Gridlock produces better LA govt than leftist agenda

As the run-up to the inauguration of Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards proceeds, increasingly the left and its media allies will try to propagate the narrative that the best policy outcomes will come from the Republican-led legislature bending to the will of the new Democrat governor, ignoring the flaw fatal to that argument.

My Advocate colleague Stephanie Grace attempts this in defending the attempt of Edwards to swing the election of House Speaker to a Democrat, despite the fact that Republicans have about 60 percent of the seats in the body. This affront to the notion of majority rule and popular representation she justifies on two bases, that it has happened before and it would provide for more “productive” government.

I addressed that first notion recently, pointing out that when the minority Republicans corralled the job in 2007 they trailed Democrats by just one seat and no party had an absolute majority, the only time this occurred in modern House history. A precedent of a party as small as the House Democrats today nevertheless having one of its own made chamber leader did occur during Republican former Gov. Mike Foster’s second term, but Foster himself did not differ tremendously in ideology with the then-majority Democrats, having been one himself right up to his first election.

Top job to speak volumes about Edwards, Democrats

Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards and the rest of Louisiana’s Democrats face a decision the answer to which can influence whether his shock victory this fall signals any real life in the party as a relevant statewide political agent.

Despite a hard left agenda masked by moderate platitudes here and there, Edwards took advantage of fluky conditions to become the first state statewide-elected official to win as a Democrat since 2007. This glimmer of hope for a battered party will stay a one-off event unless Democrats act to capitalize by forsaking a hyper-liberal agenda in a center-right state and governing, as Edwards alleges he will, in the center.

And thus comes a big test for Edwards to practice what he preached. Recently candidate qualification occurred for each major party’s state central committee (and parish executive committee) seats. For Democrats, registered Democrats during the presidential preference primary election in March may select a male and female candidate in each state House district, although many will not have that chance as the majority of these spots were uncontested.

Decision again looms for Kennedy's political future

At this time last year, Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy contemplated whether he should leverage an assumedly successful reelection into a run for the Senate in 2016 or to take a stab at running for governor this year. Now at this time this year, the Republican contemplates whether he should leverage a successful reelection into a run for the Senate next year or to take a stab at running for governor in 2019.

Facing a crowded field of Republicans, then Kennedy had no guarantee that he could outpace it, especially with Sen. David Vitter leading it. By contrast, no likely Senate competitors had enough positive statewide exposure as did he, or nearly as much money at his disposal. In the end, Kennedy deferred by endorsing Vitter, the favorite who if won then could appoint his own successor to fill out the term. Kennedy very well might have scored that bonus as among major Republicans only he and Vitter had built political careers trying to fuse populism and conservatism.

Then the voters pulled a fast one and sent Vitter down to defeat at the hands of Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards, which caused Vitter to keep his office in play by announcing he would not run for reelection. As Kennedy stood a decent chance of becoming the Senate placeholder, a new job that would have brought electoral benefits, this actually slightly degraded his chances for next fall. But as a survey showed, commissioned by the political action committee formed to support him, he still retains the advantage over names anticipated to run that could win.

Moving N.O. monuments lacks foresight, tolerance

At a public meeting to gather input on whether New Orleans should tear down four historic monuments, the intemperance and intolerance most often exhibited by supporters of that notion illustrates exactly the imperative of, for the most part, their preservation as is.

An idea harbored by Democrat New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu that he made public almost six months ago advocates removal of statues of three historical figures – Robert E. Lee at the top of a column within Lee Circle, P.G.T. Beauregard at the main entrance to City Park, Jefferson Davis at the intersection of Canal Street and the eponymous Parkway – and the Battle of Liberty Place monument, which doesn’t actually reside at the location where the Reconstruction-era fracas occurred, from city grounds, with installation of them perhaps in museums. All of these fixtures having existed a minimum of a century, many don’t want them removed (including a healthy minority of blacks) even as some special interests have argued that somehow these offend because they appear to valorize figures and events that promote racism.

The meeting turned raucous with bombastic displays from representatives of both sides of the argument, but with the excitability heavily weighed towards the monument opponents, demonstrating again that in robust democracies that the right to take offense at some assumed slight exists only because full political rights and protection against discrimination already have been achieved by the group claiming aggrieved status. No one has the right not to feel offended in our system of government, but as the objects in question reside on public property, informed democratic vetting by policy-makers as to whether the city should allow these to stand their grounds should prevail.

The Advocate column, Dec. 13, 2015

Religious liberty executive order would do more harm than good
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14240154-123/jeff-sadow-religious-liberty-executive-order-would-do-more-harm-than-good

Incident exposes hypocrisy of Edwards, Democrats

While Democrat state Sen. Troy Brown faces no ethical responsibility to resign his position, his self-inflicted problems expose the hypocrites comprising his political party.

Recently, authorities arrested Brown on a complaint of striking a woman, apparently after a sustained period of partying. Turns out he has carried on an affair with the alleged victim for a decade, according to her. Meanwhile, he appears to spend more of his time at an address outside of the district at the residence where his wife registered to vote, and gave that address to arresting authorities. He also gets his mail there and more often than not in filling out disclosure forms uses that address.

None of this automatically should compel his resignation. A court has yet to find him guilty of any charge, much less a felony that would force him out of the Legislature as dictated by the Constitution. And while someone has filed suit trying to remove him from office for failure to reside in the district he represents, the procedure by law to do this remains not yet invoked.

Caddo must rectify unconstitutional scheme now

The Caddo Parish Commission would end its term on a high note by dismantling what has become increasingly obviously an unconstitutional scheme that enriches its members at the expense of the public and making taxpayers whole.

Last week, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor issued a blistering report castigating the parish for violating the state Constitution with its inclusion of its elected legislators in the Caddo Parish Employees Retirement System. The parish established CPERS in the wake of federal law mandating that local government employees must join Social Security unless they had a specific retirement system run by local or state governments in which to participate.

While Louisiana has the Parochial Employees’ Retirement System that permits unclassified parish employees, a designation that includes elected officials, to join in lieu of Social Security, in 1997 Art. X Sec. 29.1 of the Constitution went into effect that barred part-time public servant membership in any pension plan, which includes Caddo Parish commissioners (even if, because of subsequent legislation, they now pay themselves at a rate as if they had a legally-defined full-time job). Caddo had participated in PERS, forcibly because of a court decision since 1993, until a 1999 change to state law. Yet when in 2000 Caddo set up its own pension system, it included commissioners in that despite the Constitution’s unambiguous language.

Dardenne appointment designed to provide fig leaf

Confirming the worst-kept secret of the past month or so, yesterday state Rep. John Bel Edwards, the incoming governor, named Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne his commissioner of administration starting early next year. While perhaps intended to connote “bipartisanship” from the incoming Democrat in selecting a lifelong Republican for the most important appointive job in an administration, it merely provides a fig leaf for his true agenda.

Both men denied the appointment as the culmination of a deal allegedly struck after the general election, or that they even spoke of it specifically, when Dardenne, having finished fourth, without much delay endorsed Edwards against his fellow Republican Sen. David Vitter. This smacked of 1979 when an endorsement by vanquished gubernatorial candidate Democrat House Speaker Bubba Henry of Republican Rep. Dave Treen in the runoff against Democrat Public Service Commissioner Louis Lambert preceded Treen naming Henry to the same job after his narrow defeat of Lambert. However, the governors do not hand out this highly-sought position trivially or by extra-sensory perception; let’s just say a fact checker would give them both zero stars for veracity on that assertion.

Departures from the truth, judging by Gov.-elect Honor Code’s campaigning, don’t represent anything different from him, but a lack of forthrightness marks unusual behavior from Dardenne. As a state senator, Dardenne often backed measures for greater accountability and transparency in a state government then in the thrall of populism. As Edwards and others try to resurrect this fully back into policy, with its emphasis on privileging others at the expense of the people as a whole, Dardenne will find himself asked to facilitate this.

SAVE credit demise may imperil higher education

So Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards, when he assumes Louisiana’s governorship in about a month, wants to have the Legislature repeal the Student Assessment for a Valuable Education tax credit later next year. This should make Louisiana’s higher education interests nervous.

The Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration formulated the SAVE credit as a method to hide large-scale tax increases in the main approved by Edwards and majorities in the legislature last year, making these dollars appear offset by the credit one gets by instituting a new fee for college that students must pay but then allowing its write-off in entirety, conveniently without the enrollee having to do any paperwork.

However, to make it work in that fashion, this produced a practical effect of dedicating $350 million to higher education, or roughly a quarter of all state money budgeted for higher education in fiscal year 2016. Doing this fulfilled the desires expressed by a number of higher education officials, who for years, even decades, found their funding buffeted by the vagaries of a budget that dedicated a large portion of revenues to specific purposes – but except for the Taylor Opportunity Programs for Scholars awards and some grant monies, none dedicated to higher education. This meant that in times of shortfall this area disproportionately took reductions, so dependent upon the general fund and funds sweeps it has become.

The Advocate column: Dec. 6, 2015

John Bel Edwards changes tune on legislative independence
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14178566-123/jeff-sadow-john-bel-edwards