Legislators whiff on patronage program reform

Give Republican state Sen. Dan Claitor credit for figuring it out. But that still didn’t make a difference in the final outcome.

Claitor saw his SB 183 go down in flames yesterday. The bill would have reined in the expansive Tulane Legislative Scholarship program (a separate one exists for the mayor of New Orleans), which allows legislators to pick essentially anyone except themselves, including business partners, friends, relatives (except for children, although this isn’t written into law), and donors and their families, to attend Tulane University tuition-free (these deals from 1884 allowed Tulane to separate itself from the state to become a private university and granted it property tax-free status in Orleans Parish).

Over the decades, a number of students related to elected officials, lobbyists, and donors have received this largesse. Even though Tulane has implemented programs that permit legislators to have the university make the decision, only a few Jefferson Parish legislators on occasion have defaulted to that. Others have set up their own imprecise procedures that inject some merit rating to applicants, but the vast majority of selections come down to who knows who and/or who’s asking.

Zealotry ignores science in CAGW screed

Louisiana environmentalists’ version of Crazy Uncle Joe Biden, Crazy Uncle Bob Marshall, has gone Chicken Little on us again.

Like Biden in the world of politics, the former outdoors reporter Marshall when addressing environmental issues has a habit not only of making embarrassingly foolish statements, but also doing so comically in such a hyperventilating, spleen-venting way that makes one wonder whether he passes out at the keyboard when typing his screeds.

He treated readers at his former employer to another such example when he reported on updates to storm surge maps issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center. These show that a terrifically large hurricane could push enough water to inundate Baton Rouge, and smaller ones could flood the north shore, Cajun and bayou countries, the southwest part of the state, and even Baton Rouge’s suburban parishes.

LA criminal justice changes may prove draining

Advocates of criminal justice changes in Louisiana pitched that it would save the state money. In fact, it may cost taxpayers more.

That well could happen if the Legislature passes HB 551 by state Rep. Katrina Jackson. The bill would increase the amount paid by the state to local jails for housing its prisoners from $24.49 to $28.49. As the state sends (as of the end of 2018) over half of its inmates to local lockups, this would jack up taxpayer costs around $97 million over the next five years. It passed its initial test, a House committee, with no votes against.

This contrasts with dollars saved from changes designed to reduced the prison population. Computed at around $13 million for the past fiscal year – the first under the changes – state officials think the amount will reach about $15 million for this fiscal year.

Wrong claims to abolish death penalty persist

A new legislative year brings the same old inadequate arguments to ban capital punishment in Louisiana, although with one new wrinkle for Catholics.

Two bills filed for the regular legislative session seek to eliminate the death penalty, and in support of these the Most Rev. Shelton Fabre, Bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, sums up the usual arguments against the practice in an opinion column. Fabre is no stranger to this issue, having taken the point on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops efforts to combat racism that has given him opportunities to assert, as he did in the piece, that prejudicial application of the death penalty presents a reason to reject the practice.

Specifically, he notes “Nearly 70 percent of the people on Louisiana’s death row are people of color, the highest percentage of any state with more than three people on death row. In one study of Louisiana’s system, the chances of a death sentence were 97 percent higher for defendants whose victim was white than for defendants whose victim was black. Louisianans should not stand for this prejudice.”

Senate looks to provide Edwards more cover

Get ready for another Louisiana Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards two-step to try to fool voters.

HB 258 by Republican state Rep. Nick Muscarello would keep confidential information about parties involved in carrying out a capital sentence. In particular, it would shield from public records the data regarding providers of drugs pursuant to lethal injection.

Over the past several years, manufacturers and pharmacies have grown skittish over making these sales to states. Activists ignorant of or unwilling to acknowledge that regular executions of those sentenced to death deters violent crime and saves lives have engaged in a publicity campaign highlighting those vendors role in carrying out lethal injection, and with suppliers involved wishing to avoid a spotlight that could have a negative impact on their sales of any product, the drugs have become hard to come by. Some states have enacted similar laws to prevent this intimidation, with Louisiana officials conceding this negativity has contributed to Louisiana’s nearly decade-long moratorium on executions.

Insurance bill to bring RINOs to forefront

So Republican state Rep. Kirk Talbot’s HB 372 cruises out of the Louisiana House of Representatives, both in committee and on the floor in largely party-line votes carried by Republicans. Next it heads to the Senate Insurance Committee and then would go to the full Senate, with both the panel and chamber having solid GOP majorities. Slam dunk to get to Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and put the former trial lawyer on the hot seat?

Think again. The bill, which lowers jury thresholds from $50,000 – the nation’s highest – to $5,000, prohibits suing insurance companies to tap directly into their deep pockets, and would provide incentives to lower rates in additional ways, would reduce the flow of ratepayer dollars to trial lawyers. And the Senate committee, despite having seven Republicans of its nine members, might end up as a stumbling block.

Trial lawyer dollars act as Democrats’ campaign funding lifeblood, so only a few of them will cross the aisle to favor such a measure (as the House vote on the bill demonstrated). Thus, Republicans must keep their defections to a minimum while not counting on the two Democrats (also lawyers, but not active in tort litigation).

Dim LA legislators wish to revive dead horse

The only thing more futile than flogging a dead horse is trying to revive that dead horse before flogging it.

That’s the path some Louisiana legislators want to take with the moribund Equal Rights Amendment. Originally proposed in 1972 with a seven-year window for ratification, even with that time period extended another three years not enough of the 38 states required for ratification followed through. During this period, 35 states did so, although five revoked their assents.

But as the aura of identity politics has raced through campuses, Hollywood, and febrile far left Democrats, liberal lawmakers have urged what they allege as another attempt to ratify the original ERA. In the past two years, Nevada and Illinois have passed resolutions to do so, leading some of their Louisiana counterparts to desire doing the same.

Bad bill beaten, but reveals limits to progress

Yesterday, a Louisiana Senate committee defeated a bad bill for the wrong reason, in the process showing why next year can’t come soon enough.

The Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee deferred SB 21 by Republican state Sen. Barrow Peacock. It would have redirected gradually proceeds from the 0.45 percent sales tax hike renewal agreed to last year towards transportation needs and kept its scheduled expiration in 2025.

The bill had laudable aims in that the unneeded tax – its excessive nature confirmed by the state’s slow but steady uptick in revenues as recognized at the last Revenue Estimating Conference meeting – would go away and that such supplementary funding above and beyond necessary state operating expenses lent to diversion for infrastructure needs. But it didn’t come up to snuff for two reasons.

Perkins practicing power politics on steroids

Last year, Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins told campaign audiences that he wanted to break with politics of the past. Instead, he seems all too eager to embrace heavy-handed favoritism that apparently runs against the law and blatantly contrary to taxpayer interests, leading to questions about his abilities and motives.

Perkins, a political novice who hardly had lived any of his adult life in Shreveport, swept into office as a wunderkind promising to break the mold of ossified Shreveport politics and attitudes. And in the initial period of his tenure, the public seemed approving, with over half giving him above-average marks in a television station poll.

But Perkins has made some controversial decisions, and last week two of them backfired in ways that abnegate his campaign image. At the state level, the Attorney General’s office rendered a legal opinion against his attempt to remove members of the Shreveport Airport Authority.

Voters must reject Bossier school tax hike

No matter how you define it, the Bossier Parish School District asks for an unwarranted property tax increase on May 4.

Early this year, the School Board voted to put a pair of hikes on this ballot, which as a typically local-only election date tends to draw low turnout. If its members thought this would shorten the odds of passing the roughly 26 mills (about 23 going to salaries to make the total dedicated to pay starting this year around 60) by having school employees disproportionately show up at the polls to approve their own raises, it backfired.

Instead, local groups have sprung up in opposition with aggressive campaigns to defeat both measures. At least two have mailed out pieces or made phone calls asking for rejection. These are the Good Government Coalition, whose organizers include local business representatives and political activists, and Building a Better Bossier, whose principals are associated City Tele-Coin, a business with extensive government contracts (introducing an element that creates another layer of political intrigue involving Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who as a state legislator championed funding efforts for Bossier schools and on the PSC has butted heads with the company on regulatory issues).