And this
is why term limits are a good idea. And why the
time had come for two longtime Louisiana legislative employees to go out the
door.
In 2000, my wife took a position at the University
of Illinois Springfield and I took leave at Louisiana State University Shreveport
to go with her. The UIS folks cobbled something together for me for what would
be a trial period of a year: to see if I would leave my LSUS tenured position while
she embarked on a potential tenure-track career with them.
Part of my duties included serving as faculty
adviser to Model
Illinois Government. This program allows students from across the state to
participate in a mock legislative session of the Illinois Legislature, right at
the Capitol not long after the real thing’s regular session ended. As the representative
of the host institution, the advisor had to delve into not only a lot of
logistical matters but also have a good working knowledge of the legislative process.
I’m not going to say that the time has flown by, but
something should be said now that this blog has surpassed its 15th
birthday.
That makes it the oldest blog on Louisiana politics
out there, or at the very least the oldest that has published continuously and
regularly (if anybody thinks I missed something here, let me know). Not that there
were many out there 15 years ago; the only two that were with any frequency of
publishing were John Copes’ Deduct Box and C.B. Forgotston’s Forgotston.com (both
of whose authors sadly have gone onto their rewards).
Circumstance more than anything else led to establishing
Between the Lines, which is the moniker I long have used for my columns. In
2002 I published under that every other week for FaxNet Update, which didn’t
have a real Internet presence but largely circulated by e-mail. This roundup of
political news and commentary lasted until the beginning of 2018, when its
proprietor Lou
Gehrig Burnett unfortunately cashed in.
The crew knows the ship is sinking, so they’re jumping
overboard while Louisiana Medicaid’s clients and taxpayers will find themselves
taken in the undertow unless the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
Administration makes a change from politicized ideology to practicality.
At the end of the month, Department of Health
Secretary Rebekah Gee will leave her job, undoubtedly for one where the
consequences of her preference for statist solutions won’t redound as they have
in Louisiana (as well as give her greater license to support
propagation of abortion as she did prior to her stint at LDH). Long-time
director of Medicaid for the state Jen Steele already has decamped.
Edwards’ decision to expand Medicaid turned out as
the most consequential policy enacted in his first term. It committed the state
eventually
to spend an extra $3 billion annually –in one fell swoop adding 10 percent
to the operating budget – of which Louisiana taxpayers now directly contribute an
extra over $300 million a year they didn’t pay before, essentially raised by
increased taxes on insurance policies.
While political party weakness reverberates throughout
Louisiana’s immature political system – witness
the House speaker election – the majority Republicans in the Legislature
can reduce the self-infliction in how parties govern themselves.
At present, the state creates a two-tier system
for a recognized party’s governance. If a party can claim at least 30 percent
of the state’s registrants, it must elect to the governing state central
committee one male and female member for each House district, or 210 total.
Otherwise, it can set up the composition of the SCC however it likes (except
that if it is the party of the governor, he or his designee has a seat).
The change to the law that released all but
Democrats out of this straitjacket came over three decades ago, when Democrats
held a solid majority of registrants and Republicans not many. Two decades ago,
the GOP only claimed 22 percent, but now have 31 percent.
Many conservatives in Louisiana may have felt
disappointment of the victory
of state Rep. Clay
Schexnayder over state Rep. Sherman Mack,
both Republicans, for
the position of House speaker. Whether that puts a significantly moderate
stamp on the chamber for the next four years, dimming the already-dusky chances
of significant reform legislation, tax relief, and spending restraint until
2024, as
previously noted depends upon the raw material Schexnayder has for
committee assignments and chairmanships.
Mack gained backing from a number of unapologetic
conservatives in the chamber, which would have guaranteed the most important committees
have conservatives helm them and almost all committees would have unambiguously
conservative majorities. Whether Schexnayder wishes to pursue the same course,
if he largely sticks to the ones that brought him to the dance he won’t quite
have the same resources.
Not that it’s impossible. For all the
hand-wringing the political right may engage in over the outcome, where Schexnayder’s
winning coalition contains a majority of Democrats, among the GOP members who
have served through at least a couple of regular sessions in the past four
years, there’s not a vast difference between the blocs.
Protector of conservatism or wolf in sheep’s
clothing? Louisiana will find out upon the election of Republican
state Rep. Clay
Schexnayder as Speaker of the House.
The election made history as for the first
time the body nominated only Republicans for the job, with Republican state
Rep. Sherman
Mack also having his named entered. But it displayed continuity with the past when
the winning candidate secured more voted from Democrats than from Republicans.
Schexnayder prevailed 60 to 45, with all Democrats
on his side. Two-thirds of Republicans voted for Mack, including about all of
the party members with well-known conservative credentials. Mack also had drawn
public support from two highly-placed GOP elected officials also viewed as
solid conservatives, Atty. Gen. Jeff
Landry and Sen. John
Kennedy, the leaders of a conservative PAC that had donated to the
campaigns of many of the Republicans present at the vote.
