Fleming may thwart Schexnayder, Cortez plans

Next year’s lieutenant governor’s contest looks to have become a lot more interesting as the presumed cage match between legislative leaders might end with both their political careers fizzled.

Behind the scenes for some time both Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and GOP Senate Pres. Page Cortez have signaled they wish to continue their full-time but term-limited political careers by winning the state’s number two job. They haven’t made an announcement as they seem to wait on the current occupant, Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, to decide whether to run for governor.

However, given that Nungesser recently told a gathering he would seek the top spot, it’s all-but-assured his current post will come open. And shortly after he made that statement, a state political heavyweight from the past expressed great interest in it who stands a great chance to send both Cortez and Schexnayder into retirement earlier than they would like.

BESE lays eggs on accountability, standards

In the past week, Louisiana educrats won a pair of victories at the expense of the state’s children.

Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education this week has taken up a number of matters, including two that have generated controversy at the opposite ends of the age spectrum. One would have altered accountability standards for high school, while the other attempts to implement revised standards for early childhood learning.

The former would make a few major changes. Scoring that could elevate a school into the top A grade per student could come only if the student earned college credits simultaneously and it increases standards on the student growth component, while the system maintained its policy that students who score a 17 on the ACT, which is in the 35^th percentile on the college readiness exam, would generate no points for the school.

GOP LA Senate willing to agree to NO defiance

Another round of debate over the tough love Louisiana’s State Bond Commission has had to dish out to New Orleans only clarified the rectitude of that action – even as some Republican politicians who should know better were ready to abandon that.

Last week, the SBC narrowly continued a request for the city’s Water and Sewerage Board – which actually is a hybrid state/local agency – to secure a line of credit. This initial step for a project is the most nebulous in the entire process, where approval carries no guarantee that a project even will more forward. Still, it must be secured in order for a project needing borrowing to proceed, which on two occasions now the SBC has failed to do.

The controversy began when city elected officials, as well as those of other agencies who boundaries follow the city, officially declared that they wouldn’t enforce, unless incident to something else, the state’s laws on abortions. Those performing an abortion face criminal penalties unless if done to save the life of the mother or unborn child or if the unborn child’s prognosis for survival after birth is zero.

Legislature must correct Court elections error

The questionable Louisiana Supreme Court decision that restored Shreveport Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins to the ballot this fall endangers election integrity and requires the Louisiana Legislature to put matters to rights as soon as convenient.

Last week, the Court narrowly overruled a pair of lower court rulings that disqualified Perkins from reelection. On the sworn affidavit attached to candidate qualification, Perkins answered the majority of questions falsely, most prominently that at that time he was registered to vote at his homestead, and statute states that false attestation on any of several matters disqualifies a candidate.

Yet the majority opinion by no party Chief Justice John Weimer, backed by Democrat Assoc. Justice Piper Griffin and Republican Assoc. Justices James Genovese and Will Crain, engaged in the most extreme verbal gymnastics to escape this. That argued that legislative intent was unclear, lending itself to judicial interpretation and because penalties didn’t appear attached to provisions except for those dealing with timely income tax filing and absence of campaign fines, the questions that Perkins knowingly flubbed didn’t count, because the process for presenting candidates for voter scrutiny should be as lenient as possible.

Perkins regains ballot, but with eroded chances

Democrat Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins is back on the ballot, but his victory courtesy of a questionable court decision likely will be Pyrrhic.

The Louisiana Supreme Court narrowly reversed lower court decisions that disqualified Perkins from reelection. He made several errors when attesting to facts required to qualify, most egregiously not having registered to vote at the location where he had filed for a homestead exemption.

No matter, according to the Court’s majority with a remarkably obtuse, even disingenuous, decision that will draw future scrutiny. However, to the case at hand, it obviously impacts the mayoral contest, but more than that the process to get to where things stood a couple of weeks ago has affected negatively his chances.

Stewart claim explained by his political needs

When Democrat First District Attorney James Stewart termed his request to have Republican First District Judge Chris Victory recused from hearing a trial against a sheriff’s deputy as not retaliatory in nature, he was correct. Rather, that move was entirely political relating to Stewart’s electoral career.

Earlier this summer, Victory acquitted four Shreveport police officers on negligent homicide and malfeasance in office charges related to the death of Tommie McGlothen in 2020. McGlothen, who had a history of mental health issues, was detained forcibly by the officers and left unattended for nearly an hour when he expired.

That occurred just before national hysteria erupted about an alleged white police war on blacks, but hardly drew national attention, for while McGlothen was black, so are three of the officers involved. Nothing to see here, special interests keen on promoting the narrative and their media allies decided, so it received little coverage.

Questionable sweetheart deal considered by BC

If you thought a recent plan for Bossier City to pay for directing traffic around schools was questionable and convoluted, wait until you hear about this one.

In the City Council’s first meeting of the month, it took the first step towards spending over $25,000 to give to the Bossier Parish School Board to give to the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office to pay for traffic control on Bossier City streets around schools despite there being a whole police department available to perform that function. Fortunately, at its most recent meeting without explanation it withdrew that item from its agenda.

Yet this two-step didn’t seem nearly as complicated as to what would follow. Reviving an issue that first surfaced early in the year, the Council took the first step towards hiring on a contractual basis former deputy police chief Dale Teutsch at salary equating to $55,000 a year, to serve as liaison from the city’s Legal Department to its Police Department on issues related to staffing and organization consequent to civil service law. The ordinance went onto the back burner when ethics concerns were raised about the fact that Teutsch is city Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham’s father.

Law settled, LA can do more to deter abortion

Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court put an end to debate over the constitutionality of the state’s abortion statute. That doesn’t mean more can’t be done to protect the unborn.

The several parts of statute that address regulation of the practice, tied together in Act 545 of 2022, make abortion illegal unless to save the life of the mother or other unborn child or that the unborn child hasn’t or couldn’t survive. Criminal penalties exist for people who physically intervene to perform abortions declared illegal.

However, the law doesn’t affect people and entities domiciled in Louisiana from aiding and abetting the performance of abortions illegal under state law if not in Louisiana. For example, some companies say they will pay for pregnant employees to travel out of states that make illegal abortions under their circumstances to have these, and other organizations say they will broker clients in one state to abortuaries in others.

More work needed to prevent child predation

While the Louisiana Legislature sleeps, the grooming of sexualized children stealthily continues that demands action to counter, a void into which Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley must step to address.

Brumley has criticized the Democrat Pres. Joe Biden Administration for trying to change program rules that would cut out a school’s students from participating in nutritional programs unless it capitulated to demands like having students use the bathroom of their chosen gender identity or compete in sports programs corresponding with their gender identity. Louisiana law just changed to prohibit biological males from competing in scholastic sports designated for biological females.

However, the Legislature let slip away an opportunity to pass a law similar to that in Florida that prevents the gender-identity-on-demand movement from crossing the line into outright political advocacy using children as pawns or, worse, as a tool to induce children into claiming a sexual identity to fulfill desires of adults. That Sunshine State law prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade and prohibits instruction that is not age appropriate for students and requires school districts to adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in services from the school regarding a child’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being.

Boardwalk sale reminds of BC spending stupidity

If you want another reminder illustrating the futility of activist government pursuing a government-as-venture-capitalist model that robs taxpayer wealth, witness the recent sale of the Louisiana Boardwalk in Bossier City.

Last week it was announced that a buyer had closed on the property listed a few months ago, scooping up the 560,000-plus-sqaure foot outdoor mall for $30.5 million. Commencing operations in 2005, at that time Bossier City’s government hyped the opening, crowing about how if they built it, they would come from all over, pumping sales tax and property tax receipts into city coffers.

Even a cursory inspection of the facts casted doubt that the city’s development expenses to bring infrastructure to the builders – at a cost of $20 million, although part this went to the separate Bass Pro Shops that had opened a short time earlier – could produce subsequently tax revenues to justify it. The collection of mostly retailers with a few food service establishments and a theater would have to attract a lot of purchases that otherwise wouldn’t beggar other Bossier City retailers – principally the then quarter-century-old Pierre Bossier Mall – and kick off a spate of nearby development that did the same.