Pass bill reining in unions exploiting taxpayers

Louisiana seems prepared to forgo an opportunity to use better taxpayer dollars and to reduce privileging special interests.

Increasingly, states are reeling in the ability of public unions to squeeze the citizenry and leverage those resources to increase their political power. A number recently have passed legislation to prohibit deducting dues automatically for employees, whether union members, within the bargaining unit, giving paid time off to perform union business, preventing withholding dues – locals can deduct from non-members in many states unless they specifically designate disallow that outside of infrequent windows – and to require more than a small portion of the bargaining unit to specifically approve of recertification of certification is revoked.

But Louisiana remains stuck in the past. SB 312 by Republican state Sen. Kirk Talbot, addressing parish (except public safety personnel) and school district employees, sought to prohibit collected dues from being used for political purposes, to have salary deductions renewed automatically, and to transfer government administrative costs to the union. All of these were amended out.

Scoundrels' last refuge should not derail fix

Those angry from having had their privilege disappear who insist on keeping themselves locked in the past will prove a mere distraction to the big question those who wish to progress to the future will have to answer in Louisiana getting right constitutionally with its congressional districts.

Last week, the Senate Governmental and Affairs Committee started vetting various bills to accomplish this, with resolution anticipated this week. This has become necessary after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because no compelling reason – that is, intended discrimination merely because of race – existed for race to be the primary element in its drawing.

This quest has upset black Democrats in particular, the most spleen-venting of the bunch being state Sen. Gary Carter. He caterwauled bitterly in his questions as a committee member, for the obvious reason that black Democrats no longer could use race as a fig leaf to draw districts favoring them but also because his uncle, Democrat Rep. Troy Carter, could have an even money chance of losing his seat with a map that had one or no majority-minority districts planned out, as opposed to the current two.

Pass bill that eliminates heckler's veto tactic

A bill heading to the finish line in the Louisiana Legislature that vetoes a heckler’s veto not only will protect law enforcement officers from abuse but also will increase the safety of the abusers.

HB 132 by Republican state Rep. Brian Glorioso would add a third part to the state’s definition of battery, joining using intentional force on another and throwing a poison or noxious liquid on another: directing sound at an injurious volume reasonably knowing that at somebody else. It only has to garner a favorable Senate vote to head to GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.

Free expression should have maximum latitude, when possible, but the judiciary recognizes limits to this First Amendment right. Colloquially called “time, place, and manner” restrictions, as long as a government restriction is content neutral, narrowly-tailored serving a significant government interest, and permits alternative communication channels, courts don’t perceive this as a constitutional violation.

Fleming bests Letlow in LA GOP Senate debate

The U.S. Senate Republican primary debate was informative, combative if cordial, and displayed how the candidates tried to play to their strengths.

The debate, sponsored by the Moon Griffon Show, featured only Treas. John Fleming and Rep. Julia Letlow. Incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, despite numerous invitations, didn’t attend.

The math, as most recently evidenced by the latest independent poll, has these two running neck-and-neck with Cassidy several points back. Polling suggests that if Cassidy were to make the inevitable runoff he would lose decisively to either, so it was in the interests of both candidates to attack each other in the hopes Cassidy could crest over the opponent.

Landry map swap looking more likely to pay off

It’s been over two years, but Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s reapportionment gamble looks to be paying off, bigger and bigger and wider and wider.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that the 2024 congressional map drawn in a special session at the very start of Landry’s term unconstitutionally used race to create two majority-minority districts out of the state’s allotted six. The decision placed guardrails on the use of race, reaffirming that it does not have preferential treatment over other traditional principles of reapportionment in the absence of observable intent of racial animus in mapping.

That 2024 map came after a district court voided a 2022 map with only one M/M district without a trial on the merits, saying it violated the law. The Court enjoined any further action pending an Alabama case it resolved in 2023 that largely but not directly tracked the Louisiana case that also addressed the Voting Rights Act which ruled against the existing map, although the resulting judicially-drawn map eschewed doubling M/M districts to two and instead created two opportunity districts (where blacks had a plurality but not majority).

LA can beat clock, use better map for fall

If you are reading this during the first weekend of May, chances are, right this very second, certain elected officials of Louisiana government and their staff and/or contractors are huddled up trying to get an already-delayed set of congressional elections pushed back further while putting together a new congressional map that stays one step ahead of opponents and congruent with the law and U.S. Constitution.

In the wake of last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that ratified a lower court panel which declared the state’s latest version of the map unconstitutional, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency, as by statute. Also by statute, GOP Sec. of State Nancy Landry certified the contents of the order and thus early next week the House and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee will convene jointly and almost certainly approve of the certification, with the governor’s agreement.

The current map contains two majority-minority districts of six, but the decision likely makes it impossible to draw one with that many. As two Democrats hold those seats and Republicans are highly likely to win any not M/M, the left has gone ballistic over this turn of events and will try anything to stop the GOP pickup of a seat. As things stand, it can’t through any legal maneuverings. Louisiana’s Constitution nor its statutes define “emergency” and it can be argued that under powers to ensure the “integrity” of elections an emergency use may justify implementing these procedures.

CD5 GOP nod to turn more on hopefuls than issues

Republican candidates for Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District, perhaps appropriately given the job for which they audition (as least as it stands for now), had to hop around its elongated boundaries last week in about 24 hours to participate a couple of forums, which perhaps turned more on presentations of competence and knowledge than on policy.

Thursday before last, all seven, including the main four – Board of Regents head Misti Cordell, state Rep. Mike Echols, and state Sens. Rick Edmonds and Blake Miguez – appeared at one sponsored by Livingston Parish GOP women’s clubs. Last Friday, all but Edmonds, who is from the southern terminus in Baton Rouge and begged off because of dealing with the shooting tragedy there, participated in another sponsored by Monroe’s public radio station KEDM, the University of Louisiana Monroe, and two local chambers of commerce. Cordell and Echols are from Monroe, while Miguez is domiciled outside the district about 75 miles south of it.

Edmonds might have used the opportunity, as the only independent poll to date of the contest has him behind second-place Echols by ten points, who trails leader Miguez by three, and Cordell is way back in single digits. However, almost half of respondents didn’t name a preference, leaving plenty of chances for candidates to collect voters through performance in somethings like these.

LA needs to prevent alarmism jackpot justice

Proactive legislation addressing the potential costs of climate alarmism could save Louisiana businesses much time, money, and hassle, in creating a fairer business climate for the state.

HB 804 by Republican state Rep. Brett Geymann would prevent suits against companies for greenhouse gas emissions that weren’t in violation of the specific permits issued for the emitter or those not violating the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Those gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases.

Passage of this bill would obviate the possibility that these concerns in state would have to battle nuisance suits brought by climate alarmists. Elsewhere in the country, increasingly Chicken Little local governments have sued firms that produce these gases, alleging these caused individuals’ deaths or maladies or even possibly could, amounting to over two dozen such actions. A smattering of individual plaintiff cases also have begun to circulate.

LA case decision invalidates leftist election tool

This week, a U.S. Supreme Court majority tore the fig leaf off of a major strategic election tool used by Democrats and the political left, in declaring unconstitutional Louisiana’s congressional map in deciding Louisiana v. Callais.

The Court, in a monumental decision widely expected and inevitable to anybody with a passing knowledge of constitutional law, said the current district arrangement was an impermissible racial gerrymander. In 2024, the state had reapportioned specifically to avoid a potential district court redraw based upon a decision (on a notion underscored in the ruling as faulty) that it was discrimination not to have roughly an equal proportion of majority-minority districts as a minority group (generally defined as eligible for this treatment in a 1986 case) existed proportionally in the population.

The decision reaffirmed that when government deliberately intended to discriminate against people of a certain race because of racial animus that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act would provide protection against that. However, it went further to clarify that this statute could not be perverted to match the dictum of a far-left scholar who famously declared that “[t]he only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Transparency bill to challenge LA govts

An overdue update to transparency laws working its way through the Louisiana Legislature would force sunshine onto some places that don’t really want it, with Bossier Parish exemplifying that.

HB 615 by Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson would require any public body that can levy taxes or fees, if in a municipality of at least 10,000 population or is parish-wide if the jurisdiction has at least 25,000 population or if it a state entity (which would account for multi-parish agencies as well), to transmit live (or near-live) by video their meetings and to archive these for at least two years on the Internet, with social media as a permissible outlet, starting this August. It would apply to these bodies’ committees as well under existing law but also adds to this roster state entities that can promulgate rules. This comes on the heels of changes a few years ago that first mandated that taxing bodies transmit or archive.

As Johnson noted on the House floor, current law, even if expanded a few years ago, comes up short. It requires only live (or near-live) video or audio transmission or archiving by taxing bodies (not by single executives who don’t have meetings, such as sheriffs, assessors, and coroners), and carries no requirement that archiving (which is optional if transmitted live) be for a specific length of time nor that it may be made readily available to the public, such as through the Internet. Therefore, in the vast majority of instances citizens must deploy public records requests to obtain archived transmissions, if they exist. The bill would leave in place the video/audio transmission and/or archive regime for all those local entities that didn’t meet the population requirements.