Cynic decries reasonable new LA House plan

You could envision the tears of cynicism streaming from Democrat state Rep. Kenny Cox, triggered because he couldn’t set up a family dynasty.

Earlier this week when the Louisiana House of Representatives’ House and Governmental Affairs Committee considered reapportioning itself, Cox came before it to argue against HB 14 by Speaker Clay Schexnayder, and implicitly in favor of the only alternative Democrats want to pursue, HB 15 by Democrat state Rep. Sam Jenkins. HB 14 moves Cox’s District 23 to New Orleans while HB 15 leaves it roughly in place, sending HD 5 instead to New Orleans.

In Schexnayder’s bill, HD 5 based in Caddo Parish would become a majority Bossier Parish district, plus tacking on Red River Parish and remain majority white in voting age composition. HD 23 would remain a majority-minority district, and HD 62 held by no party Roy Daryl Adams would become M/M, thereby adding one such district over the current registration numbers.

LA Democrats all in on litigating their loss

For Louisiana Democrats, when it comes to reapportionment it’s all about the litigation now.

That became clear as the Louisiana Senate passed, by a partisan vote, SB 5 by Republican state Sen. Sharon Hewitt which would keep with some minor modifications the current plan that establishes only one of six majority-minority districts for Congress. With almost a third of Louisianans being black, Democrats – for whom blacks almost always vote for – and leftist special interests wanted there to be two such districts in the upcoming map. Democrats offered several such plans, including a last-ditch amendment on the floor.

But the problem with that, as both Hewitt directly and GOP Sen. Pres. Page Cortez indirectly made clear in addressing the bill, is it created tenuous black majorities in the two districts, and violated various judicially-approved principles of redistricting as spelled out throughout the process over a series of months, most principally in how all offered Democrat plans tore communities of interest apart. Left unsaid was because those plans made race the dominant consideration they would be unconstitutional.

Decision wrecks LA left's congressional plan

Courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana’s reapportionment exercise now appears to favor heavily the Republican majorities that control the Legislature, and potentially promises years of litigation and uncertainty about congressional boundaries.

All along, the political process has put the GOP in the driver’s seat, with the eventual endgame pointing to implementing maps that created more favorable districts to their candidates’ electoral fortunes. The most publicized of the bunch has been the congressional map, where five of six such districts appear suited to elect GOP candidates, as only the remainder is a majority- minority district where black would be expected to support a Democrat even as black comprise nearly a third of the state’s population.

A number of special interests have proposed alternatives that produce two – barely – M/M districts, as well as looking at reapportionment of the Legislature and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Knowing full well their political clout falls far short of provoking legislative enactment of these, in their material disseminated about these they have issued veiled threats about litigation if they didn’t get their way.

On Court map, LA Democrats lose bird in hand

Maybe Louisiana’s legislative Democrats should have taken the deal when they had the chance.

Last regular session, prior to release of any data from the 2020 census, legislative Republicans put forward a constitutional amendment that would have increased the size of the Louisiana Supreme Court from seven to nine members, mandated decennial reapportionment, and done so for this cycle on an equiproportional basis. Almost a quarter century has passed since the last reapportionment, leading to districts of vastly different populations, of which only one has a black majority meaning an almost-certain seat in the hands of Democrats.

In contrast to representative organs, law and judicature doesn’t require one-man-one-vote and reapportionment every decade with elected judges because they serve in an adjudicatory institution. As a result, Louisiana has no requirement to redraw the current boundaries – and the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to do so – even if it means in a state with about a third of its population racially identifying as black the map at present has just the one minority-majority district.

Orleans reaps crime sowed by DA progressivism

The bill has started to come due for New Orleans voters’ dipping their toes in the “progressive prosecutor” waters.

As crime continues to escalate across the city, its elected politicians increasingly if belatedly have called for some kind of action. Some of it is fratricidal, with Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell taking swipes at “other” law enforcement agencies asking for more cooperation her police chief Shaun Ferguson calling for the City Council to make it easier to use real-time crime camera strategies, on the heels of the Council calling on Ferguson to come up with a plan to address the surge.

However, the “other” agency alluded to made its own statement, that being Democrat District Attorney Jason Williams. Like other “progressive” prosecutors around the country who allege actions such as refusing to prosecute minor offenses, selectively choosing which more serious offenses to pursue, parsimoniously charging up but more frequently down, and relaxing if not eliminating bail standards are “smarter” ways to fight crime, his jurisdiction in the past couple of years has seen a large spike in violent crime.

After exposure, expect more pugnacious Edwards

That Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards for more than two years deliberately misled the public and legislators concerning the death of black motorist Ronald Greene, even as early on it might have served his 2019 reelection campaign this also explains his general behavior since and signals what may come on an important issue.

With last week’s revelations that almost immediately after Greene’s death Edwards knew he died not in an accident but while in Louisiana State Police custody, it became clear Edwards had engaged in a pattern of deceit. Despite being inconceivable that Edwards didn’t know inappropriate use of force was the primary cause of Greene’s death as the incident triggered media reports, various investigations, and personnel actions by the LSP of which he would have been aware, he continued asserting the fiction through public fora and to lawmakers even until recently.

Knowing this makes Edwards’ actions since May 10, 2019 much more understandable. Strategic inaction on his part right after the incident when in the midst of a bruising campaign, if not a deliberate effort to keep himself ignorant of developments as the initial LSP story quickly became challenged and began to unravel prevented publicity adding to alleged sporadic LSP misconduct against blacks on his watch that critics could highlight as a failing of his tenure.

Edwards' Greene case comments strain credulity

In his Checkers Speech that doubled as a news conference, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards tap-danced and misdirected, straining credulity to convince the public that he hasn’t done the same regarding his actions associated with a needless death at the hands of the Louisiana State Police.

In the nearly hour-long session comparable to a dentist’s visit for Edwards, he tried to explain away an Associated Press article that showed he knew immediately about the events surrounding the death of black motorist Ronald Greene in LSP custody but whose few statements about it, added to his inaction in addressing clear signs that the LSP wasn’t forthcoming about that death, created and sustained for a lengthy period the impression that there wasn’t LSP misconduct associated with it. His defense rested largely on unprovable assertions and suspension of disbelief.

Not that he spent even a majority of his remarks actually addressing the piece. Much of the time he rhetorically built straw men and traversed blind alleys. He kept insisting there was no evidence that he “obstructed” justice or engaged in a “coverup,” but no politician, news media or widely-read blog site ever accused him of that. What appeared in this space is typical of what was disseminated: by his actions and inactions that allowed a narrative that Greene died in a crash that omitted the savage treatment Greene received in custody, he misled in a way that served to impede oversight and investigation of the incident, at least initially for political purposes.

NW LA epicenter of new mapping controversies

The initial reapportioned maps for Congress and the Louisiana state Senate have been filed for the special session for that purpose, and northwest Louisiana has become ground zero for conflict over potential changes for each.

For Congress, not much would change. Because of population loss, the existing District 4 and 5 will edge a bit more south, and marginal boundary changes accrue to the remainder. These come from a couple of bills, which don’t differ much, filed by the Republican leadership of the Senate and House.

These will prevail over alternatives fronted by Senate Democrats not only because of the large GOP majorities in each chamber, but also because those plans have serious questions concerning their constitutionality since they draw districts with race as the predominant factor, both featuring a meandering majority-minority district that slices off black population from five metropolitan areas, in the process splitting four among two and Baton Rouge among three districts (they also have wider population variances than the courts might accept).

Impeach Edwards for misleading on Greene death

We now know what he knew and when he knew it. And that makes appropriate the impeachment, conviction, and removal from office of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Several times this space (most recently), as well as its author over the airwaves, has asked what did Edwards know about the events leading to the death of black motorist Ronald Greene. Courtesy of an Associated Press investigation, the answer is almost immediately and enough.

Greene died after a high-speed chase by Louisiana State Police ended with a low-impact crash, whereupon troopers apprehended him from the vehicle, constricted him by restraint, and, as an impartial autopsy (in lieu of one influenced by misinformation provided by the LSP) revealed, beat him to death. That was in the early morning hours of May 10, 2019, when Edwards was a half-year out from trying to win reelection.

BC should embrace SporTran Barksdale extension

After a “listening session” earlier this month about extending SporTran service into south Bossier City, recent agendas of the City Council suggest it and Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler will let the matter drop. If so, they should rethink that decision.

Late last year, SporTran announced it would create a new route essentially lengthening bus access from the Barksdale Air Force Base main entrance south along Barksdale Blvd. all the way to a turnaround at Parkway High School. At present, routes that traipse though the city allow riders to stop as far east as Louisiana Downs, just north of Interstate 220 at Airline Dr. and Benton Rd., and westerly to Old Bossier City/East Bank/Louisiana Boardwalk, traversing all the main arteries. The routes also connect through downtown Shreveport, the outskirts of Shreveport’s Stoner Hill and Highland neighborhoods, and along Kings Highway and Shreveport-Barksdale Highway.

Adding the proposed Barksdale Blvd. route would allow southern city residents to access seamlessly all of these endpoints in Bossier City, as well as major employers, government agencies, and health care facilities close to the routes in Shreveport (if in a somewhat time-consuming manner). It also could allow for Shreveporters and Bossier Citians north of Barksdale AFB to come into south Bossier City, mainly for employment purposes, and for southern residents easier access to area amenities such as shopping.