Stewart reelection worries behind dirty trick

Democrat First District Attorney James Stewart must be getting very nervous about his reelection chances against Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh.

Demographics favor him. Registration totals that made the books for the election next week show only several more black registrants than white out of over 150,000 on the rolls (Stewart is black, Seabaugh white), but Democrats outnumber Republicans 3:2.

However, Seabaugh, who resides in Caddo Parish although his senate district also encompasses Bossier Parish and smaller-populated parts of others, is a superb campaigner who has stumped with a disciplined message about Stewart’s laxness on holding criminals accountable (with data that back up that contention) and has utilized plenty of resources to spread that message. While chipping in $115,000 of his own resources, he also has raised a couple of hundred thousand bucks to go along with an existing $400,000 campaign kitty and spent through the middle of October this year nearly $200,000, main on eye-level and electronic media.

BC balanced budget to shore up future prospects

The significance of the Bossier City Council’s passing a balanced budget this week lies more in the fact of what ideally it should signal for the future.

When originally introduced, the general fund portion tapped into a small number of reserves, projections of revenues looked a bit optimistic, and the separate enterprise funds showed future strains ahead. The version passed this week had a few tweaks, but most prominently wiped out the dipping into general fund reserves.

This matters because it shows the Council and city taking responsibility to not unduly erode a margin of error in uncertain fiscal times. The general fund has plenty of reserves, mainly due to knock-on effects from massive federal government spending in the pandemic period that increased government revenue collection, causing the reserve to about triple from $23 million in 2019 to $66 million in 2025, so a hit of nearly $2 million wouldn’t have broken the bank.

N LA cases to provide property rights tests

Louisiana is reaching a point where it must affirm private property rights in dealing with private company’s abilities to expropriate property.

Owners of land in north Louisiana face a couple of challenges on this issue. In northeast Louisiana, in response to the Hyperion data center project that promises to infuse $50 billion into the economy and create hundreds of well-paying jobs, the large power needs have put landowners on alert that the electric utility Entergy, and to a much smaller extent the electric cooperative Northeast Louisiana Power Coop, shows signs they will pursue expropriation of land to provide the transmission line infrastructure to send power to Hyperion.

The Louisiana Constitution permits this, but only for a “public purpose” as outlined where whether that qualifies is justiciable. Some landowners think these transmission lines don’t qualify as these primarily, they argue, would help Hyperion.

Bad LA censorship law degrades election process

As election season winds down, maybe this will be the last conducted under an odious Louisiana law that chills free speech and degrades election decision-making.

Federal constitutional law sets only the most obvious and basic parameters regarding campaign communications. Basically, only the standards governing defamation apply: i.e., a public figure such as a contestant for office can have any expression made against him except those that are patently untrue and done with malice. And there’s no constitutional prohibition against making whatever claims about a candidate’s self, regardless of their veracity.

Just so. Except in those intentional defamatory cases, the political process should be allowed to play out to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially when this deals with claims made by a candidate about himself. If outright lies about past behavior or statements are made, electioneering by opposing forces quite often uncovers the falsity.

LA early voting doesn’t portend Democrat upsets

It’s madness to try to figure out election day results from early voting in Louisiana, but the best that can be derived is that Democrats won’t be as far behind as Republicans in the bellwether Senate race as has become typical.

Coming to this conclusion starts from a rough foundation. Early voting ended earlier this week, with final relevant numbers of whites casting 321,333 ballots to blacks logging 180,219, and Democrats having 222,806 voters to Republicans’ 206,278. As reference there were 1,854,793 white and 933,052 black voters registered, with 1,060,252 Democrats and 1,067,827 Republicans.

These results should start from the baseline of the last non-presidential election that featured a Senate race, 2022. Note, however, two important changes occurred between these dates. First, whereas then all elections on the ballot came as part of a general election under a blanket primary system, this time a few, most principally the presumed biggest draw the Senate contest, will feature the general election without possibility of runoff.

Build on upgrade by following reforms through

As Louisiana’s economic fortunes under Republican Gov. Jeff Landry continue to improve, it can’t rob Peter to pay Paul if it expects the progress to continue.

With the Legislature endorsing overall tax cuts and the Landry Administration hustling that grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars in new economic development, Fitch Ratings noticed and upgraded the state’s general obligation bond debt (it also recently has upgraded several other kinds of state issuances). That means in the constant revolving door of debt that state issues will come at lower interest rates, saving taxpayer dollars.

This will provide some minor relief from projected budget deficits beginning next fiscal year, which the state pegs will grow from $541 million next year to $1.23 billion by fiscal year 2030. Another debt-related maneuver that could ease the burden somewhat also would be to take the bulk of the recently-forecast surplus and pay down debt.

Reinvigorated office comes up aces on advice

Questionable spending of Louisiana taxpayer dollars by nonprofit organizations allowed by state government invites wondering why obvious fixes only now seem imminent to be put in place.

Recently, the Inspector General’s office, run by IG Angéle Davis, released a report questioning the $113.5 million doled out to various nonprofits for 2026 after a review uncovered questionable payments, inadequate financial reporting and other oversight failures. Several specific items that had been investigated posed problems according to state law, with their amounts totaling just over $1 million.

State government routinely apportions half of appropriated amounts to organizations as advance payments prior to producing documentation about spending. Agencies also appear lax in checking that. A report outlining these observations focused on only a few items, also detailing recommended changes subsequently approved to go into effect to try to mitigate problems. These include receiving reimbursements for documented expenditures rather than advance payments with exceptions allowed but capped at 25 percent, capping certain administrative expenses at 10 percent of the total, and increasing scrutiny of organizations controlled by a single individual or established shortly before receiving an appropriation.

Most, maybe all, LA amendments likely to pass

Despite the contrary musings of some, expect most, perhaps even all, constitutional amendments plastered on Louisiana’s ballot next month to pass voter muster.

Some questions about the chances of the 10 amendments up for vetting have come given that the last two elections featuring these saw every single one go down to defeat. While some speculation centered on whether this signaled a referendum of sorts on state government and its elected officials, more valid explanations focused on idiosyncratic reasons and, most importantly, the timing. Both factors will matter more favorably for the set that voters face this time.

Regardless of the often minimal attention most voters pay to these, content does matter. Many of the items of the past two years called for ambitious overhauls of the Constitution, especially in the area of state fiscal affairs. These are the measures that most optimally compel the voter with only a passing interest to turn out – and disproportionally negatively so, with the state’s long history of lukewarm or worse budgetary management. Compound that with the special interests that would lose out under new arrangements aggressively campaigning against these, and it’s a tough road to hoe.

LA black political leaders blame, refuse to learn

Recent comments made by some black political activists show how for them it’s not about advancing the black community, but about advancing black leftist political interests, with a little help from a writer a bit too eager to inject bias into recounting their musings.

A story about the impact that black voting turnout could have on elections a fortnight away solicited opinions from state and local elected, party, and interest group leaders revealed a narrowly-construed array of attitudes more indicative of an America of six decades ago than reflecting today’s reality. These also served as an indictment of failure of these leaders and those who have or had shared these beliefs in improving the prospects of the entirety of black America.

Admittedly, the journalist who authored the piece, Tyler Bridges, didn’t do them any favors in presenting their views. For example, in referring to the U.S. Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais, it misstates the decision, which reaffirmed that race could be a primary consideration in reapportionment only when there is identified intent of discrimination against a protected class. That ruling corrected a drift over the decades where intent had become superseded by outcome, or the belief that the proportion of black officials elected in a jurisdiction had to match roughly the proportion of blacks in the population; if that wasn’t the case, systemic bias existed despite laws that bent over backwards to ensure otherwise. The author instead injects opinion when writing the decision “weakened voting rights protections,” as if there was genuine justification to putting race foremost in mapping.

With surplus, resist urge to not pay down debts

Louisiana doesn’t need to get ahead of itself upon reception of impending budgetary good news.

Last week, the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget approved its typical October fiscal status statement, which is a report made by the Division of Administration on where it determines the state’s final fiscal picture relative to the budget that expired at the end of the state’s fiscal year. DOA now sees the fiscal year 2026 budget producing a surplus of $565 million. While predicted expenditures and other requirements were thought to have risen about $100 million to around $13.1 billion in general fund dollars, revenues shot up nearly $1 billion, with the difference being carryforwards and transaction timings.

Reasons why things turned out rosier than expected DOA didn’t say nor did any committee members ask. Likely a burst of economic activity during the term of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry primarily in the energy sector and in construction of data centers, soon the first of which will commence operations, explains this.