Trump actions already shaping LA govt, economy

Republican Pres. Donald Trump isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet when it comes to promulgating policies, by executive orders or simple agency policy changes, that will have a significant impact in Louisiana.

Upon taking office, Trump signaled one immediately that would have a huge impact on the state – abolishing a moratorium on permits for facilities exporting liquified natural gas. Since then, others have come rapidly.

One cuts off federal funding to jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with the federal government in illegal immigration enforcement actions. That imperils both the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office in its refusal to detain most illegal aliens – which it legally does not have to follow – and New Orleans, which has a similar policy by choice. That puts at risk nearly $6 million or 8 percent of the sheriff’s revenues and New Orleans receives over $47 million in intergovernmental money or about 5 percent of its revenues, although this figure includes state revenues.

Between the Lines +20, then and now

Now that it’s time to celebrate this space’s twentieth anniversary, where it’s come over the past five years (the last time this exercise was completed) and what’s happened in Louisiana politics over the past two decades.

Readers should go back to that Jan. 22, 2020 post to review how and why this, which I still understand is the longest-running blog about Louisiana politics, all started, but I will extend my remarks from then a bit. The paucity of blogs about Pelican State politics invited such an effort, but a knowledgeable one. True then (not so much in volume) and now (featuring increased volume) is while information dissemination about the state’s politics (by any media) comes either in the form of the proverbial mile-wide and inch-deep – typically journalists, most opinion columnists, and some of the sources cited by each – or an inch-wide and mile-deep – describing some sources used – this effort has been all about being mile-wide, mile-deep.

At the time this started, I had been teaching Louisiana government in the college classroom for almost a decade, and in the course of preparing and teaching classes I became aware that much of what was seen in the traditional media (because new media outlets at this time were practically nonexistent) offered surface analysis or information for the most part, except for the occasional true expert but whose expertise was confined narrowly, was outright oversimplified if not incorrect. I felt I could offer a much broader and more thoroughly analyzed perspective, especially through my use of hard data that separates this space from the impressionistic or wish-fulfilling but bereft of systematic knowledge narratives common to the vast majority of news gathering and commentary about Louisiana politics.

Trial defeat imperils BC councilor betrayers

A recent Louisiana Second Circuit of Appeals decision might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the reelection chances of multiple Bossier City councilors.

Last week, a three-judge panel ruled on an appeal that five city councilors – Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, plus Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby – filed in opposition to a district court ruling that the Council had violated its charter by refusing to pass along to the state for voter approval a duly certified and constitutionally valid petition, to amend the charter with strict term limits. These would be a lifetime three terms and apply retroactively to the mayor’s post and all Council slots, which practically means of the five appellants – all of whom betrayed their sworn oaths of office to engage in this illegal behavior – all but Maggio would be unable to run for another term.

This obstinance prevented the measure from going to voters in November, which then would have applied to this spring elections. Because it didn’t, the four can run for reelection this spring, although Williams has said publicly he would retire. It also cost the item a place on the December ballot and likely on the spring ballot in March since the deadline for proposition consideration by the State Bond Commission was Jan. 2.

Historic period gives LA ruling GOP great chance

With the second inauguration of Republican President Donald Trump, Louisiana enters an unprecedented period that has the potential for maximal policy change from an eccentric past that still inflicts woes on the state to this day.

With Trump taking the executive branch helm, after at the start of the month the GOP taking full control of Congress, it became the first time since 1993 that one political party held all of the levers of power in both Louisiana and the federal government. Then, it was Democrats, which historically had not been unusual. As Louisiana had its first Republican governor only starting in 1980, and Republicans until 32 years ago had just a handful of members in the Legislature – never mind ever coming close to a majority – in roughly half of the years from the birth of the modern party system not long before the Civil War to then the congruence had been in place whenever Democrats controlled the White House and Congress.

But from then until now, with GOP ascendancy in Louisiana that has had one of its own in the Governor’s Mansion for 18 of those 32 years and since 2011 control of the Legislature, the various shifts in power at the national level prevented the congruence – until today. The historic part, of course, is that now it’s Republicans rather than Democrats who have all of the control.

Playing water politics harms Monroe ratepayers

The penny-saving, dollar-wasting Monroe City Council majority might pose as saving residents money by forgoing water rate hikes now, but that action likely will end up costing ratepayers even more in the future.

At its last meeting, the Council rejected increasing rates by 2.7 percent, as recommended by the independent Mayor Friday Ellis Administration. Until this year, that hadn’t been an issue, as by ordinance rates were to increase annually by the rate of consumer price inflation in order to satisfy conditions attached to a 2018 water reserve bond issue of more than $35 million. According to that issuance, the city had to have net water revenues building a reserve at least equal to 125 percent of the principal and interest payable on the bonds each fiscal year and on any additional parity bonds hereafter, with the series terminating in 2049.

But last Sept. 24, after as a result of elections Democrat Councilors Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad joined Councilors Democrat Juanita Woods and Republicans Gretchen Ezernack and Doug Harvey, the newcomers joined with Woods to pass Ordinance 12,243 cancelling the automatic increase and setting up an annual vote whether to change rates. The majority Democrats said the Council should have the flexibility to set rates as needed.

Federal LSP report lets enabler Edwards skate

And while the case of Ronald Greene ends in a whimper, a related federal investigation it spawned also ended disappointingly in that it failed to pursue something vitally relevant to it – the politics behind Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ quest to stay in office.

Greene, a black motorist, died at the hands of law enforcement in May, 2019. After a high-speed chase ending in a minor fender-bender, a mix of white state troopers and a local deputy battered and restrained him for nearly an hour, with him eventually dying on route to medical care. From the start the Louisiana State Police mendaciously reported that Greene had died in an accident even as several months later they began investigating the events around it, having known the truth all the time.

That investigation, completely out of the public eye and which also covered an attempted LSP coverup, over a year later led to disciplinary action against the troopers, where the one most seriously involved in brutality dying in a solo car crash just after its conclusion that had all the hallmarks of suicide-by-reckless-driving. The others lost their jobs, and the deputy retired.

Don't have report distract from DEI solutions

If the recent Act 641 report fools policy-makers into thinking all is clear from the perniciousness of diversity, equity, and inclusion inculcation into every day business at Louisiana higher education institutions, then it will serve as a distraction and not as a tool to counter that perniciousness.

This report, promulgated as part of a recent law, mandates institutions to report spending on activities that classify individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, culture, gender identity, or sexual orientation or promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification. It is for fiscal year 2024 and shows for that year that about $3.5 million spent on DEI activities, a good chunk of which went to programs for international students and study of Acadiana culture.

It's interesting trivia and a cudgel defenders of DEI can use as the tip of an iceberg that they disingenuously claim the underwater body of which doesn’t exist by saying the money spent is but a tiny fraction of total academic spending. This line of argument about foundational DEI misdirects not only by stumping for the idea that spending proportion as an indicator shows it has little sway but also in deflecting from the fact that spending tells us next to nothing as an indicator of DEI spread.

Small stuff paying big dividends for LA education

As is often the case when successful public policy bears its fruit, it’s not headline-grabbing stuff that really made the difference but the nuts and bolts as to why Louisiana is finding more teachers available in public education.

Last week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education as part of its January meeting received the annual Teacher Exit Data Report, which contains data about trends concerning teachers leaving their current positions in Louisiana public education as well as forecasts of numbers of those being prepared to teach. In academic year 2024 for the second year running, the number of teachers rose in traditional public school classrooms (in other words, not including charter schools), while a lower percentage were leaving these classrooms and for the first time in at least a dozen years a higher number were in the pipeline to enter classrooms in the near future.

This century, for its first fifth Louisiana saw a 23 percent increase in its public school teacher/pupil ratio, although in the past few years it has started to edge downwards even as that might in part be an artifact of fewer students in public classrooms, that ranks by the latest data eighth highest among the states. And while the evidence is at best weak that smaller class sizes improve student performance, lowering the ratio means that more teachers are instructing in fields in which they have competence and they face reduced workloads which both encourage entry into and continued work in the profession.

Another insider ready to take Bossier top job

It’s time for one of Bossier Parish’s plenary-run governments – in this case, the Police Jury – to pick a new administrative leader, and yet again it’s going to be another inside job.

Both the Jury and the Bossier Parish School Board have a long history of disdaining outsiders for their top jobs of, respectively, parish administrator and superintendent. Last year around this time it was the Board’s turn to pick the district’s head and, after unusually actually having a search outside the parish for the job the previous time it was open in 2019 but which then predictably ended up picking the then-interim superintendent Mitch Downey, dispensed with any search and elevated another long-time employee, the health clinic-mastermind and flogger of parents who want school choice as Jim Crow acolytes Jason Rowland was into the position.

Now it’s the Jury’s turn with current administrator Butch Ford riding off into the sunset. In the past, this often meant the parish engineer – as Ford had been – would take the helm, which in this case would have been Eric Hudson (meaning he might have had to take a pay cut, as he makes about $5,000 more than does Ford).

Ruling to aid reducing LA homelessness problems

Even as Louisiana suffers among the least of the states in homelessness, the state has picked up another tool to combat its worst effects.

Last month, the federal government released its annual statistical report on homelessness. At 8 per 10,000 population, Louisiana ranked in the bottom three of states and bucked the national increase of 18 percent by going up only about half of that. The main driver of this record jump seemed to be uncontrolled borders that allowed illegal aliens to flood some of the nation’s largest cities.

However, of those homeless, Louisiana’s 44.8 percent unsheltered rate was among the top 15 states. It is among these people that are found the highest concentration of those with some kind of mental illness that leads a significant portion of them to substance abuse, joining a smaller portion not mentally ill but who abuse substances.