Nonpartisan judicial elections disserve public

Those members of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee who recently voted for HB 206 either don’t understand the bill’s implications or aren’t for good government.

The bill by Democrat state Rep. Kyle Green would remove partisan designations from judicial ballots. While most states use elections to pick state court judges at least at the highest level, most that do don’t have partisan elections, the majority don’t use elections at lower levels, and Louisiana is unique as the only state that has partisan elections at all levels and does not feature retention elections as part of that.

Elections alone aren’t the best method because that carries the most possibility for political considerations to intrude in the selection process. This occurs because of the vacuum of information that voters by necessity have about these elections. They have next to no access to the minutiae behind decisions of sitting judges and for candidates without any bench experience none whatsoever. Further, even with that access most likely don’t have the interest to commit to understanding these.

Cassidy picks poor issue to debut populist self

The Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy redemption tour now heads to the National Flood Insurance Program, but it’s an issue where he may not find that much traction.

Last fall, rules alteration to the major mechanism for providing flood insurance in the country began shifting gears to price policies more realistically. A new methodology started bringing price increases to around two-thirds of the population, almost most will be relatively small, with larger amounts for the few phased in over the next several years. At that point in time, the changed rates impacted only new policies and the almost quarter who would see decreases on annual renewals.

Last week, the other shoe dropped with renewals suffering the increase commencing. Louisiana disproportionately, not surprisingly given its geography, will take a hit with only a fifth or so of ratepayers seeing reductions. And about 3 percent will see dramatically higher rates over the coming years, with these increasing not more than a rate of 18 percent a year for most, although some special cases could be 25 percent. But for single-family primary residences, a cap of $12,125 will be in place this first year, and other subsidies such as those reflecting how well local governments fortify against floods can lower this cost.

Bill aids case against election outsourcing

A recent state court decision has reinforced the original intent of how Louisiana funds elections, but a clarifying law would do better.

Last week, the state’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a district court decision that misread the Constitution and statute. In 2020, two special interest groups, the Center for Election Innovation and Research and the Center for Tech and Civic Life announced they would distribute hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly to defray election expenses in the face of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. However, a closer inspection particularly of the latter, which in Louisiana planned to operate through another advocacy organization called the Center for Secure and Modern Elections and eventually would channel nearly $400 million nationwide to election administrators, reveals grant restrictions that often followed leftist elections policies.

The CSME involvement was notably suspicious. The group acts as a child of the major leftist dark money group New Venture Fund, and is related to another, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, that lobbied for automatic voter registration and, ironically given the group’s name, against ballot security measures. For the 2020 election cycle, the former raised nearly $1 billion, whose largest donor in the hundreds of millions has been the Gates Foundation founded by multi-billionaire Bill Gates and ex-wife, and the latter nearly $400 million, about half from just four billionaires. Its principals have served in a number of capacities for leftist politicians and organizations.

Override effects to ripple well past Edwards

While the historic veto override of last week certainly demonstrated the continued deterioration of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ power, it also has future implications beyond his time in office.

When both chambers of the Legislature slapped down Edwards’ veto of a recent special session bill reapportioning the state’s congressional districts – especially with the House gaining crossover votes from a Democrat and three non-party representatives in order to succeed – it represented the first time a veto session had overturned a governor’s wish on anything. That came on the heels of the first veto session ever last summer, making this one just the second in nearly a half-century under the current Constitution.

Although conventional wisdom posits that Louisiana’s governor wields much power, actually those formally enshrined in the Constitution don’t give him an extraordinary amount, especially when compared to some other governors. The state’s chief executive doesn’t face some limitations as do some, not having to settle for relative few appointments and not facing much legislative ability to check executive orders, but at the same time only has all-or-nothing veto power except for budget line items and all can be overridden by the Legislature and he must put up with more separately-elected independent constitutional executive officers and boards than in almost any other state.

Perkins reelection hit by more bad publicity

After steering clear of controversy for a year, the latest flareup involving Shreveport’s Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins couldn’t have come at a worse time for him.

Up through the end of 2020, Perkins’ first two years in office had been tumultuous. The rookie politician made several policy and ethical missteps, culminating in a disastrous political move of running for the U.S. Senate and performing very poorly. It seemed to bode ill for a shot at reelection this year, but 2021 passed quietly for him without him attached to negative attention-getting events.

Until the end of the year. After some voluntary personnel resignations, at last year’s beginning the city needed to fill the chief financial officer’s position, one of the most powerful in its ranks that requires City Council confirmation. Tapped to fill it in the interim was Kasey Brown, who had joined the Finance Department not long after Perkins took over. Brown, about Perkins’ age, had vaulted straight from a few years as an assistant bank branch manager – about the lowest managerial level in retail banking possible – into an assistant CFO position.

Odd LA political culture lets Edwards levitate

Besides the more immediate concerns of electoral politics, a recent poll also shed some insight into the evolution of Louisiana’s political culture.

The JMC Analytics survey of last week, among queries focusing on this fall’s Senate contest and next year’s gubernatorial race (and even extended to the 2026 Senate one in asking about the falling political fortunes of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy), asked about approval of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, who frankly has no electoral political future in the state and seems set on slipping away from state politics after his term ends. Respondents gave him at best lukewarm numbers at 48 percent approval (28 percent very) and 44 percent disapproval (27 percent very).

This is somewhat below the more dated Morning Consult number that it collects for all governors and would put Edwards squarely in the middle of the pack. It also indicates a snap election would find Edwards in trouble, for two reasons: an incumbent who can’t pull 50 percent is vulnerable, and especially in one where the median voter is closer to the other major party than his. Another way of putting it is few of the disapprovers can be enticed to support such an incumbent, but many of the approvers would switch to another candidate of which they also grant approval.

Historic veto override implements valid map

Game, set, almost certainly soon to be match, and with some historical import thrown in.

Today, the Louisiana Legislature overrode a Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards veto of maps passed apportioning the state for the purpose of electing members to Congress. He had nixed two different bills of identical content creating one majority-minority district of six passed by the majority Republicans, opposed by Democrats who wanted two such districts made.

The vetoes weren’t surprising. As an ultra-loyal Democrat, Edwards had to do it in order to promote any chance that his party could pick up a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives over the next decade, as black voters traditionally have cast ballots for Democrats. Additionally, it wouldn’t hurt with any legal challenges for there to dilute bipartisan resolution to the matter.

Poll shows Kennedy big winner, Cassidy big loser

Recent polling results provide winners and losers not just for this fall’s Senate contest, but next year’s gubernatorial race as well and even insight into the 2026 Senate election.

JMC Analytics surveyed 600 likely Louisiana voters last week on these topics, and Republican Sen. John Kennedy emerged as the biggest winner. Insofar as his 2022 reelection attempt goes, MacAoidh gave a trenchant rundown on what his drawing 53 percent of the sample and any other name save one in the single digits means: he likely will draw approaching 60 percent, black and woke Democrat Gary Chambers will hit around 30 percent in monopolizing the black vote, and great white hope Democrat Luke Mixon will have a hard time cracking double digits (in fact, a pardoned ex-con who now runs a nonprofit aiding ex-con women, Democrat Syrita Steib who announced but has spent no money on her effort, polled at almost half the level of Mixon who has raised almost $200,000 – just over a tenth of what Kennedy has).

This matches Kennedy’s approval number and makes him the most popular politician polled (and the only one above 50 percent). Perhaps then unsurprisingly among the several names polled for next year’s governor’s race – only one candidate has declared, GOP Treasurer John Schroder – Kennedy also comes out on top, at 22 percent. He won’t run, given how he punches above his weight for a freshman senator with his loquaciousness and wit that, like a moth towards a flame, draws even the leftist mainstream media to him and he would gain more influence still in a second term, so with him out much of his vote would go elsewhere.

Mugshot restriction bill needs strengthening

It’s a good first step, but Louisiana needs to go further when it comes to dissemination of booking photographs of arrestees.

Last week, HB 729 by Democrat state Rep. Royce Duplessis advanced out of committee. The bill would change public records law to shield booking mugshots of arrestees from release, except under circumstances that would aid law enforcement agencies in corralling a dangerous individual, from media outlets that require payment to remove a mugshot from publication. LEAs would be prohibited from disseminating this information to outlets suspected of doing this.

Duplessis and other legislators argued that arrestees entered into a correctional facility have a presumption of innocence and reputational damages could occur regardless whether ultimately no conviction related to that arrest happened. They also argued media had plenty of other online sources to grab photos of many arrestees (or could do it the old fashioned way, send out a photographer) and only the mugshot would be withheld, with all other arrest information still available.

Data show LA must stop embrace of Rx ganja

Maybe this dose of reality finally will stop Louisiana from its headlong dash to marijuana legalization under the guise of the herb’s medical use.

Ever since legal changes began in 2015 that have culminated in making its use legal for any imaginable malady in any form you like, a narrative has circulated, largely unchallenged outside of spaces other than this one, that it conveys more benefits than costs. As such, that impetus continues to expand its use even further with this legislative session seeing proposed changes to counteract supply constraints – after all, if you all but legalize it, more people will demand it under the prevailing illusion – through increasing more production and distribution points.

This despite a long history of scant evidence that cannabis use produces positive outcomes for any but a small number of medical ailments. Plus, it carries a number of negative outcomes. And this momentum otherwise has resulted in other bills cropping up calling for decriminalization of marijuana possession, even as research continues to demonstrate harmful effects from its use.