Big GOP early vote gains may flip EBR leader

The uptick in early voting by Republicans nationally matters even in Louisiana, where Republican former Pres. Donald Trump should win handily.

Reflecting the trend nationally, more Republicans voted in Louisiana during the early voting period (plus absentee ballots received through its end) with overall turnout number a bit down from 2020, where voting outside of election day was encouraged in light of the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, over 986,000 registrants had voted a week prior to the election, of which almost 436,000 were Democrats and almost 368,000 were Republicans, while this year turnout was off to over 961,000 or a drop of about 2.5 percent, of which almost 345,000 were Democrats and nearly 431,000 were Republicans.

The near-reversal in these figures might send some uncomfortable signals to Democrats. With early voting, it’s never known until after the fact whether it reflects fairly faithfully the proportions of the electorate that turn out on election day or if some kind of substitution effect is occurring where for one demographic group as compared to another its members who would have voted on election day instead turn out early, or delay turning out, with the overall proportions when all votes are counted following historical norms.

But there’s reason to believe the higher GOP trend presages something like the same on election day, in that it is occurring broadly coast to coast. That also for Louisiana specifically weakens the notion that the partisan difference is as a result of party-switching from Democrat to Republican that has been a steady feature in Louisiana for decades, as back in 2020 there were about 124,000 more Democrats and around 87,000 fewer Republicans than seen in 2024. Indeed, the drop in early voting number is barely more proportionally than the drop in the overall electorate, down around 72,000 as a result of population losses accelerating in the second term of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Another sign that it’s likely more trend and less substitution is turnout by race. 49,000 fewer blacks showed up as opposed to 28,000 more whites. Typically, blacks have been more likely to vote early.

If in fact these numbers denote disproportionate Republican turnout – they were 25 percent higher than Democrat numbers in an overall electorate where Democrats are 8.5 percent higher – and we reasonably can expect few will defect from GOP candidates (indeed, Democrats will have a higher defection rate because the blanket primary system doesn’t penalize, at least until 2026, keeping the same registration even if years ago someone began voting consistently for the other major party candidates, as a greater proportion of Democrats have done), this should impact the two major contests on the ballot this fall parts of the state: the Public Service Commission District 2 and East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president contests.

The fantasy for this fall among Democrats at least to slow the long and steady decline in election victories in the state is for the EBR chief executive’s office to be retained by the party, either in the form of incumbent Sharon Weston Broome or by former state Rep. Ted James, and to pull off a major upset in the PSC race by having rookie Nick Laborde somehow defeat GOP state Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan and Republican former state Sen. Julie Quinn. These results bank upon turnout in a fashion that eliminates Republican educator Sid Edwards, the GOP frontrunner, in the EBR contest and puts Laborde into the PSC runoff, and then for the runoff internecine battling in EBR, a major component of District 2, stimulates Democrats into turning out while Republicans sit it out disproportionately and somehow this resonates to vault Laborde past a Republican.

It's quite the dream, but the early voting statistics threaten to turn it into a nightmare. If Republicans turn out disproportionately, Edwards likely would make a runoff against Broome or James with a real chance of winning in December. And the same dynamic might mean even as the default Democrat in the PSC race, Laborde gets aced out by both Republicans, and that internecine battle spills over into helping Edwards win.

The numbers in key parishes show this may happen. Most of EBR lies in District 2, and other large parishes in it are Lafayette, Lafourche, and Terrebonne. In 2020, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in early voting was 1.6 in EBR, 0.9 in Lafayette, 0.7 in Lafourche, and 0.6 in Terrebonne. In 2024, they were, respectively, 1.2, 0.5, 0.4, and 0.4. In EBR, about a thousand fewer whites showed up early, but about 4,000 fewer blacks did as well.

If replicated on Nov. 5, Democrats certainly will find themselves continuing to look in from the outside for the PSC seat but also in big trouble in holding on to the EBR top spot. In a few days, we’ll know whether the early voting results were this canary in a coal mine.

Greene case especially lacking political justice

The final act of the Ronald Greene incident, now drawn out to almost five-and-a-half in the making, appears nigh and increasingly obvious that the higher up the chain of command, the less justice will be done.

Throughout the years, involving federal investigations, state investigations, media investigations, and attempted prosecutions, of five Louisiana State Police troopers and Union Parish sheriff deputies, only two will face charges and one, retired trooper Kory York, just accepted a plea deal that amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.

The deal was opposed by Greene’s family. Black motorist Greene led law enforcement officers through a high-speed chase in May, 2019 that ended with a stop where officers corralled him, restrained him, stunned him, and struck some blows, even as he resisted but didn’t use any force against them. After the intervention of questionable physical tactics lasting nearly an hour, he was transported to a hospital but died.

Bossier Jury dodges bullet; problems remain

The Bossier Parish Police Jury made it over one obstacle in its doubling up as the parish’s Library Board of Control, but by no means is it out of the legal and political woods over that.

The Jury, unlike any other parish governing authority in the state, has inserted itself directly into Board affairs since 2016 by appointing its own to that. It grew increasingly bold in that regard and by 2023 all Board members were jurors. In public, at least one member has justified the complete takeover as necessary to safeguard children from unsupervised access to books with explicit sexual themes and descriptions.

A new statute aided in that task, which requires library systems to install a system that flags such material and gives parents the option of prohibiting their children from accessing that. That started as an initiative from the Attorney General’s office, then headed by Republican now-Gov. Jeff Landry, at present backed by GOP current Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill.

Good tax reform plan has small margin for error

For his tax reform by cutting a thousand things to pass into being, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry must avoid its death by a thousand cuts.

Months ago, Landry began stumping for large-scale tax reform to ensconce a more rationale and efficient fiscal structure in Louisiana that will encourage economic growth. The current system’s complexity, favoritism to certain entities, and inflexibility that encourages outsized government has for decades dampened economic development prospects.

Apparently satisfied he has something effective that can become law or part of the Constitution, he has signaled early next month he will call the Legislature into special session for a couple of weeks or so, which means he must issue the call this week. His Department of Revenue with an assist from the Legislative Fiscal Office has produced eight pieces of model legislation and fiscal analyses of each, totaling 385 pages of changes that forecasts overall state government revenues won’t change materially but likely positively in the short term.

LA campaign spending rules need more limits

Even as Louisiana legislators reduced the impact of the inherent flaw of limits to campaign contributions this year, more work is needed on the expenditure side that reduces the uncertainty involved induced by the unelected state Board of Ethics.

Over the past year, elected officials have complained they have less certainty about what are allowable expenditures from political action committees in particular. This is because the legal standard is extremely open-ended on the campaign side, and on the PAC side there hasn’t been definition at all with the assumption that it matched that of the campaign side. PACs are allowed to spend on behalf of a candidate but must do so independently of a principal campaign committee for that candidate.

This summer, the Board, which oversees campaign disclosure, initiated a rules process that would limit PAC expenditures to exclude “expenditures for the purpose of supporting an elected official’s holding of public office or party position” or “expenditures for the benefit of a candidate that would be a personal use if made from a candidate’s campaign funds,” both of which can be done from a campaign account. However, the rule has yet to be made final with legislative leaders indicating they would exercise their veto power over it if made final.

Trump win ensures more bucks for LA coastal aid

If Republican former Pres. Donald Trump doesn’t win back the presidency in just under two weeks, Louisiana could face some real headwinds in coastal protection and restoration.

Not attracting the attention that it should, this summer a Maryland Democrat Pres. Joe Biden-appointed judge threatened to shut down oil and gas exploration and extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, giving as a reason the federal National Marine Fisheries Service insufficiently took into account the endangered species designation of Rice’s whales in rules promulgated for transit around the area. Basically, her ruling said, despite the extreme unlikelihood of a repeat of the Macondo well blowout in 2010, that this had to be worked into the rules. If the rules weren’t made by December, oil and gas-related activities could have been ordered to cease.

But this week the deadline was extended to May, 2025, as the agency said it didn’t have the resources to redo the process so quickly. Notably, this puts the final product months into the next presidential administration, which could influence the final rules.

New ploy but same infirmity to film tax credit

Prepare to hear a lot of squawking from grifters enjoying, directly or indirectly, taxpayer largesse from the Motion Picture Production tax credit as it rests on the chopping block in Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s tax reform agenda. Much of it is recycled drivel, but there’s something new under the sun worth ridiculing.

The facts about the program’s wastefulness to taxpayers are indisputable. Even under the most optimistic assumptions, at best it returns 40 cents on the dollar, and subsidizes each job “created” (regardless of whether full time) to the tune of $13,300 each. Given recent data pointing to $500 million worth of credits issued since 2018, that’s a loss to taxpayers of at least $300 million (if all are redeemed, and typically within a few years are).

Supporters will spout off that, regardless of huge taxpayer costs, economic activity is created, such as an estimate that a buck of incentives induces $1.60 in economic activity. However, in isolation this is a meaningless figure because it doesn’t compare to alternate uses of funds, inside or outside of government. As compared to other tax credits, for example, the Digital Interactive Media and Software Tax Credit does better, so why not shut down the film one and transfer it all to the media and software one? More to the point, in the private sector if these dollars stayed in the hands of individuals, they almost certainly would invest differently and in enterprises that create far more jobs and wealth than making a bunch of movies and television episodes.

School group keeps shilling for adults, not kids

Having already taken a chink out of Louisiana’s elementary and secondary education standards, let’s hope the Legislature reins in whatever might come of the Greek chorus it established that advocates doing more of the same.

At the tail end of the 2024 session, the Legislature established the Louisiana House K-12 Education Study Group, ostensibly to study regulations on public schools, testing requirements, curriculum in particular as it pertains to local input and decision making, requirements of teachers that includes but not limited to training and general workload, and federal funding. Instead, it largely has honed in on how to change things to meet the needs of adults, rather than of children.

The major tactic to implement this strategy has been to go after student testing, which is built around two purposes: as a marker to identify areas of excellence and improvement among students and also to evaluate teacher and school performance. The state-mandated testing regime chafes administrators and teachers because it shines sometimes an uncomfortable spotlight on their product. The state’s student body has experienced slow but steady improvement in nationally-normed achievement in large part because of this rigor, at the expense of exposing weaknesses while aggravating school boards, because their members feel politically vulnerable in instances when accountability measures reveal their district’s schools aren’t doing so well, and administrators and teachers feel professionally pressured at schools whose students don’t show adequate achievement, growth, or progression.

LA brain drain fault of higher education

It’s called singing for your supper, but it shouldn’t be a flight from reality for Louisiana higher education.

Data reveal not only that the number of recipients of Taylor Opportunity Program for Students senior college awards has declined significantly in the last few years but also those eligible for the highest award level, Honors, disproportionately are turning down the free taxpayer-aided gift. Honors eligibility requires a 3.5 grade point average for a set of required courses and an ACT standardized test score of 27, making them eligible for the award of tuition mostly paid plus $800. The regular award requires a 2.5 GPA and 20 on the ACT for all but the $800 lagniappe.

The blame for this, according to one Board of Regents official, is unenlightened legislators and their greedy taxpaying constituents, with many of the student cohort opting for out-of-state schools offering better financial aid packages because of the inability for TOPS to cover the full cost of attendance. Starting in academic year 2016-17, the Legislature stopped indexing TOPS but would have to approve annually increases in the award to match tuition increases (fees aren’t included, and these have risen as well), which it has done infrequently since.

BC debt behind call for tax, fee increases

What Bossier City gave to taxpayers with one hand in 2024 the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration lobbies to take with the other in 2025, creating an election-year problem for graybeard city councilors.

Lost in all the excitement last week over the eventually-thwarted term limits power play instigated by those graybeards – Republican David Montgomery and Jeff Free plus Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby – with their rookie lackey Republican Vince Maggio was the budget workshop presented by the Council, hearing from city Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham about what the 2025 budget will look like that the Council will have to grapple with over the next two months, starting next week. It ended up as an object lesson as to the wages of the profligacy practiced by the graybeards over the past decade and more.

Nottingham painted a discouraging picture. Under current assumptions, she foresaw a $3 million deficit because expenses would increase faster than revenues. The main culprit she fingered was escalating insurance costs although the lingering problem of the state trying to shore up underfunded retirement systems, by passing costs onto local governments, also contributed.