LA education direction validated yet again

It’s becoming old news that most Louisianans never tire of hearing: state children continue to exhibit significant improvement in educational performance, this time concerning the National Assessment of Education Progress exam results.

Termed the “nation’s report card,” exams in fourth and eighth grades every couple of years or so are taken across America, providing a comparative instrument as well as an absolute measure of English and mathematics skills. Since its inception in 1990, through 2019 Louisiana typically has or been close to dragging the rear among the states for all four categories.

No more, In 2022 – the first exam in three years, after commencement of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic – Louisiana at least poked outside the basement, hitting among the states on three categories ranks between 41^st and 44^th and cresting at 38^th for fourth grade reading. While absolute scores didn’t change much from 2019 – in aggregate, across the four they summed close to no change – Louisiana’s ranking improved on average several places because almost all other states lost ground. This occurred not only because of reforms stretching back into the last century but which began picking up steam with major overhauls under Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal and Superintendent John White that began bearing fruit but also because White’s successor Cade Brumley and the majority on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education – against the preference of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards and a minority of BESE – refused to order school closings during the pandemic, leaving that decision to districts where the large majority kept operating in-person, avoiding for the most part the documented significant drops in outcomes witnessed elsewhere and particularly in jurisdictions that hesitated to return to in-person schooling.

Trump derangement syndrome strikes LSU again

Maybe the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center has decided it needs to nip in the bud what otherwise could turn into an epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, by taking action that increases the integrity of higher education in Louisiana and citizens’ confidence in it.

Last year, a professor at LSU Law named Nicholas Bryner encountered some minor trouble when he insulted and demeaned students who supported Republican Pres. Donald Trump. Student recordings of the remarks came to the attention of GOP Gov. Jeff Landry who sent notes including to the law school administration that this conduct merited investigation. Whether that happened is not public, but the boorish and unprofessional behavior displayed by Bryner was, and with a little counseling plus the public outing bringing him deserved ridicule constituted acceptable punishment.

Now, apparently on the first day of class this semester, another law school instructor went much further. Law school administrators suspended for the semester Prof. Ken Levy for remarks made in that class, apparently caught by student recordings to which a media outlet gained access. Although administrators haven’t yet responded to requests for an explanation, perhaps because Levy has engaged counsel to fight that, a review of the media-obtained transcript gives readers a pretty good indication why a suspension not only was proper but also obligatory.

Tactics obvious for strict BC term limits to win

Now that the Oathbreakers on the Bossier City Council have surrendered on the issue of letting the people vote on strict term limits, backers of those amendments still have several steps to take to ensure eventual implementation.

This week, the Council voted unanimously of all present finally to send to the State Bond Commission – months late, according to the city’s charter – amendments petitioned by the public to a three-term lifetime and retroactive limit on the service of city councilors and the mayor. Despite the Charter mandating that the Council do this shortly after petition certification, five councilors – Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, plus Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby – on multiple occasions refused to authorize that.

That charter violation, when prodded by a district court to rectify, brought their refusal. Only when a city resident, Cassie Rogers, aided by fellow members of the Bossier Term Limits Coalition, brought the matter to the attention of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals who affirmed the Council had no option but to resolve the matter to an election and suggested that not only did failure to do so amount to violating their oaths of office but even could rise to the level of a drawing a felony charge of malfeasance, did they capitulate.

Insider moves by Bossier Jury par for course

Leave it to the Bossier Parish Policy Jury not just to double down, but to triple down, on its penchant for insular, insider-run government, as it proved at its last meeting.

This meeting featured the handoff from outgoing parish administrator Butch Ford, whose three-year tenure was marred by his dodging state law that he had to be registered to vote at a parish homestead, which he wasn’t for half of his time in office that the Jury simply ignored, to his successor Ken Ward. Although he served for almost 20 years in a middle-management position in Caddo Parish, Ward had created just for him last year an assistant parish administrator’s position in Bossier Parish, perhaps as a result of many years of service on a parish board that made him familiar to most jurors.

Ward may turn out to be an excellent administrator, but the parish, as has been its wont for decades, conducted no public search that could have attracted experienced and talented candidates. That is an affront to residents who expect the best candidate for the job regardless of whether he is known to, if not friends with, jurors, and a public vetting of all applicants.

Cassidy insulting GOP officials risks little

It’s not that Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy doesn’t want to win reelection, but that he’s gone past the point of return long ago and can afford pettiness in politics.

Last week, GOP state Rep. Roger Wilder claimed Cassidy had reneged on supplying him with tickets to Washington Mardi Gras festivities. During the last part of January traditionally Louisiana’s congressional delegation hosts the event which typically sucks in a lot of state and local politicians, plus more lobbyists than a stick could be shaken at. This demand makes these somewhat valuable for purposes of politicking.

Apparently, Wilder went to secure his promised ones and was told instead he’d get a refund. He says it was his support of Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez, a rumored candidate for Cassidy’s job in 2026, of which Cassidy’s staff got wind and so farmed out the ducats elsewhere.

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.