It’s one thumb up so far for Louisiana House Republican
Speaker Clay Schexnayder,
with the possibility of more to come.
Schexnayder
courted controversy by nabbing the speakership by picking up every
non-Republican vote in the chamber but a minority of his own party. Also, his
GOP supporters, while conservative on fiscal issues, tended
to be less so than those who voted against him. This led to questioning just
how much support he would give to conservative issue preferences in cobbling together
committees.
He began answering that question earlier today by
releasing the compositions of the two most important committees in the chamber: Appropriations,
which makes budgetary decisions; and Ways and Means,
which deals with tax matters. He installed on them as chairmen two strong
fiscal conservatives, Republican state Reps. Stuart Bishop
and Zee Zeringue,
respectively. Moreover, he placed Republican majorities on each about
reflecting the nearly two-to-one advantage the GOP has in the chamber.
Want another cautionary tale about how state and
local government regulation kills quality of life and economic development that
Louisiana needs to avoid? We were warned.
Last week, official professional road cycling at
its highest level commenced for 2020 with the Santos Tour Down Under. Traipsing
around South Australia’s wine country and breathtaking coastline, the American
team Trek-Segafredo won
the six-day race with Australian Richie Porte. Not only did the event provide entertainment
to locals and tourists, but also through television broadcasting to nearly 200
countries it showed off the area as a tourist destination.
The stage race closest to the TDU in the world in
many was the Amgen Tour of California. The vineyards and coastal views match, although
the TOC also featured much higher mountain crossings as opposed to the short but
sharp and few climbs available in South Australia. The TDU and TOC were the
only stage races at the highest level that took place outside of Europe and
Asia.
Part of the reason why Louisiana politics have
struggled to evolve from a government-centric focus to a people-centric focus
is an old-school mentality. One
such example from the media came into view recently.
For a couple of decades the late John Maginnis
purveyed a column on state politics to several print media outlets. Eventually,
he brought in Jeremy Alford to assist, and Alford took over the effort upon the
unfortunate demise of Maginnis.
Maginnis wrote and Alford writes from the left
side of the political spectrum, although typically in watered-down, even
obscurant fashion in order to make the column more sellable to a wider
audience. Still, sometimes that bias comes out, as it did in Alford’s piece
that went out last week.
And this
is why term limits are a good idea. And why the
time had come for two longtime Louisiana legislative employees to go out the
door.
In 2000, my wife took a position at the University
of Illinois Springfield and I took leave at Louisiana State University Shreveport
to go with her. The UIS folks cobbled something together for me for what would
be a trial period of a year: to see if I would leave my LSUS tenured position while
she embarked on a potential tenure-track career with them.
Part of my duties included serving as faculty
adviser to Model
Illinois Government. This program allows students from across the state to
participate in a mock legislative session of the Illinois Legislature, right at
the Capitol not long after the real thing’s regular session ended. As the representative
of the host institution, the advisor had to delve into not only a lot of
logistical matters but also have a good working knowledge of the legislative process.
I’m not going to say that the time has flown by, but
something should be said now that this blog has surpassed its 15th
birthday.
That makes it the oldest blog on Louisiana politics
out there, or at the very least the oldest that has published continuously and
regularly (if anybody thinks I missed something here, let me know). Not that there
were many out there 15 years ago; the only two that were with any frequency of
publishing were John Copes’ Deduct Box and C.B. Forgotston’s Forgotston.com (both
of whose authors sadly have gone onto their rewards).
Circumstance more than anything else led to establishing
Between the Lines, which is the moniker I long have used for my columns. In
2002 I published under that every other week for FaxNet Update, which didn’t
have a real Internet presence but largely circulated by e-mail. This roundup of
political news and commentary lasted until the beginning of 2018, when its
proprietor Lou
Gehrig Burnett unfortunately cashed in.
The crew knows the ship is sinking, so they’re jumping
overboard while Louisiana Medicaid’s clients and taxpayers will find themselves
taken in the undertow unless the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
Administration makes a change from politicized ideology to practicality.
At the end of the month, Department of Health
Secretary Rebekah Gee will leave her job, undoubtedly for one where the
consequences of her preference for statist solutions won’t redound as they have
in Louisiana (as well as give her greater license to support
propagation of abortion as she did prior to her stint at LDH). Long-time
director of Medicaid for the state Jen Steele already has decamped.
Edwards’ decision to expand Medicaid turned out as
the most consequential policy enacted in his first term. It committed the state
eventually
to spend an extra $3 billion annually –in one fell swoop adding 10 percent
to the operating budget – of which Louisiana taxpayers now directly contribute an
extra over $300 million a year they didn’t pay before, essentially raised by
increased taxes on insurance policies.
