Judiciary needs to scuttle Edwards power play

Democrat 19^th Judicial District Attorney Hillar Moore III did the right thing in pursuing legal action to clarify powers invested in the Louisiana Pardon Board and Committee on Parole, subject to a power play by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards reaching from the political grave.

Earlier this year, Edwards admitted to what had been long suspected that he opposed capital punishment. This sent out a dog whistle to others of that ilk in the legal profession, who then helped line up clemency requests from all but one Louisiana inmate sentenced for execution in order to get an unprecedently-quick resolution hopefully in favor of a positive recommendation, which then would allow Edwards to issue the commutation prior to his leaving office earlier this year.

The Board, comprised of Edwards appointees to the coveted positions that are the only in state government where panel appointees draw a salary (up to $50,000 annually, but at least changes in the last decade now mandate that they have experience in areas related to criminal justice), initially shot down the request after perusing an opinion issued by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry’s office. Analyzing the Louisiana Administrative Code and the policy statements for the Board drawn from it, plus the relevant Administrative Procedure Act procedures that brought these into force, it concluded that the Board could not bypass the requirement that a year at least had to separate clemency appeals to have a hearing. The one exception would be when an execution is imminent.

Bossier Jury transparency belated, inadequate

It’s the electronic equivalent of laying down asphalt on parish roads right before an election: after three years of assurances this was around the corner, Bossier Parish finally is getting around to creating facilities to broadcast professionally its jury meetings – a day late and a dollar short of needed transparency.

For years, to broadcast proceedings the nine-figure annual revenue Bossier Parish has done so by slapping down on a table a device that tries to capture the entire panorama of twelve jurors by video and streaming it by Facebook Live. With little technical improvement, the arrangement continues until this day. Audio often is terrible that requires guesswork as to who speaks and there’s no opportunity to view presentations or vote tabulations.

As a result, at the start of the Jury’s meeting last week local web site operator Wes Merriott of Sobo Live made it an offer. Perhaps more known for his biting remarks during public commentary periods of the Bossier City Council, Merriott at the Jury’s interval for public comments offered his technical services to improve the live stream capacity at no charge.

Attacks on Landry hit new level of desperation

For the increasingly-desperate opponents of Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry to keep him from triumphing in the governor’s race, it’s pinning their hopes on making a thousand cuts – even if the “wounds” aren’t real.

Just over a month prior to the general election, Landry continues to have a commanding lead in the contest, much to the chagrin of other candidates and their backers. Party regulars among Democrats behind Democrat former cabinet member Shawn Wilson and the party’s white populist rump pinning their fading hopes on independent trial lawyer Hunter Lundy see Landry as the most dangerous to their agendas, while other Republicans and their supporters see these candidates’ chances of getting into a runoff with Wilson and therefore an easy win going up the road.

So, to varying degrees, they have formed an unofficial conspiracy to try to stop Landry. Their problem is his agenda is popular and his background, often successfully through the powers of his office providing a conservative foil to Democrats Pres. Joe Biden and Gov. John Bel Edwards, has inspired confidence among many voters that he best can start the process of ejecting liberalism from Louisiana governance.

Gubernatorial debate few viewed reveals little

Missing its most important ingredient, the televised Louisiana gubernatorial debate sponsored by media outlets and interest groups provided few useful glimpses into the contest.

Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, the inarguable front runner, didn’t participate over concerns the Urban League as a sponsor which has demonstrated outright hostility to some actions he has taken in his job. Five others lined up: Democrat former cabinet member Shawn Wilson who is the only candidate within shouting distance on Landry in the polls, independent lawyer Hunter Lundy, and Republicans state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, Treas. John Schroder, and former gubernatorial assistant Stephen Waguespack.

Without Landry, it’s pointless to compare and contrast candidate issue preferences uttered. Instead, winners and losers in certain aspects will be described.

Critiqued BC Council looks to squelch commentary

Stuck pigs on the Bossier City Council squeal, a recent leaked audio clip reveals, that forecasts as a reactive attempt, its origins likely illegal, to restrict public input and comment on Council matters.

Over the past six weeks a majority faction on the Council has taken a public relations beating. Over a series of votes five of its members – Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, and Democrat Bubba Williams and no party Jeff Darby – have on as many as four occasions voted in a manner to obstruct the placing of term limits into the city charter, with two of those votes violating the charter itself. The amendment would set a three term, lifetime and retroactive limit that would prevent all but Maggio from running again in 2025.

Even if limits don’t make it into the charter in time to apply to that election – that majority bloc at the last Council meeting voted to ask Bossier Parish Registrar Stephanie Agee to step outside the law to decertify the voters’ petition that the charter forces the Council to call for an election on it, and also voted to pursue other legal action trying to derail the petition, both over questions about the petition’s format – extensive political damage detrimental to their continuing their political careers has happened. Probing and sometimes sharp-tongued citizen commentary when the items dealing with the petition and related issue of term limits have come up, illuminating hypocrisy and bad faith in the bloc’s actions that raises unflattering public awareness, not to mention producing visuals that beg to appear in negative campaign advertising down the road.

Ad shows Landry opponents have nothing left

If this is the best the GOP opponents of Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry can do to try to derail his gubernatorial train, they might as well quit the race now and save taxpayers the expense of a general election runoff in two months.

In advance of a televised debate that Landry won’t attend because one of the hosts is a nonpartisan but clearly leftist advocacy group, Republican Treas. John Schroder released an attack advertisement that may get some air time at least in parts of the state. The ad points out that Texas lawyer Zach Moseley, as part of the firm in which he is a principal, is alleged to have engaged in a variety of shady practices over a blizzard of suits against insurers regarding recent hurricane disasters that have struck Louisiana.

Already the Western District of Louisiana federal judiciary has hauled him and others of this firm in front of it to explain themselves, as well as mete out fines, over actions such as withholding settlement monies that netted them suspensions, and frowned upon the firm’s aggressive collecting of clients, opaqueness in informing clients of their rights if not outright misrepresentation (taking advantage of a loophole in state law now closed as a result of the negative publicity), and potentially even breaking the law with such actions as forgeries. The state’s Insurance Department already has fined the firm, Moseley, and two others a maximum $2 million besides halting their ability to do business in the state for a time which the court continued.

Landry forum pass rational, aids his campaign

Tomorrow brings the first significant televised debate among 2023 Louisiana gubernatorial candidates, yet the most significant candidate by the polls won’t be there. That reflects an escalating trend towards ushering this kind of campaign event into irrelevancy, because candidates increasingly control the presentation of campaign information.

Front runner Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry won’t attend this put on by a consortium of television stations, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and the Urban League. He said he would take a pass because of the Urban League’s presence, which holds itself out as nonpartisan but has a history of fronting left-wing causes. For example, Landry has been critical of overbroad assertions of affirmative action, most recently filing suit to prevent the federal government from applying outcome-oriented usage of it for environmental regulation without regard for intent, while the Urban League has given full-throated support of expansive use of the concept.

Landry also may have had queasiness about the Advocate, which has a thinly-disguised antipathy towards him that shapes its coverage of the campaign. When it’s not publicizing molehills in an attempt to make mountains out of Landry oversights, it reprints pieces from the far-left Louisiana Illuminator website that makes no bones about its disdain for Landry, and its subsidiary shopper Gambit’s leftist editor unleashes editorial broadsides against him.

Declining LA fiscal health to hit disabled worst

Scratch the fantasy that Louisiana big government advocates had that recent new spending commitments wouldn’t put the state into future fiscal distress, exacerbated by wasteful Medicaid policy decisions designed more to expand the number of people on this dole rather than to help the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

Last month, the Division of Administration presented updated financial numbers reflecting trends in revenue collection and spending since the Revenue Estimating Conference last set such numbers in stone in May. These will go into one of the two recommendations for revenues and expenses certified by the REC close to year’s end.

While this report predicted a surplus of nearly $150 million for the next fiscal year of 2024-25, the bottom drops out in the next two, where both FY 2026 and FY 2027 are forecast to produce each nearly a half a billion dollar deficits. The end of the 2016 and 2018 sales tax increase of 0.45 percent mainly drives the new gap. Worse, tax changes from the 2023 legislative session have yet to be factored in, which could have a further negative impact.

LA Freedom Caucus can change policy trajectory

It’s a bold bid, but one if even moderately successful could drag Louisiana governance (probably kicking and screaming) into the 21^st century.

The Louisiana Freedom Caucus PAC, the campaign arm of a collection of Republican House of Representatives members plus supporters, last week released a list of endorsees for upcoming legislative elections. This entitles them to campaign assistance.

Endorsees are judged to adhere to conservative principles and include both current legislators and hopefuls in joining them. Regarding this decision for existing legislators, one criterion stood out: only the 19 representatives who voted against breaking the constitutional spending caps in this past regular legislative session were eligible for endorsement. No senators did.

BC graybeards drop fig leaves at Chandler pressure

As the fig leaves fall away and the threats escalate, the battle about term limits on Bossier City elected officials has mutated from a veneer of concern over legal obligations to a process driven by reelection concerns on both sides, although opponents have captured a monopoly on hypocritical self-interest that continues to erode their political fortunes while giving Mayor Tommy Chandler a tremendous opportunity to boost his own.

This week a Council majority of graybeards – councilors Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free, Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby who all will have served at least 12 years by 2025 – plus their pet rookie Republican Vince Maggio, in concert with their consigliere City Attorney Charles Jacobs hope to go all Cosa Nostra in their endeavor to defeat the effort to give voters a say on a three-term lifetime and retroactive limit in office. They combat a petition certified by Bossier Parish Registrar of Voters Stephanie Agee that the city charter forces the Council to approve placing such an item on the ballot by Nov. 7.

But this majority bloc resists, because such a vote of taken within the next 14 months almost certainly will pass the measure and end the political careers of the graybeards. And the excuse they try to use is the petition didn’t directly have the birth years of signers listed as stated specifically in the relevant state statute, although it did list the voter identification numbers unique to signing individuals that includes the birth year of them, providing an indirect listing that complies with the spirit of the law if not its exact wording.