Reports suggest Arceneaux-Tarver runoff on tap

If campaign finance reports reflect at least somewhat strength in the electorate, Shreveport’s mayoral race looks to be coalescing around a runoff between Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver and former city councilor Republican Tom Arceneaux.

Reports with activity through the end of September showed these two candidates plus no party Caddo Parish Commissioner Mario Chavez had raised and spent the most money throughout the campaign and had the most on hand entering the home stretch, with Tarver leading in all. Notably, Tarver began campaigning long after the other two, although he could draw upon his Senate campaign resources.

However, a noticeable gap exists in money on hand, crucial to making across the finish line in the top two places as inevitably no candidate will receive an absolute majority. While both Arceneaux and Tarver had over $200,000 left – and Tarver nearly double that – Chavez had fewer than $45,000. More disturbingly for his campaign, since Tarver announced his candidacy in late July Chavez attracted only about 20 donations comprising not even five percent of his total raised.

Landry group fighting unrealistic energy policy

While climate alarmists seek to hurtle into renewable energy use by advancing their agenda through unwise regulatory reform – fought by Louisiana Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry – even if the federal government gained power over siting power transmission lines the expansion turns out to be an exercise in impracticality, keenly felt by Louisiana-based power providers if not an object of fakery by them.

As the Democrat Congress raced towards producing even a stopgap budget for next year due at the end of last month, the party’s least-liberal member, West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, tried to attach an energy-related bill to the effort. Its most controversial part would have given the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to force states to accept transmission lines.

At present, states, who can delegate this authority to their local governments, have sole authority to permit such lines. Advocates of solar and wind energy consider this an impediment to expanding these sources’ footprint, as lower-cost generation of this kind of power tends to concentrate regionally, and in recent years hundreds of state and local actions have denied this access.

Audit on Perkins shows him stupid or plays dumb

The timing could not have been worse for Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins, fighting a tough reelection battle, to have voters hear from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor a review of his shady practices from the moment he entered office.

This week, the LLA released an audit covering two questions about Perkins’ behavior in office as it related to fiscal regulations. It mentioned the one-off effort came from numerous complaints apparently from inside and outside of city government about the switch in insurance carriers for excess workers’ compensation and property and also about payments for Perkins’ travel expenses.

Public knowledge abounded about the property insurer claim – a Perkins ally ended up brokering a change that eventually cost the city much more than by sticking with the previous agent, although the City Council belatedly approved it despite selection not following city policy – but few at the time knew Perkins in late 2018 also on his own authority (and apparently before his inauguration) dumped the workers’ compensation insurer, also in place since 2006, and, again abjuring city policy, didn’t follow purchasing regulations nor received Council approval. Perkins claims he asked the city to use a local vendor and have a competitive selection process, but interviewees said he ordered them to use a specific agent.

Statewide contests look to produce GOP schism

The entry of Republican state Rep. John Stefanski into the Louisiana attorney general’s race next year may reflect a battle for control over power in the state’s Republican Party between prominent politicians aligned with its conservative and moderate wings.

Stefanski becomes the third candidate to announce having a go at the post current GOP Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry shortly thereafter confirmed he was vacating after his term is up when he declared formally his intention to run for governor. One of Landry’s top deputies, Solicitor General Liz Murrill, a Republican, long ago declared as did no party Third District Attorney John Belton.

Murrill is a close political ally of Landry’s with each considered staunch conservatives, and as such Stefanski’s move puts him at loggerheads with Landry. Yet less well publicized are professional and policy ties that Stefanski has with Landry opponent GOP Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser.

Bureaucrats subverting BC citizens park access

We have learned over the past month that “quality of life” provided by the spendthrifts in Bossier City government means not just paying for operating and maintaining a tennis facility almost none of its citizens utilize, for parking at its money-losing arena, but also for diamond sports facilities that the city won’t let them use in favor of outsiders and special interests.

Last week, the City Council initially considered apportioning $3 million in debt to build additional parking at its Tinsley Athletic Complex, which has an extensive collection of fields for several sports, most prominently football/soccer fields and baseball/softball diamonds. The head of the Bossier City Department of Parks and Recreation Clay Bohanan and Louis Cook, its head of maintenance, told the Council that on weekends and nights, especially Saturdays and Mondays, the place was jam-packed. This is part came in response to around $14 million of taxpayer dollars spent on adding several fields at the end of last year.

This led to a series of questions by Republican Councilors Brian Hammons and Chris Smith as to why, with all the land office business racked up during weekends and nights, the department disallowed field rentals during weekend days, a common complaint they received from citizens. In it, the councilors kept offering suggestions while the bureaucrats did their level best, often in arrogant and condescending tones, to shoot these down and insist what they did now was the only reasonable course of action.

Gubernatorial campaign moves already on display

The game is afoot for governor, Republican Treas. John Schroder let the attentive public know after GOP Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry formally entered the race.

Schroder, who at the beginning of the year said he would be in with a formal announcement some time in the future, yesterday proclaimed that in the more than 30 state trust funds over which he has control he would drop investment firm BlackRock products over the next three months. He said he would divest around $800 million worth because of the company’s outspoken support of investment goals that include discriminating against corporations in the fossil fuel sector, noting that introducing politicized investment objectives interferes with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the value of state deposits on behalf of its citizens.

The announcement was very welcome, if not long overdue. Almost a year ago West Virginia made the same move, adding that BlackRock’s problematic Chinese holdings contributed to the decision, and like Louisiana is a part of a coalition of states that pledged to investigate investment firms that practiced viewpoint discrimination. That move came about a month after the pledge, with its subject matter Schroder saying back then he would review and take action.

Favorite Landry's entry puts race into full swing

He fell a few months short of the coyness record, but the favorite for assuming Louisiana’s governorship in 2024 finally made it official, refreshing the contest’s dynamics.

Republican Atty. Gen Jeff Landry today joined fellow GOP members Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Treas. John Schroder in the field in what already has turned as the highest-profile clash of statewide elected officials in the state’s history: never have three of the five currently elected top officers of the state contested for the state’s top job. Ever since winning reelection in 2019, widespread speculation had Landry running, who did nothing to discourage that, and with one of his chief deputies declaring months ago for his job, his entrance was inevitable. However, he didn’t come close to Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s marathon of waiting until a mere three months prior to the election, months after Democrat former Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced she wouldn’t run for reelection, to make it official.

No matter, as in the case of Jindal grass hasn’t grown under Landry’s feet either in the interim. As of year’s beginning, he had raised more money than either of the other two, both directly and indirectly and likely has distanced himself further since. Moreover, compared to the other two Landry has had much greater opportunity to place himself in the public consciousness by virtue of his position. Here and there an issue has come up for Nungesser and Schroder that they could leverage to publicize their credentials for higher office, but Landry has capitalized on an avalanche of these, chiefly because he had the bad political fortune but good electoral fortune of having Democrat John Bel Edwards in office during his entire tenure, piled on by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden assuming office in 2021. Both have engaged in policy-making, often overstepping their bounds, inimical to Landry’s solid conservatism that has given him plenty of opportunities as the state’s chief legal officer to dispute judicially, and that often has led to victory.

We don't need to care about no LA Senate debate

The Council for a Better Louisiana’s head hit the nail on the head about why it’s unlikely there will be any televised candidate forum — often imprecisely called a “debate” — for this fall’s Louisiana Senate race. And it doesn’t matter.

CABL has tried to sponsor one — the way it works legally is some organization puts one together and then news outlets can “cover” it as a news event — with the three candidates likely to receive more than a couple percentage points of the vote: incumbent Republican Sen. John Kennedy, Democrat community organizer and past congressional candidate Gary Chambers, and Democrat pilot Luke Mixon. It even had a date set, Oct. 20.

However, it won’t happen because Kennedy’s campaign won’t commit exactly then. That’s completely understandable from a strategic standpoint. A heavy favorite in part because of high popular approval, someone in Kennedy’s position has everything to lose and nothing to gain by participation, while his opponents operate under the reverse dynamic. Even allowing them to appear on the same stage elevates their status comparatively, which an overwhelming favorite wouldn’t want to encourage.

Reject most LA Nov. 8 constitutional amendments

Louisianans face a mixed bag of constitutional amendments coming up on Nov. 8 that mostly deserve rejection.

Amendment #1 – would allow an increase to 65 percent from 35 percent in most cases the proportion of money in equities that seven trust funds worth $3.4 billion at present may invest. The state historically has engaged sober-minded firms to advise here, so this change should increase the overall levels of these over time without undue risk. YES.

Amendment #2 – would expand the property tax exemption for totally disabled veterans and to those partially disabled and surviving spouses. Disabled veterans already enjoy the most generous exemption in a system riddled with all kinds whose exceptions erode more and more local government tax bases. This is an issue that local voters should decide and not have imposed on a statewide basis. NO.

BC quality-of-life: pay for parking at your arena

Of the many questions Bossier City councilors have failed to ask during its budgeting process, certainly now the most public has become the decision to charge $12 event parking at the money-losing Brookshire Grocery Arena and the disposition of those dollars.

This week, the Council will have introduced its 2023 budget ordinances, due for final passage two weeks after that. The salient theme has been a significant increase in group insurance costs without, excepting the Department of Parks and Recreation and legally-mandated increases for public safety personnel with at least three years on the job, allowing for a salary increase for city employees it might afford otherwise if not so indebted.

From the city’s end, the introduced ordinances offered, in all but a few instances, two to three percent reductions in group insurance from numbers floated at the budget workshop in early September. However, these savings didn’t translate into salary boosts with that instead spread to other kinds of spending.