A big victory in self-governance last week might result in ancillary gains for citizens elsewhere in Louisiana, aided by meritorious pending legislation.
The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the city of St. George can come into existence. Almost a decade ago, residents of the southern part of East Baton Rouge Parish, disgruntled with a city-parish government that they saw taking too many tax dollars out and providing too few meaningful services, began efforts to incorporate. The saga had many twists and turns: an initial petitioning effort to put the matter on the ballot failing by fewer than six dozen signatures after some questionable vetting by the parish registrar of voters, a second successful petition despite annexation gamesmanship leading to an election in favor of incorporation marked by all sorts of distortions levied by parish government officials, a legal challenge chock full of bogus claims that required a four-year judicial journey, and then final vindication.
City-parish officials – the parish’s now five cities operate under a consolidated form of government with parish government save for the four constitutional parish offices – fought tooth-and nail because separation by a municipality of its size (around 86,000) significantly diminished their political power, principally from the loss of tax revenues that acted as a considerable net subsidy to principally Baton Rouge’s operations. The suit against St. George rested on a state law that essentially said the new city had to have a realistic financial chance to operate and that it didn’t have an “adverse” impact on other governments as part of a larger investigation into the “reasonableness” of the move.
St. George opponents relied upon a shoddy financial analysis that the Supreme Court saw through easily that dispensed with questions about whether the city could stand on its own. As for determining reasonableness, the Court in part drew upon its conclusions concerning the finances question and other factors to find it fit the bill. Specifically, it determined that the remainder of city-parish government had adequate resources to offset the net changes induced by forming St. George. To put it another way, there would be no adverse impact to the consolidated government as long as it made certain policy changes, leaving unsaid that the needed alterations in spending priorities aren’t favored by the current Democrat-majority government.
In the final analysis, a series of attempts to thwart a desire for citizen self-rule born out of frustration that elites from other parts of the parish consistently had imposed their preferences itself was thwarted and the excuse of bad policy-making outcomes as a mitigating factor didn’t wash. Obviously, the win matters greatly for St. George but is of limited significance elsewhere because of the atypical circumstances: a breakup of a consolidated government of which few exist in Louisiana.
Where it might have an impact is in establishing momentum for breakaway school districts. In the state, 61 of 64 school districts follow parish lines, but EBR is the most fragmented with districts around the three smaller municipalities of Baker, Central, and Zachary with Baton Rouge and the rest of the parish comprising the other. Now, with St. George about to come into existence, another attempt according to its boundaries willproceed according to its boundaries as initial impetus for St. George’s formation came in order to bridge to a breakaway school district as parents had complaints about school governance similar to those with parish governance.
The sentiment isn’t isolated to that parish. About the same time a school district was talked up in southeastern East Baton Rouge, and actually created but unable to some into fruition because the necessary constitutional change wasn’t included, in southern Caddo Parish parents talked of doing the same. However, it has no municipality to organize around – the three smaller EBR cities were created with districts following – but the success of St. George might kickstart efforts to create a city in that area and have it unite with other small municipalities to form a district of all Caddo outside of Shreveport, much like the separate Ouachita Parish and City of Monroe school districts.
Facilitating this and the birth of a St. George-area school district is HB 6 by Republican state Rep. Emily Chenevert that would amend the Constitution to remove case-by-case approval of new districts statewide and with legislative supermajorities. While its prospects for passage and statewide voter approval are uncertain, it would fulfill better the spirit of the Court decision that within it affirmed the Constitution has a bias in favor of citizen self-determination. Sustenance of that attitude merits the bill’s passage and subsequent voter approval.
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