Fiscally responsible legislators punished

Adopting the rhetoric of spousal abusers, Republican state Senate Pres. Page Cortez blamed Bossier Parish victims because they dared stand up for taxpayers when he collaborated with GOP state House Speaker Clay Schexnayder in stripping a net nearly $140 million from parish projects.

Republican state Reps. Raymond Crews, Dodie Horton, and Danny McCormick a day before the massacre had voted against busting the state’s spending cap to the tune of $250 million over the next two weeks and $1.4 billion over the succeeding year. While much of it ended up going to one-time items, a shell game maneuvered nearly $200 million towards education pay raises.

Crews, Horton, and McCormick along with local GOP state Rep. Alan Seabaugh and some other representatives across the state who voted against busting the cap but who couldn’t stop it, had a better way to secure those hikes. By paying down state pension unfunded accrued liabilities, they planned on facilitating local education agencies to dole out raises from money saved as a result of the paying down. That could be accomplished without breaching the cap.

Session did little good, but avoided disaster

It wasn’t a very helpful regular session of the Louisiana Legislature, but it could have been worse.

Reformers had high hopes that the one-time state revenue bonus courtesy of Washington Democrats’ debt binge – even as it brought the highest price inflation in four decades that drives up the cost of government – could be managed in a way that curbed the state’s addiction to spending that has increased two-thirds faster inflation adjusted that state-generated revenue intake during the terms of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards. They hoped to bank hundreds of millions of dollars and pay down the same in liabilities before a forecast $1.5 billion in state revenue declination over the next three years came to pass.

Unfortunately, they only succeeded partially. While some of the surplus did go to reduce unfunded accrued liabilities, freeing up funds for state and local agencies, more was spent on recurring and nonrecurring commitments. This was made possible by raising the state’s spending cap by $250 million this current year, with another $1.4 billion rise on the books for the impending one, not leaving much for when the well starts running dry over the next year.

Bad ruling may upend LA Congressional districts

A surprising and faulty U.S. Supreme Court decision may force Louisiana to redraw its congressional map for 2024 – or might put the state in a position to act as a springboard for an entirely new challenge to making race the predominant factor in drawing electoral boundaries.

That predominance was strengthened by today’s decision in Allen v. Milligan, which concerned Alabama’s districts. Although six justices – those nominated by a Republican president – agreed that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act did not compel states to give race a privileged place in drawing lines, which Alabama argued in that the only real difference between its adopted plan that created only one majority-minority district out of seven whereas the population proportion would suggest two, Chief Justice John Roberts and Assoc. Justice Brett Kavanaugh essentially said because enough states had treated it as such over the years that it had earned that privilege.

In other words, apply a bad interpretation of the law long enough and it becomes sanitized. Specifically in this case, as long as district drawing doesn’t devolve into ridiculous shapes and running riot over other generally-accepted principles of reapportionment, race can have a privileged status over all others. Dissenting justices noted the perversity of an interpretation that grants precedent such power over intent and logic.

GOP leaders confirm Greene probe dog and pony show

At best, it was a joke; at worst, a tool designed to boost the fortunes of the legislators involved. Meanwhile, Louisianans remain in the dark about whether Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and top officials in the Louisiana State Police hindered justice regarding the death of black motorist Ronald Greene.

This week, it was announced that the Special Committee to Inquire into the Circumstances and Investigation of the Death of Ronald Greene, a House of Representatives select committee convened two or so years ago by Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, had died from neglect, confirmed by GOP Speaker Pro Tem Tanner Magee with disparagement of the creation he served as chairman. Greene died in LSP custody after a car chase, low-speed crash, and his manhandling from his vehicle and on the ground for nearly ten minutes.

At first, the LSP implied Greene died in the crash, despite an initial media statement to the contrary and conveying information to Edwards that, with the media reports, made clear the actual circumstances. Despite that, for well over a year the LSP slow-walked internal and external investigations into the matter and Edwards and his office did not reveal key information to federal investigators. Indeed, he continued to propagate in public the discredited death-by-crash explanation and, according to Schexnayder, continued to insist privately on the same.

Any but small spending limit hike reckless

It’s not preferable, but the proposal to bust Louisiana’s spending cap is salvageable from its present imprudent state.

This week, the House Appropriations Committee went along partially with the gargantuan amounts contained in SCR 3 by Republican Pres. Page Cortez. As introduced, it would have raised the cap for this concluding fiscal year by $500 million and for the upcoming year by $1.8 million.

Supporters of the idea – which apparently includes the entire Senate and its Republican supermajority – pledge it all would go to one-time expenses such as transportation infrastructure. That would involve some three-card monte where infrastructure money in a budget not breaching the cap then becomes used for new ongoing commitments of questionable long-term sustainability given the looming disappearance of a sales tax hike in 2016, renewed in 2018, in fiscal year 2025 and an expected slowdown in revenue collection that together will drop incoming monies about $1.5 billion by then.

Triggered educrats act like hiding something

When educrats seem so triggered by a simple request, you have to suspect there’s something more to it than meets the eye.

HR 13 by Republican state Rep. Valarie Hodges would have required public schools and colleges to submit a written report of all campus programs and activities related to critical race theory; diversity, equity, and inclusion; or transformative social emotional learning. Documentation minimally would have included the purpose and expected outcome of each program or activity, a brief description of each program or activity, the number of personnel dedicated to the program or activity and the position and title of each, the total amount of funding expended to support the program or activity, and the total amount spent to support the program or activity with the amount that is state-funded.

That’s all. And it’s not difficult to do. For an example at the university level, a quick perusal of the University of Louisiana Monroe’s website reveals it has an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with paid staff. It doles out fellowships to ULM staff. It sponsors events and forums. Along with other University of Louisiana System universities it awards a scholarship to black males – a gift likely to be under constitutional scrutiny before the month is out. Its Honors Program promotes the notion. Its English major with a concentration in music requires a “Diversity Equity Inclusion Elective.” And so on.

Bossier courthouse gang has rough political week

This week, Bossier Parish Republican Sheriff Julian Whittington went off the reservation that surely chagrins the rest of the parish’s courthouse gang – who then suffered another setback.

Normally, all of the parish’s elected officials plus GOP Bossier-Webster District Attorney Schuyler Marvin and the other offices and power-wielding entities to which they make appointments act like one big happy family, chock full of familial and legacy relations and cross-appointments. And, up until now, tacit agreement reigned among the bunch that, despite his observed popularity among the parish’s public, Republican candidate for governor Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry would receive the silent treatment.

Landry got on the bad side particularly of the Police Jury when his office persisted in ensuring enforcement of statute against dual officeholding pertaining to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District’s Executive Director Robert Berry. In 2013, the Police Jury appointed him as their representative to its governing board, yet months later he became its executive director simultaneously. Despite this, jurors reappointed him in 2018.

Senate obstinacy on gun bill typifies LA failure

In an all-too-familiar story, once again Louisiana looks to let itself get left behind as large swaths of the country move forward.

This time, it’s on the issue of concealed carry of handguns without a permit for most individuals. Buoyed by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared firearm ownership a constitutional right that allowed citizens to carry concealed firearms for self-defense, allowing only reasonable state regulation to prevent their use otherwise, now more than half the states have instituted what has become termed “constitutional carry” laws of this nature, with almost all adopting these in the past dozen years.

But not Louisiana, even though Republican state Rep. Danny McCormick ever since his election annually has introduced a steady stream of legislation to bring this into being. And the Louisiana Senate has become the biggest obstacle even as it has progressed through the House over time. His first two attempts never got out of House committee but the next exited the House teetering on a two-thirds majority (realistically, pro-Second Amendment-in-words-only con man Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards would veto his if given a chance) only never to come to a Senate floor vote.

Do LA teacher pay raises right or not at all

If fiscal conservatives in the Louisiana Legislature bind themselves to using state dollars to boost educator salaries, they need to do it the right way.

As the 2023 Regular Session hurtles to a close next week, finally a majority consensus has appeared around this pay hike of $2,000 per teacher and $1,000 per staff included in the Minimum Foundation Program formula. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education must initiate the formula that goes into effect only if the Legislature ratifies it; if not ratified unchanged, the current formula is used.

BESE sent such a formula that has started its journey with Senate Education Committee approval. At present, the general appropriations bill HB 1 doesn’t contain a line item for this, but instead allocates the $197.7 million total to paying down unfunded accrued liabilities which would free up money for local districts that could be used for raises. The increased flexibility is desirable not only because it allows districts to set their own levels of raises but also relieves state taxpayers of a one-size-fits-all obligation that may not be sustainable with a deteriorating revenue picture forecast for at least the next three fiscal years.

Memorial Day, 2023

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Easter Sunday, Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Monday, May 29 being Memorial Day, I invite you to explore this link.