While Louisiana’s state government should strive
for as accurate a census count as possible, state taxpayers shouldn’t have their
money wasted on a matter infused with partisanship that is best left to local
governments.
This week, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
issued an executive
order creating
a complete census count committee. These, urged by the federal government,
strive to engage in activities that maximize citizen participation in the
census for 2020, and almost every state plus many local governments have established
these.
Census
data serve many purposes, although three have implications far beyond the
rest. These determine the number of House of Representatives seats for each
state, create the baselines through which state and local government reapportionment
take place, and underpin the distribution of $675
billion in federal grants.
On the budget, Louisiana’s Republican legislative majority
will have to choose.
The strong majorities in each legislative chamber
know that Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
will spend everything he can to keep inflated state government a reality. The outgoing
Legislature gave him the chance by foolishly extending a temporary sales tax
increase seven years. Occurring simultaneously with federal
tax law changes that boosted state income tax receipts, the state likely
for the next few years will take too much money from the people.
But for use the excess collection,
constitutionally, must garner recognition from the state’s Revenue Estimating
Conference. Here, as
Republicans demonstrated earlier this month, the veto power each
legislative chamber has can prevent this, in effect forcing the spending of fewer
dollars. In essence, if not recognized officially even if in fact collected,
the money would just pile up.
For its upcoming presidential
search, the Louisiana State University System may take a turn towards
insularity that could produce a pick either risky or unsuitable.
With current Pres. King Alexander preparing to vacate
the premises, by spring the System hopes to have a new leader in place, who
also will head the Baton Rouge campus. Two familiar names quickly surfaced in connection
with the job, neither fitting the traditional model of a doctoral holder with
substantial academic experience.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Reviews of the
term of Sean O’Keefe, who led LSU through the hurricane disasters of 2005, were
positive. He holds only a masters degree and had spent just a few years in
academia prior to his appointment. However, he had served in a couple of high-profile
George
W. Bush Administration posts and had years of prior government service in
high-level Department of Defense positions. (He also had insider status as part
of a politically-prominent family – for better
and worse – from New Orleans.)
In its latest spiel of demagoguery, the Democrat
Gov. John Bel Edwards
Administration now
attacks the concept of checks and balances.
That spleen venting came courtesy of Commission of
Administration Jay
Dardenne, who took umbrage at the Revenue Estimating Conference’s
unwillingness to approve of revenue estimates higher than the current
standards from April. Although economists from his office and the Legislature
said they expected higher collections for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, with
three members of the panel (including Dardenne) willing to raise the official
estimates by $170 million and $103 million, respectively, because the House of
Representatives’ designee Republican state Rep. Cameron Henry
objected, that didn’t go through.
Henry noted that waiting longer would improve
forecast accuracy. History backs him up. A recent study of REC forecasting
showed a typical error of 1.7 percent (excluding 2006-07 affected by the hurricane
disasters of 2005), which translates over time into an $83.3 million error.
About four-fifths of the time the error came on the low range, but errors have
come a fifth of the time in overestimating – and four times in the past decade –
and in the past decade have averaged an overestimation of about $100 million.
Next up to the plate to help remind of the sanctity
of life: Louisiana.
Kentucky had a productive at bat this week when
the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the
state’s 2017 law that required doctors to perform ultrasounds and show fetal
images to patients before abortions. Plaintiffs had argued that practice
impinged on freedom of expression, which the Court found so lacking that without
comment it didn’t review lower court rulings affirming the law’s
constitutionality.
The law directs a doctor, prior to performing an
abortion, to perform an ultrasound; display the ultrasound images for the
patient; and explain, in the doctor’s own words, what is being depicted by the
images. There is no requirement that the patient view the images or listen to
the doctor’s description. The doctor also must auscultate the fetal heartbeat
but may turn off the volume of the auscultation if the patient so requests.
If the Louisiana Legislature won’t
reform campaign finance laws that convey questionable benefits to elected
officials, at least it can change ethics laws in the narrow area of sporting
and cultural events.
Back in the news whenever a big sporting event
becomes relevant – in this instance Louisiana State University making the
college Football Bowl Subdivision playoffs with the national championship game
held in New Orleans – is the policy of some
organizations to give legislators preferred access to tickets.
LSU does this when some of its teams qualify for
postseason action, and in a larger sense that’s not controversial. It’s a state
agency and as legislators pay full price – necessary because a ticket is a “thing
of economic value” that would run afoul of ethics laws – there’s no foul. All
they receive is the same head-of-the-line option to purchase tickets as do
season ticket-holders.
It’s a testament to Louisiana’s offbeat political
culture and obscurant election regime that House Democrats could have any
meaningful influence in the next legislative term starting in 2020.
This fall, voters put 68 Republicans into the
House of Representatives, leaving just 35 Democrats and two no-party legislators.
That’s an all-time low for Democrats and an all-time high for Republicans since
1880.
Yet in the race for Speaker of the House, a
candidate for whom two-thirds of the votes for could come from Democrats with
just a smattering of GOP supporters might capture that office. In
a radio interview last week, Republican state Rep. Alan Seabaugh
described a situation where GOP state Rep. Clay Schexnayder
could win with this coalition over Republican state Rep. Sherman Mack,
who has the backing of most and the more conservative Republicans in the
incoming chamber. Later this week, chamber Republicans will meet to hash out
the party’s presumed choice.
Despite Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’
narrow reelection win, Louisiana government will shrink a bit and its economy
will get a boost.
Thank the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration
for both. Even though in a relative sense Louisiana
had the worst state economy under Edwards, in an absolute sense the state’s
economy actually improved in some ways – because of Trump policies, in spite of
Edwards policies. Even the leakiest boat rose with the economic prosperity
Trump policies of lower taxes and reduced and revised regulations with an eye towards
unleashing private sector activity; it isn’t hard to see how a victory by his
Democrat competitor Hillary Clinton would have prevented all of this and, at
best, continue the worst
recovery since World War II, instead of the country experiencing the Trump
economic boom.
And this saved Edwards. Because Trump policies
could mask to some extent the anti-growth, pro-big-government agenda of Edwards
and its deleterious economic consequences, this kept enough people from feeling
dissatisfied enough to follow the example of other states in the past five years
whose electorates booted out governors for better relative economic performances.
