Landry cannot avoid choice on tort reform

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry faces the biggest political test of his career, one that if he fails largely cancels his ambitions of becoming a transformative Louisiana chief executive, if not risks his reelection.

That is, how can he balance the interests of trial lawyers who contributed to his election against the greater part of those mainly responsible for that very election? It is a political problem that will require a political solution where one side has to win.

Landry tried to halve the baby at a recent news conference where he declared he had a “balanced” approach to tort reform. The issue increasingly has become supercharged in the state as it continues to have among the highest vehicle insurance rates among the states, with much higher rates compared to other states of similar size, urbanization, and with populations of equivalent socioeconomic status.

BC rottenness becoming harder to hide

As the Bossier City political insider world continues to crumble, what once could be sidestepped in darkness and silence increasing becomes blatant revealing the rottenness of the entire structure.

The legal ramifications of this worldview and attitude were on full display at the City Council meeting this week. The first hint came with an agenda item telling the world the Council would head into executive session to discuss what was called potential litigation. This is permissible under state public meetings law that shields content about a limited range of topics including legal and personnel actions.

The matters included city money spent on rehabilitation of parking lots supposedly damaged by construction on the nearby Walter O. Bigby Carriageway, but under questionable circumstances that reek of favoritism and cutting corners. More specifically, Republican Councilor David Montgomery had advocated publicly and vociferously for expensive roads work that could increase access to a single business – one owned by a longstanding friend of his who also has a close friendship with an employee in the city’s Public Works Department. Refurbishing and connecting the parking lot of that business, Scot’s Audio, to another, Bossier Power Equipment’s also rehabilitated, would accomplish that objective. Whether related, City Attorney Charles Jacobs, his assistant Richard Ray, and with the approval of Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler but without proper due diligence, authorized the work and in a way that may have violated public bid law.

Ganja, hemp bills to do little to kill LA's buzz

If you can’t keep Louisianans from getting high legally, maybe you can discourage them by taxing one form more, some legislators hope.

Ever since the institution of medical marijuana in Louisiana almost a decade ago, and a few years later legalizing sale of consumable hemp products, it’s been easier than ever to go around in a haze without legal repercussions. In the case of medical marijuana, what started as a tightly-controlled regime somewhat based upon science that shows marijuana provides almost no genuine medical benefits of any kind has become a free-for-all where just about anybody can get as much as they want for whatever reason they want. The trend continued last year where a couple of new laws extended the program to 2030 and eased some administrative burdens, although at least lawmakers didn’t go for complete legalization.

Complete legalization, limited only in respect as being termed a “pilot program,” is back on the table this term from HB 627 by Democrat state Rep. Candice Newell, who brought the legalization effort last year. Should that succeed, Democrat state Rep. Edmond Jordan has HB 636 all cued up and ready to go to tax it, although applied not to the sellers but producers of the constituent parts.

TOPS bill must jettison lowest standards

More than just retain more higher education students in state, the Louisiana Legislature should expand on a bill to make the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students a true merit-based award.

TOPS guarantees that if a graduating high school senior in Louisiana achieves certain mediocre standards that the state will pay a substantial portion of higher education tuition. Until about a decade ago all tuition was covered, leaving only fees unsubsidized (although higher achievement above the lowest standards merited an additional stipend), but then the level was decoupled from tuition increases and a gap began to grow. For example, the present reimbursement of in-state non-accelerated program tuition at my institution leaves a gap of $283.68 or just over 5 percent for the annual 30 hours, not including $1,712.64 in other fees (this is for the basic Opportunity qualifier; higher ACT scores could push a qualifier into the Performance or Honors category where stipends of $400 or $800, respectively, are given).

The gaps, it is claimed, are part of the reason why a slow by sure decline in number of Louisiana graduates accepting TOPS awards. In response, Republican state Rep. Chris Turner has filed HB 77 that would increase the minimum award for each TOPS level that in many cases exceeds the highest tuition and fees now charged (there would be a few exceptions, such as those Louisiana State University makes to admit certain students that otherwise wouldn’t meet Board of Regents-defined standards, but many of the exceptions come in under other scholarship programs). It also would create a fourth category for the highest achievers, Excellence, with a larger bonus (keep in mind, however, that Honors winners wouldn’t even meet the admission standards at some flagship universities in other states, while Excellence winners would).

Make leftists pay for opposing fiscal reform

The irony is that at the precise time that Louisiana’s teachers have most demonstrated they deserve a pay raise they now are least likely to receive one, courtesy of the political left which in the past often backed that cause.

Leftists in the electorate did opposite of what they once preached when last month they voted down a constitutional amendment which would have made school districts grant the hike in perpetuity. Going against the wishes of teacher unions, leftist special interests managed to turn out enough electoral support to do this, although some distracted conservatives who lost sight of the forest for the trees aided them.

This happened even though more than ever teachers deserved a reward for the progress their students have made. In the past few years, Louisiana schools have sprinted up state educational rankings, which surely can be credited to improved teaching thus meriting higher future pay.

BC Council to navigate Bossier way challenges

At its next meeting, the Bossier City Council will begin facing the consequences of getting along and going along with the old Bossier way, but will have a chance as well to begin its repudiation, focused upon happenings in newly-reelected Republican Vince Maggio’s district.

City elections occurred as news broke about a questionable deal the city made with two property owners in Maggio’s district. At the Council meeting days before the election, Republican Councilor Brian Hammons queried as to why the city was giving each a new parking lot.

As this space previously had noted, the answer City Attorney Charles Jacobs gave, that supposedly the owners had threatened lawsuits over alleged damage from construction of the nearby Walter O. Bigby Carriageway, when investigated lacked credibility. Instead, available evidence suggested that public dollars were being spent to aid the private business of a friend since childhood of GOP Councilor David Montgomery, a conclusion also forwarded in a post at the news and entertainment web site SOBO.live. That media outlet put in a public records request to obtain exact documentation of the incident.

Low stimulus crucial to LA amendments' defeat

It’s time to settle the debate that has arisen about results concerning recent statewide constitutional amendments that failed, and we begin by reviewing a major contributing factor to their defeat by nearly 2:1.

On paper, the most persuasive interpretation would be the results mainly are an artifact of structural turnout patterns. For decades, as the major political parties have become increasingly ideologically pure and polarized, the effect first observed half a century ago of the top-bottom nature of Democrats – support shaped like a barbell wider at the top of the socioeconomic scale, thinner in the middle, and again expanded at the bottom – and the toy top nature of Republican support – thinner at the top and bottom of SES, thick in the middle – has given way to a more defined inversion of the class system insofar as political parties go.

Increasingly, this reordering where now support for Democrats resembles more an inverted pyramid and Republican identifiers shape into a standard wine bottle has implications for election turnout. In the middle of the 20^th century observers believed higher-turnout elections favored Democrats, since less-reliable voters disproportionately had lower SES characteristics who in turn disproportionately voted for Democrats, but as the inversion began to accelerate (because of the emergence of the affluent society after World War II that brought a different issue mix in elections to the fore) that tendency disappeared.

Cast critical eye on opposing less govt spending

Already the narrative is being pounded home by leftist-sympathetic traditional media that suppressing federal government spending will prove as cataclysmic to America as Ramses’ stubbornness did to Mosaic Egypt. Don’t buy it, as illustrated in a case in Louisiana.

Recently, the Acadiana Advocate delivered a story about the impact of reduced federal spending on farm subsidies. In particular, it lamented projected cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that help food banks and schools purchase food from small local farmers.

It agonized a bit over the lost income this market distortion would cause farmers, but the main problem it conveyed was the distribution of free or subsidized food would be attenuated. Individuals associated with food banks and similar organizations were reported wringing their hands over the possibility of increased “food insecurity,” which allegedly a seventh of Louisianans suffered.

Election reformist tide swamps BC insiders

The clean sweep starting in 2021 of Bossier City elected majoritarian branch officials that was completed last week also resulted in a near clean sweep of Bossier political insiders in favor of reformers, the latest city elections produced.

Exactly four years ago the city was being run by a mayor with 16 years in office and a set of city councilors who had among them 127 years of service. Come Jul. 1, it will have a mayor of 4 years in and combined service among councilors of just 12 years. None will have been in office more than four years.

Moreover, this rolling revolution will put a majority of reformers outside of the current political establishment in charge of the Council, a first in the city’s history. In their rookie terms, both Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons left no doubt as to their reformist chops. They will be joined the GOP’s Cliff Smith, who through his activities as a concerned citizen left no doubt of that status.

Try again with fiscal reform minus bad timing

The constitutional amendment that rewrote the fiscal portion of Louisiana’s Constitution failed primarily because of a tactical error made by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and his legislative allies.

This amendment, #2, sunk last weekend with only 35 percent of the vote on 21.3 percent turnout. The key to understanding why and how this translates into the blunder is in who was activated to vote against it.

Much was made of some conservative opposition to it, but the size of the loss is the first indication that this didn’t have much to do with the result. Picking up on a Trojan Horse meme circulated by the left designed to ensnare them, these individuals put their thinking caps aside and shunned the pro-growth, smaller government aspects of the reforms in favor of panicked long-shot interpretations that passage meant the state would tax churches out of existence. However, only had the result been a much closer loss would they have made the difference.