspects of encouraging local governments to budget more responsibly for things they have fobbed off on taxpayers statewide, preventing the playing of favorites in dispensing taxpayer money to private interests, discouraging the fomenting of fictitious promises to build things from oversubscribed project lists, and reducing the politics of the process that enables outsized influence by a handful of individuals. So, naturally, the Democrat-majority committee killed it.

Democrats unlikely to go Trojan Horse for SOS

The upcoming special election for Louisiana Secretary of State puts the state’s Democrats in an awkward position, yet again. Yet this time doesn’t seem right to try for the half a loaf.

With former officeholder Tom Schedler resigning over alleged personnel improprieties earlier this month, the post has become vacant. The Constitution requires an election later this year to fill out a little more than a year of the term.

My Advocate colleague Mark Ballard writes that he knows of around 20 people expressing interest in the job. That it is an open statewide seat and occurs in an election cycle when almost all state offices and many local ones do not also have elections to determine their occupants will stimulate competition. With many not having to risk their current positions perhaps a dozen potentially viable candidates therefore may declare for it.

Unemployed Landrieu situated for next campaign

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu finally has no political office to hold for the first time in three decades. Look for him to want to change that as soon as possible.

It all begins with a run for president in 2020, now that today he turned over the reins of city government. Keep in mind that Landrieu has worked outside of government for just a few years, right out of law school, and knows nothing else but politics, especially growing up in the household of a former legislator, mayor, U.S. Cabinet member, and state judge.

Running as a Democrat, he must take this first step to add to his credentials for successive jobs in politics. He can’t win any statewide office because of his largely undiluted leftism and, outside of a judgeship which doesn’t seem to interest him, he can’t win any New Orleans-based post because he doesn’t identify as black (although the 1900 census lists his grandfather as black, and the 1880 census lists his great-grandmother, also notated as black on the same 1900 document, as mulatto.)

The Advocate column, May 6, 2018

Law on voting for ex-cons doesn't benefit anyone involved
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_480ae38e-4efd-11e8-bfc9-2bb89a8414fc.html

Links:
http://redriverradio.org/post/bill-may-restore-convicted-felons-voting-rights-louisiana
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1085402
http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/system/files/CR_Felon%20Voter%20Disenfranchisement_0.pdf
http://journalstar.com/legislature/ricketts-vetoes-bill-that-would-give-ex-felons-right-to/article_8b11fcf0-97d4-579b-860f-e099334ef91a.html
http://doc.louisiana.gov/supervision-conditions
http://laleglog.blogspot.com/2018/04/committee-action-apr-11-hb-265-hb-417.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1071662

The Press-Herald column, May 2, 2018

Not so fast, DiamondJacks
http://press-herald.com/not-so-fast-diamondjacks/

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_5c3ef04e-4808-11e8-9080-a792fde26a12.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_2ed1d93c-48a8-11e8-b831-6b81a98b48a1.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1080429
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1089822

TOPS changes continue going the wrong way

An issue the Louisiana Legislature continues to address poorly a House of Representatives panel this week kept that pattern going.

Yesterday, the House Education Committee passed along HB 399 by state Rep. Gary Carter. It would alter, whenever the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students did not receive full appropriation, the present across-the-board reduction algorithm. Instead, higher-achieving students, defined as those earning the top two categories, would receive no cuts although losing their extra stipends while the remainder would keep theirs only if their families had annual incomes below around $50,000, although they could recoup some from Pell Grants.

Speaking against it, James Caillier of the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation said the change would subvert the merit-based principle of the idea. Before the state took it over, the Foundation distributed awards on the basis of merit, although to lower-income students.

Democrats trying to subvert efficient LA govt

It’s now clear: Louisiana Democrats don’t want fiscal reform because it reduces their chances of propping up big government.

For years, policy-makers have lamented the straitjacketed nature of the state’s fiscal system. With nearly 400 different constitutional and statutory dedications, relatively little in the way of discretionary revenues exists. That makes the areas of health care, higher education, and corrections rely heavily on these dollars and unprotected when general income, sales, or excise tax revenue falls, thus disproportionately making that kind of spending vulnerable to cuts.

While a small number of dedications channel a large chunk of nondiscretionary bucks – perhaps the Minimum Foundation Program serving as the best example, creating the single largest expense in state government at around $3 billion – the many smaller ones do add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. And among these, no objective observer would dare to argue that a handful of them at best should have greater priority over those three larger concerns.

LA Legislature should push Schedler out the door

Refreshed embarrassment has come the way of Louisiana’s Republican Sec. of State Tom Schedler, and perhaps it’s more appropriate that he be ushered out the door rather than hoping he’ll do it himself anytime soon.

Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate got ahold of cards sent from Schedler to and email messages between him and his former executive secretary, who has filed suit against him for sexual harassment. It had submitted a public records request for these, but according to it these arrived with redacted key passages that could shed light on the relationship. However, it also obtained unredacted versions, which, in the words of its editorialist, showed “a pattern of lewd and embarrassing language by one of the state’s top elected officials” that displayed “a powerful public official making sex jokes and tasteless propositions on agency time.”

The snippet placed online by The Advocate, spanning just months, doesn’t reveal that egregious of communication, but I’m confident it wouldn’t have described the nature of the entire set of conversations errantly. (For readers otherwise unfamiliar with this, I am a weekly columnist for it.) And its stories about the release of these and reporting on an interview the former employee gave proved convincing enough for a very high-profile Republican, Sen. John Kennedy, to add his voice in calling for Schedler’s immediate resignation.

The Advocate column, Apr. 29, 2018

The next two months will either make or break Gov. Edwards as Louisiana's budget deadline draws near
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_9313d772-48cd-11e8-b960-8b91dd68d567.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_3da79cdc-4680-11e8-bc95-6bb9c623cf10.html
https://apnews.com/0c6b7e06c4c74cad92f32aa2e056b31d/In-tax-negotiations,-Gov.-Edwards-rejects-sales-tax-renewal
http://house.louisiana.gov/housefiscal/DOCS_TENYEAR/Means%20of%20Finance%20Trends.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm