Again, Caddo GOP district has Democrat imposed

If once isn’t enough to residents of District 8 of the Caddo Parish Commission, apparently a thousand times won’t be too many.

Last week, responding to the resignation of Republican Jim Taliaferro to take a Shreveport City Council seat, the Commission by a vote of 8-3 appointed Democrat Ronald Cothran to the district’s spot through October. Because legally inauguration of the next 2024-28 term happens a little too late to overlap the interim appointment according to the parish charter, simultaneously the fall ballot will have an election to cover the seat until the end of the year and then for the next term.

Controversially, the district is one of the most Republican-oriented in the state, with 48 percent of registrants with that party and just 30 percent Democrats. Prior to that, the Commission had six Democrats, four Republicans, and no party Mario Chavez, who had been elected twice as a Republican but changed his registration earlier this year when running unsuccessfully for Shreveport mayor.

Use speed cameras for safety only, not money

You could cite any number of instrumental reasons why placing red light cameras around Bossier City is a bad idea – traffic enforcement performed by an outside party, questionable validity, administrative problems, constitutional issues – but the philosophical one provides the strongest argument against their installation around school zones: where is the need?

If the stalking horse no doubt to be trotted out by proponents – principally Blue Line Solutions, the proposed vendor who stands to get half of the revenues from any such operation, during the special workshop next work held for the purpose by the Bossier City Council – is safety, then they need to prove its necessity. Prove that there is a problem in school zones with speeding cars mowing down vulnerable children before taking such a drastic step.

(Actually, should this be a problem? After all, the city will pay nearly $20,000 this year to the Bossier Parish School District so that the BPSD can hire Bossier Parish Sheriff Office deputies to direct traffic during the designated hours around the two schools supposedly most in need of traffic control at these times.)

Schroder in, might fit anybody-but-Landry bill

Enter, as an imperfect fit for the anybody-but-Landry set of Republicans ensconced in Louisiana, GOP state Treasurer John Schroder for governor.

Within a day of each other, GOP Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser backed away from but Schroder made formal his entrance into the contest against Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry. It was perhaps the only combination of circumstances that gives him any chance to win.

Nungesser, a self-described “moderate” Republican, had hoped to thread a needle between Landry, with staunch conservative credentials, and any state-party-backed Democrat who entered the contest. A Democrat with party mandarins’ blessing must contest the office, and almost certainly a non-white, because Democrats can’t win if they don’t play and desperately need to retain the office to have any governing influence over the next four years, they must have a topline candidate to help carry down ballot candidates, and they best run an establishment racial minority ally to prevent another of the outsider woke kind from capturing the party’s base from them. Given the electorate’s climate of increasingly searching for a candidate to challenge oversized state government too inclined to redistribute to favored clientele and declining citizen fortunes, he didn’t fit the bill.

Nungesser couldn't beat something with nothing

Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser’s best shot in his expected plea for people to elect him governor was frontrunner GOP Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry has a nasty political style and is “not a nice” person. And explains why he passed on exiting his current post.

With Republican Sen. John Kennedy expectedly opting out of running, Nungesser seemed poised this week formally to announce he will take the plunge. There was little time to wait as Landry stole a march on all opponents months ago with his formal announcement, since then piling up campaign dollars and racking up endorsements, including the state party’s, to Nungesser’s chagrin.

Nungesser has a poll, commissioned by him and not released publicly, showing him neck and neck with Landry, which is the first such that hasn’t put him considerably behind Landry. That may be as others have included Kennedy’s name, yet that omission questionably explains the difference. The fact is, Kennedy is significantly closer to Landry on the issues than to Nungesser, so without Kennedy in the contest the bulk of his intended voters should switch allegiance to Landry.

Report falls short defending justice changes

Sometimes you should cut your losses and make the best of it, as Louisiana’s Pelican Institute is discovering on its backing of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ criminal justice changes.

After a period of some stagnation, in the past few years Pelican has proven itself valuable in articulating a conservative agenda tailored to the state. But it went out on a limb when it threw its support behind Edwards’ alterations that shortened sentences for some convicts and reduced punishments for some nonviolent crimes. This followed the lead of some conservatives who based their support on allegedly “smart” ways of tackling crime that would save money.

The problem was the Edwards’ modifications lent themselves more to saving money and following political fashion than creating a well-designed attempt to ensure such adjustments didn’t present opportunities for reduced criminal deterrence. The Edwards Administration knows this and, among other reactions, spent much of the latest annual report on the changes trying to convince readers of cost savings supposedly caused by these.

Dardenne forces questionable drug deal onto LA

When Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne gave Louisiana's Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget a Boy Scout salute, but with his index and ring fingers curled down, it launched a series of events still unresolved that has thrown health care of many state employees and retirees into turmoil starting earlier this week, as well as potentially wasting state tax dollars.

Last fall, the JLCB considered awarding a pharmacy benefits manager contract to Caremark PCSHealth, continuing a tortuous journey now extending almost three years. In spring, 2020 the state solicited bids for this service provision, the largest by dollars in the state, for its Office of Group Benefits that oversees employment benefits for most state employees and retirees and their families, as well as many public school teachers and retirees and families or nearly 200,000 affected plan members. Five PBMs contested it, with Caremark, whose parent also owns the CVS Pharmacy chain and mail order businesses, winning out.

Legal challenges ensued, and the matter was put on hold. In the meantime, the state issued some short-term contracts that spent just under $500 million a shot although the maximum allowed was just over $600 million. Litigation wasn’t initially resolved until last summer, two years after, that confirmed Caremark had won the contract within the confines of the law.

Some issues will make or break Arceneaux

Only a few days into his administration, Republican Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux faces four paramount issues that if he can resolve satisfactorily even just a couple will give him a tremendous leg up in an uphill battle for reelection.

As a white Republican helming a city with a plurality of black Democrats in the electorate, Arceneaux won in part because of frustration that several looming problems seemed unaddressed. They’re substantial, yet because of that success in dealing with them could win him great credit among an electorate inclined to give the greatest support to candidates of a different skin color and party and allow him to double his time in office.

From least to most problematic:

Data show how bad policy makes people flee LA

Another year, another indicator of how Louisiana keeps bad company among flailing states – but also coming with clues on how to reverse that.

The Census Bureau released its annual end-of-year report on population changes in the states. In percentage terms, Louisiana fared third worst at barely under 0.8 percent population loss, continuing a trend throughout the governorship of Democrat John Bel Edwards as being one of the highest ranked losers annually in out-migration to other states.

Joining the state in the top ten losers were New York and Illinois ahead, with West Virginia, Hawai’i, Oregon, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Oregon behind. By contrast, in order the top ten gaining states were Florida, Idaho, South Carolina, Texas, South Dakota, Montana, Delaware, Arizona, North Carolina, and Utah.

GOP incumbent, newcomer to battle for HD 9

In this fall’s elections a reconstituted state House District 9 looks to draw a challenger in a decidedly uphill intraparty battle.

At the end of the year, businessman Chris Turner sent Christmas greetings to households with zip codes in the district, with part of that indicating his candidacy. That distribution would seem guaranteed to require campaign finance disclosure due to the assumed expense, which would have to occur before the middle of February and give more details about his campaign.

Turner currently is registered as a Republican. He spent decades in the military and law enforcement, mostly and most recently working for the U.S. Marshals service before retiring last year to open a combination liquor store and specialty meat market.

Perkins, Tarver deliver opposite legacies

They entered Shreveport politics connected, and basically they’ll leave that way — one among the most influential ever, the other a blip on the radar who made next to no impact and seems unlikely to do much in politics again.

The Shreveport mayor’s race knocked out the careers both of Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins — who’ll surrender his post this weekend — and Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver. The latter does have a year to go in his term-limited Senate office, but for all intents and purposes a nearly half-century run (interrupted for eight years) ended with his defeat earlier this month to Republican Tom Arceneaux — his first election loss ever.

City politics were indelibly defined by Tarver’s service at the parish, city, and legislative levels. He was in the phalanx of the first black politicians elected to local office, at a time where blacks didn’t have much economic power yet even less political power.