Fall LA races becoming duller by the moment

Of the two marquee state races on Louisiana’s ballot this fall, one has been decided and the other looks like it might as well be.

Not that races for federal office seem very competitive, made a bit less interesting without a Senate contest this cycle. All five congressional Republican incumbents running at best face token opposition, and even the newly-constructed second majority-minority district in operation probably only for this election cycle has Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields possessing more than $600,000 to play with, having spent relatively little to this point, while his considered main opposition, Republican former state Sen. Elbert Guillory, has yet to file any campaign finance reports. Unless Guillory, who has demonstrated fundraising prowess for his political action committee, mounts a serious campaign, there’s no way anybody can overcome Fields in a district favoring him.

But it was anticipated that competition could be intense for the two offices on statewide entities up from grabs this cycle, the Supreme Court and Public Service Commission, in both cases District 2. For the Court, that is a new one with a redraw of its map that echoed the congressional map in creating a second M/M district. It slices up northeast Louisiana, meanders across and down the state’s border southward, and into Baton Rouge.

Bossier Jury, Port set to squeeze taxpayers

Besides increased values for some that for many are accentuated by an eight-year lag in tax assessments, Bossier Parish property owners also may face property tax rate increases from at least the Police Jury and Port of Caddo-Bossier.

During quadrennial presidential election years, in Louisiana parishes reappraise property values. That didn’t occur across the board in 2020 due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, so for some 2024 will present their first adjustment since 2016. While some properties may lose value, others may gain, and likely in Bossier Parish when made final – the process is in its preliminary stage where assessments made can be challenged – in the aggregate property values will have risen.

That means more paid in taxes, but the Constitution permits a safety valve potentially to ease this. Under normal circumstances, the total amount for all properties substantially the same with the same owners collected for a jurisdiction must equal that total from the previous assessment. To accomplish this, millage rates are “rolled back” automatically, so the higher aggregate value times a lower rate equals the same aggregate amount of taxation as previous, with the rate adjusted precisely to match the previous total collected.

LA must step on gas to ride with AI revolution

It’s being handed to Louisiana on a silver platter. Let’s hope the state’s current crop of policy-makers doesn’t emulate those of the past and blow it.

Particularly with artificial intelligence applications ramping up at an accelerating pace, future world energy demand estimates have begun to escalate. In response, energy firms are reconsidering moves they made away from reliance on coal, natural gas, and nuclear power that purveyors of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hysteria have pressured them to seek, with companies now considering restarting closed operations, abandoning closure plans, and expanding these capacities.

And there is perhaps no state, particularly in per capita terms, that stands to gain more from this than Louisiana, especially when it comes to natural gas. Among the states, Louisiana accounts for about 10 percent of U.S. total marketed natural gas production and holds about 6 percent of the nation's natural gas reserves, good enough to rank third highest in marketed natural gas production and seventh in proved natural gas reserves. It also is the major distributor of natural gas, because of it reserves and production but also as it serves as the major transmission point both within the country and now outside of it with liquified natural gas exports.

Highest sales tax city in LA goes higher still

That’s good timing: West Monroe is raising sales taxes after being identified as the municipality with the highest sales tax rate in Louisiana.

The Tax Foundation’s mid-year report on sales taxation ranks Louisiana only 37^th among the states in state sales taxes, but then throw in the second-highest combined weighed local sales tax rates and it crests at the top of the consolidated rate at 9.565 percent. At any location in the state, consumers could have added to the state rate (which doesn’t apply to food, drugs, and utilities) sales taxes levied by perhaps several different local governments.

In West Monroe, for many parts of the city there is just the Ouachita Parish School District’s three percent and the city’s 2.99 percent. This combined rate is actually lower than a number of places around the state; Sterlington, for example, has a combined rate of 6.50 percent, but the city’s rate is only 2.5 percent as the District’s rate there is a point lower but parish and fire protection levies add a point each.

LA judicial selection method change desirable

From the inception of this blog, time after time after time after time it has implored the state to change its method of judicial selection. The case of Democrat 19^th Judicial Judge Eboni Johnson Rose invites a reminder of this.

Rose recently was suspended, with pay, entirely from the bench, which in Louisiana is done upon recommendation of a panel of judges, lawyers, and other citizens appointed by various levels of judges collectively called the Judiciary Commission and ratified by the Supreme Court. It’s the most serious sanction possible, keeping her off the bench even before the Commission completes an investigation. While those details are confidential for now, a series of questionable decisions in just her first three years in office apparently led to this punishment that assumes justice from her bench would be severely compromised were she allowed to continue presiding over cases.

Of course, the quality of her decision-making, if not competence, were unknowns when she secured her spot, through an election which in no way guarantees a quality judge will be selected, just one who can collect a majority of votes. Generally speaking, the Commission and Court are quite loath to intervene in these cases, as it involves for some Commission members and for the Court other judges supposedly there at the behest of the electorate.

BC graybeards, Maggio show unfitness for office

While the big story coming from this week’s meeting of the Bossier City Council was how five of its members disgraced themselves, another intriguing story emerged over whether the city’s moribund Charter Review Commission operated legally.

The final reading of an ordinance to disband the Commission failed when only Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons voted in support, while Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, plus Democrat Bubba Williams and no party Jeff Darby voted against. In the cases of Williams and Free, they reversed their votes from the first reading two weeks earlier; the others against had been absent.

Montgomery led the charge against, arguing that, even as the Charter didn’t address whether the Council could rescind a Commission once constituted, the intent was that the Council wasn’t to interfere with Commission operations until its termination voluntary or by its 18-month life, and rescinding did interfere because it could influence a panel to make proposals favored by councilors, under the threat of dissolution if it didn’t. City Attorney Charles Jacobs confessed it was a gray area that didn’t have a clear-cut resolution.

Environmental racism trope notches win in LA

If you needed any reminder about how the political left works in the shadows and surreptitiously to achieve goals it knows if exposed cannot win judicially or in the court of public opinion, look no further over the controversy surrounding a proposed grain terminal in St. John the Baptist Parish.

Last week, Greenfield Louisiana cancelled that project after years of struggling with activists both locally and nationally, and a sly federal government propagating an anti-growth and neo-racist disguised as anti-racist agenda. It would have brought around 100 jobs to an economically-depressed area that many in the surrounding community, the unincorporated area of Wallace, wanted.

That area presently has little going for it economically except nearby tourist attractions of former plantations. It also has mostly black residents, many of whom trace their lineage there back decades, if not centuries, whose presence of long-standing families meant the company had to plan carefully building around historically-significant areas and mitigating any after-effects from the economic boost that would ensue.

Fleming keeps on pressure against discrimination

It may not change any of their practices, but at least Louisianans can feel better about and take action form Republican Treas. John Fleming’s principled move that trends in the right direction against one corporate bully.

Fleming recently announced that the state no longer would authorize Bank of America to be an agent for financial matters, effectively removing any state monies deposited with it. This he justified on the basis that the firm refused to provide services to religious organizations, gun manufacturers, fossil fuel producers, and individuals on what only could be political grounds.

Regarding several of the instances Fleming cited, BOA repeatedly has refused to explain why it refused provision, indicating in one instance that a nonprofit organization promoting Christian ministry after years of a relationship had been declared “a business type we have chosen not to serve.” One state media source quoted a BOA functionary claiming that religious beliefs didn’t factor into these decisions, but didn’t address the reasons behind these specific instances, and never has even to the account holders. Indeed, the argument that BOA “provide[s] services to more than 100,000 non-profits affiliated with religious organizations” as a plea that religious belief isn’t relevant doesn’t deny that certain viewpoints are discriminated against.

Tort reform hesitancy risks Landry's reelection

If Republican Gov. Jeff Landry isn’t careful, the insurance reform train is going to leave the station without him, imperiling his reelection chances.

Over the next few months at the behest of GOP legislative leaders, committees plan to meet to hash out options for tort reform. Louisiana vehicle insurance rates are close to the top of all states, and it has a legal structure surrounding the processing of claims out of step with states that tend to have significantly lower rates.

That relative ranking hasn’t changed much since some lukewarm reforms were enacted in 2020 over the objections of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards. Important to note, a number of exogenous factors unrelated to policy choices significantly affect rates, such as weather, and others only indirectly related, such as criminal activity, also can matter, as well as national policy decisions that the state cannot affect, such as economic policy that impacts price inflation. And, as court cases can drag on for years, it will be some time before the true impact of change will be experienced.

Bossier Jury still doing best to stay in dark

Forced to make itself more transparent, we shouldn’t have expected the Bossier Parish Police Jury to do anything but the bare minimum that frustrates the spirit of the law – if not actually making matters worse for citizens who can’t watch meetings live – while jurors do their best to skirt the law.

Act 539 of 2024 expanded the responsibilities of local governments in transmitting live and archived their meetings. Now, municipalities, parish governing authorities, and school boards over certain population levels must transmit live (or close to it) not only their meetings, but meetings of any committees of them, barring those for municipalities whose committees are composed of unelected volunteers.

As it was. the Jury barely complied with existing law. Unlike the five other significant plenary bodies in the area – Shreveport’s City Council, Caddo Parish’s Commission, Caddo’s School Board, Bossier City’s Council, and Bossier’s School Board – which have had sophisticated professional video transmission and have archived meeting recordings for years, it limped along with Facebook Live transmissions from a phone or tablet placed on the end of the table where jurors sat. The transmissions were so terrible that a good chunk of the audio was unintelligible, unless the consumer knew the voices by person you couldn’t tell who was speaking, presentations weren’t shown, and neither were the outcomes of votes. Archiving is a mess, having to sift through the parish’s Facebook site. Nor was it reliable; the entire transmission of perhaps the most important meeting of last year, passing the budget, never came off due to what I was told was a “transmission error” (and therefore isn’t archived).