Inevitable remap plan slowed by other political purposes

Given the current lack of comity over redistricting questions in the Louisiana Legislature, I seriously doubt enough members could get together to Rick Roll anybody. But there’s plenty of political purpose spilling out of the struggle to carve out Congressional districts, and not just from those putting down the hammer on others.

As previously noted, the force holding all the cards on this question is Gov. Bobby Jindal because the Republican can veto with no realistic chance of override any plan he doesn’t like. Further, time is on his side because the longer legislators take to get something passed, the more inconvenient it will be for them and the more likely it is that political forces will favor Jindal’s allies inside and outside of the Legislature. For the U.S. House of Representatives’ plan, they don’t want to have to deal with it during either the upcoming or 2012 Regular Session or in another special session early next year. And if they don’t get it done now or in the session beginning in two weeks, by 2012 chances are Republicans will increase their majorities and Jindal will be reelected, strengthening their position even further.

If this reality was not already realized, a letter released by all Republican House members except Rep. Charles Boustany and endorsed by Jindal brought this home, which stated it was the preference of the signatories that the process be restarted in 2012.

Kennedy's misrepresentations undermine his credibility

Probably as a happy confluence of political ambition and real desire to reduce state spending, Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy has not displayed any shyness in tossing out many ideas – most good, some already implemented, and a few unworkable – addressing the downsizing state government. But recent remarks of his on the topic have caused his credibility on the issue to take a big hit.

In a speech to a civic organization interested in politics, Kennedy threw out some bromides for cost-cutting about which he has stumped for some time, but then let go with one that may have left his listeners in disbelief: that the state has between 30,000 and 35,000 political appointees, who make an average of $80,000 a year. Subsequently, he repeated such numbers in a call into the Moon Griffon radio talk show.

As well the in-person and radio audiences should have felt in disbelief – because that simply is not true.

Jindal resolve will secure his preferred Congress remap

The last gasp of Democrats trying to retain power in the Louisiana for the foreseeable future came yesterday when the Senate bucked the plan preferred by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal for Congressional redistricting. Aided by a few new Senate Republicans looking for political cover that they could exploit on this issue, when that assistance no longer can be forthcoming, then comes the flatline.

Jindal prefers SB 24 by state Sen. Neil Riser, which closely tracks legislation that already has cleared the House, that creates two north-south districts. This bill lost as narrowly as possible, 19-20, while the Senate passed a rival measure, SB 3 by state Sen. Lydia Jackson, 23-15, which creates a northern and a central band preferred by Democrats because it makes for a map that is more competitive for their candidates.

Riser’s measure lost because five southern Louisiana Senators who have switched from the Democrats to Republicans in the last four years, all but one in the last few months, went against it

Democrat, GOP leaders would rejoice at Fayard candidacy

Seldom does a high-profile politician come along that both Louisiana Democrats and Republicans fervently hope will run for office. One has emerged as a candidate for governor later this fall – all because, for different reasons and at different levels, she is such a useful idiot.

In fact, as far as these go, former lieutenant governor candidate for Democrats Caroline Fayard is about as useful an idiot as you can get. The term “useful idiot” came from European communist movements, to describe somebody that thinks of herself as an ideological ally of a group but instead is held in contempt by it and used for its own purposes that do not match hers. The modern formation of the classical definition describes well her relationship with state Democrat power brokers.

They face an ongoing crisis as Republicans now hold all levers of power in every single elective policy-making way – all executive branch offices, both chambers of the Legislature, the Public Service Commission and (counting the appointed members) the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

New Democrat powers push plan out of spite of LA citizens

Democrats look set to follow a scorched earth strategy as a final tactic to try to influence the drawing of legislatures’ district boundaries, as they come to grips with the fact that they no longer call the tune when it comes to that function and with the change in leadership that they are undergoing.

Evidence of this accompanied the introduction of HB 42 by independent Michael Jackson. He’s not currently a Democrat, but was for many years until he felt the white-based hierarchy of the party disregarded too thoroughly the contributions and aspirations of blacks in it and chose to play a spoiler that possibly may have cost it a Congressional seat. And this introduction itself showed how things have changed in three years as to runs the party now.

This map actually found a way to draw a second majority black district in Louisiana, in an exercise in convolution that contorts so that it’s a nonstarter constitutionally.

NW LA voters may deliver sound fiscal policy messages

Money matters in upcoming Bossier and Shreveport elections this Saturday, even where it’s not a tax issue that’s being considered. As it turns out, it gives the citizenry in both the parish and the city to send messages to elected officials and wannabes, some with tin ears.

The largest dollar amounts go to the three propositions floated by Shreveport for waters and sewerage infrastructure, streets and drainage infrastructure, and changes made to public buildings, their resources, and parks. Totaling $175 million, the city argues that unless it makes now some improvements for legal reasons dealing with environmental and accessibility concerns, the federal government may force these things on it without warning, as well as tackling deferred maintenance.

These measures have generated some controversy because to some observers they don’t seem quite essential, asserting that no legal action presently exists against the city for the presumed shortcomings to be addressed by the spending and these measures were put together hastily, but perhaps more because of the city’s claim that taxes won’t rise as a result of these new issues.

Spendthrift ways hard to purge from NW LA govts

It seems that Bossier City, of all places, has caught an extremely mild dose of fiscal restraint. Although exportation of its internal disease of big spending probably is not what municipal taxpayers have in mind.

Drawing simultaneously public amusement and outrage, as the nation’s overall economy has stagnated in the past three years local governments have found themselves under pressure to cut back on expenditures that seem to have little justification. The practice of local governments sending phalanxes of officials to hang around the annual Carnival celebrations in Washington, put on by the state’s Congressional delegation, have drawn particular scrutiny.

The lengths to which some of the local officials involved go to try to present these affairs, where these government racks up hotel charges in the thousands of dollars, live high off the hog in dining, and shell out hundreds or many times more of taxpayer dollars to be at or to host parties, can present high comedy.

GOP Senate oddly passes on redistricting grand slam

So we assume that the Louisiana Republican Party’s state elected officials want to use their legislative and gubernatorial majorities to ensure redistricting favorable to their future electoral chances? Then why, after yesterday’s activities revealed, did they stop short of this?

To maximize, its legislators had to draw boundaries that did not help the fortunes of other parties’ candidates, specifically Democrats, for the state House, Senate, and Congress. For Congress, they succeeded: the plan that emerged from the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, creating two north-south districts, made for districts that had fewer black residents, who are very reliable Democrat voters, than did the Democrats’ plan of northern- and central-banded districts in the same area. The net effect is zero – as many seats remain favorable to Republicans and black Democrats as before.

For the House, also mission accomplished.

Elections matter: GOP redistricting grand slam in offing?

The hammer is coming down. Who operates it and how it will strike remains uncertain, but soon Louisiana redistricting of its Congressional seats and legislature will reveal these power players, and they will work to the advantage of Republicans.

Last week, a balance of interests began ordering in the special session called mainly for this purpose. Republicans seemed willing to go even up in throwing House incumbents together, two pairs for each party, while letting a chance to add an extra electorally favorable Senate seat along with an extra black majority/minority seat go by the wayside, in exchange for creating two north-south Congressional spots rather than northern and central banded districts, where the latter advantaged Democrat contenders.

Then it seemed to fall apart yesterday as enough House members, where the GOP holds a narrow advantage, amended the House plan to force three sets of Republican incumbents together and just one pair of Democrats.

Bossier City needs review of marshal's office activities

The tragic accidental death of Bossier City Marshal Johnny Wyatt created a net loss for the community, yet brings an opportunity for an efficient reconfiguration of the office’s functions and greater accountability to the citizenry -- especially trenchant for the upcoming special election to fulfill Wyatt's term.

One of the enemies of good governance and the ability of the governed to understand the uses to which government puts their resources and the powers government can exercise over them is lack of clarity in who is responsible for what. Unless citizens easily can identify where their money goes, how it then is used, and who makes the decisions on how it is used, they risk having lack of input into prioritization and implementation of spending decisions. Obscured accountability also can create inefficiency, threatening to waste the public’s dollars through duplication or even by agencies working at cross-purposes.

Touted concerning Wyatt’s tenure in office was the many functions his office performed, most extensively in protecting children against predators via the Internet. But if we review what Louisiana law outlines as the function of the marshal’s office, in fact it is a much smaller portfolio.