Restrict, not ban, license plate readers in LA

There’s no question that automated license plate reading cameras need increased scrutiny. The only question is by how much.

Recently, Republican state Rep. Danny McCormick, over social media and the airwaves, served notice that next year he would introduce a bill to ban such cameras. He declared the Legislature had momentum to do so after last year banning traffic enforcement cameras in all areas except school zones and the city of Opelousas. As well, the presence of reader cameras has irked privacy advocates worried that this has become another big data source ripe for exploitation, if not a breeding ground for constitutional violations of probable cause for searches.

However, he should expect some resistance. Law enforcement agencies have found the technology, which captures plate images that a private vendor collates into a database that law enforcement may access, helpful in tracking down suspects, even almost in real time that improves apprehension and conviction rates. Simply, this pits privacy rights against public safety.

LA should conduct study to increase JP relevancy

A little-known new law might serve as the start of the answer to making a superfluous, anachronistic office more relevant in the 21^st century.

Starting last month, courtesy of Act 950 passed this year, East Baton Rouge Justice of the Peace Districts were extended into Baton Rouge. That means they overlap with the Baton Rouge City Court, but only concurrently on one piece of jurisdiction: evictions where rent is fewer than $5,000 monthly.

Area legislators successfully advocated for the measure in order to reduce the backlog of eviction cases piling up in City Court. Ordinarily, within their jurisdictions as well as with evictions JPs deal with bail for minor cases (with an amount in controversy fewer than $5,000 or not with hard labor as a potential penalty), litter abatement, movable property abandonment with parish approval, and in a few parishes immovable property standards and nuisance cases.

Bossier Parish restroom ordinance appropriate

Again, it’s important to remember that when on the losing side of the argument, delivering distraction and non sequiturs becomes the order of the day, as recent squawking about a proposed ordinance in Bossier Parish illustrates.

Last month, the Bossier Parish Police Jury passed along a measure that creates a framework to ensure and enforce that in parish-owned or run buildings those of a biological sex only use restrooms and dressing rooms designated for that biological sex, unless the facility were designated family/single occupancy. Essentially, a parish employee if discovering or alerted to a violation may issue two warnings (first, exiting the facility, then exiting the building, which could be the same) if not heeded then makes the person subject to arrest and criminal penalties. Essentially, it adds criminal enforcement to existing state law.

The ordinance bends over backwards in other ways. It exempts actions pertaining to a parent assisting a minor child., assistance provided to a disabled person, emergency medical care, law enforcement activities, custodial or maintenance services, and emergency evacuations or disasters.

Miscreant top judge not wrong on clarifications

You can be right and wrong at the same time, a recent flareup at the Louisiana Supreme Court proves.

No party Chief Justice John Weimer keeps getting on the wrong side of his colleagues. In 2023, upset at how they thought Wiemer ran the Court – the senior-most justice legally becomes chief regardless of the desires of others – that they formed a committee to administer the Court, leaving only ceremonial duties for Weimer. Republican then-Assoc. Justice Scott Crichton was appointed to lead it.

He almost found himself out of a job years early (he will surpass the age limitation disallowing reelection in 2032) when in 2024 almost all of those then on the Court backed a reapportionment plan that would have changed his district residency. He survived when a subsequent plan kept him in place.

Trump and Landry defuse Luddites on data centers

It’s not as important that another Republican Gov. Jeff Landry win tamped down discord among some over data center spillover costs, but that it deflated the rearguard action conducted by climate alarmists.

Already having set the stage with his recent executive order that said costs passed on to power and water consumers as a result of data center creation and expansion had to be matched by benefits conveyed to consumers in other ways, Landry received an assist from his ally Pres. Donald Trump upon the latter’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge  recently drawing the signatures of heavy hitters in the data center universe. Governors also were invited to sign off, and Landry assuredly did that which crept a bit more forward than his executive order.

Essentially, the pledge says entities involved will not pass along exclusive data center added costs to the general public. All major Louisiana power utilities have signed it as well as a number of entities building, overseeing, and operating, or planning to do so, data centers in the state. A framework to restrict this already exists with the Public Service Commission, although a dissident Democrat on it claims this should occur more specifically.

Suit may make BC Marshal Whitman next victim

The Bossier City political establishment’s worst nightmare is back and, even if tangentially and somewhat accidentally, about to threaten another of its member’s political careers.

Last month, in Merriott v. Bossier City, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals thoroughly embarrassed former city councilors Republicans Jeff Free and David Montgomery and no party Jeff Darby, along with current City Attorney Charles Jacobs with a ruling handing an almost total victory to SOBO.live website operator Wes Merriott. He sued the city after what the panel described as a series of egregious abuses of power by the majority then on the City Council, goaded by Jacobs, in its violating Merriott’s free expression and due process constitutional rights.

Although a district court initially dismissed much of the case, the panel revived almost all of it with instructions that will make it all but impossible not to rule in his favor and potentially invoke damages against the city (the individual defendants will escape penalties on the basis of a technicality). The city failed to appeal by its deadline to do so this week, so the case will resume in Judge Terry Doughty’s Western District Court at some point in the future.

Obamacare disenrollment benefits Louisianans

More good news continues to come Louisiana’s way as policies to improve verification for taxpayer subsidization of government-backed health insurance take hold now aided by the expiration of bonus dollars for it.

Disguised as a Wuhan coronavirus pandemic palliative but in reality a mechanism to encourage more dependency on government and to acquire a greater taste for getting free stuff from government, until starting this year the federal government subsidized on average almost 90 percent of the premium paid for health insurance purchase under a state or federal government market, known as Obamacare. Cooler heads prevailed to remove the extra gift so now the typical exchange user pays closer to 30 percent.

This partly is responsible for a decline in exchange enrollment, although the stepped-up verification also contributes as it catches out disingenuous or inattentive people to prevent them from qualifying for subsidies (roughly a quarter, estimated at around 6 million) which have income means tests. Louisiana so far has seen enrollment numbers drop by more than a quarter, and also has experienced fewer annual enrollees maintaining coverage since signing up at the start of the year. Both the decline in aggregate enrollees and enrollment drop off are among the highest of states.

Promoting marriage would bring benefits to LA

Louisiana has made stellar progress in education. But what may temper these gains more than anything else something almost entirely out of the control of educators.

Soon to be published is an analysis of the impact that marriage has on children’s academic achievement. Researchers note an enormous gulf in achievement between children in married households with both parents present as opposed to, at the most extreme, single parent-led households. They caution this can be confused with other associated indicators such as race, leading to incorrect policy prescriptions that too enthusiastically declare that racial considerations are at fault for poor outcomes when in reality something else is at work.

It long has been observed that children from higher socioeconomic statuses achieve educationally at significantly higher levels than do low SES children, and marriage plays a part in that as it denotes a future orientation of a life planned together that includes measures to earn better incomes that typically come later, allowing devotion to children of greater resources and for greater homelife stability. Unmarried couples tend to have children at younger ages and in a more cursorily, if at all, planned fashion more oriented to present gratification than in striving for more economic and emotional security for offspring. Staying married usually, although not exclusively, reinforces the same future-oriented attitudes into children that spawn academic success.

Cassidy unfitness reinforced by voting views

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy gave us another reason why it’s a good thing he’ll be out of a job soon: he doesn’t understand the basics of one of the most crucial policy aspects of it.

Recently, Cassidy was quoted musing about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act and, even though he sponsors the one and only version of it, would like to see changes to it. Basically, insofar as the act of voting it requires official government-issued identification in order to vote, and it restricts the use of mail-in ballots to certain special cases that prevents mass-mailing.

However, Cassidy isn’t on board with control that tight. Moreover, he wants to encourage participation, which he imagines would come from not restricting mail ballots but expanding their use such as Oregon’s practice of mailing ballots to all who were registered to vote with that vast bulk coming from driver’s license interactions. Indeed, he claims having closed primary elections constitute an impediment to voting, even as the majority of states restrict voter choices when selecting a particular political party’s nominee for offices, and tried to back this sentiment by noting that voting turnout for the GOP closed primary in May that announced his defeat had significantly lower turnout than his 2020 general election victory.

New Orleans clowns invite tough love punishment

You mess with the bull, you get the horns, politicians in New Orleans as the city comes to potential reckoning through tough love.

The saga started at the beginning of the month when a grand jury out of thin air lodged an indictment against Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill. It charged her with multiple counts of malfeasance and public intimidation, whereupon a special prosecutor was appointed. The basis for that came weeks earlier when the city attempted to contravene new statute that abolished one of the clerks of court by merging it into another, but was shot down by the judiciary. Murrill had warned city officials that those actions violated state law and threatened legal action to remove officials from office if they proceeded.

That indictment was halted almost immediately by the state Supreme Court, citing perverse legal logic, conflicts of interest, and procedural errors. It said the case essentially was dead in the water on the basis that Murrill’s actions amounted to her discharging legally her duties.