If Bossier Citians really want to disable endless insider government of their city, they’ll need to vote this Saturday for the two ballot propositions at their local precinct that will put in place the most restrictive term limits in the country save those of the U.S. presidency.
On Mar. 29, voters approved ballot propositions that installed three consecutive term limits starting with councilors’ and Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler’s assumption (reassumption for Chandler and three councilors) of office on Jul. 1. But this May 3, just weeks later, they’ll be asked to approve two other propositions – the only items on their ballots – that would bring about three term limits for life, retroactively. That means Chandler and the three councilors can run for reelection only once more successfully or, if they defer then, they can run just once more successfully at any time in the future.
At first glance, voters may be temped to shrug off trooping to the polls just for these two items, reckoning that term limits, if less restrictive, already are in place. However, they need to consider the case of current and outgoing GOP Councilor David Montgomery.
The theory behind the stricter version is that any service longer than 12 years, even if not all strung together, leaves too much opportunity for an individual to institutionalize himself into power in the city, if not turn his government service into self-enrichment and to the benefit of special interests. Montgomery’s two decades in office provide a cautionary tale.
Perhaps no local elected official in Louisiana has earned more money legally from local governments than has Montgomery. Through 2024 (with 2025 to go), he has made $3,395,155 from selling insurance personally and through his agency to local governments with jurisdiction at least in part in Bossier Parish – that we know of, because state law began forcing disclosure of income derived from governments by elected officials in 2009, starting with 2008. When he files his final report next year, likely lifetime he will have raked in over $4 million.
This is why, according to his 2024 disclosure that lists his reception of $222,595 from seven local governments, he is able to afford ownership of a dozen real estate parcels worth a minimum of $100,000 each, as well as sock away enough investment dough to pull in at least $100,000 in interest and dividends last year from about 50 different investments (blue chip equities with a few go-go names thrown in) worth at least $5,000 in each position, plus some treasury bills. It should be noted that as the universe of S&P 500 stocks, a reasonable proxy for his holdings, has a dividend payout of 1.27 percent, this implies these together are worth at least nearly $7.8 million.
Now it could be to have so many government clients that Montgomery is the world’s greatest insurance salesman. But then why are his sales only to entities with a Bossier Parish presence? It probably has more to do with, for example, the city’s appointing people to the Port of Caddo-Bossier’s governing board – which with Montgomery’s decisive vote in 2023 stands to gain a free waterworks paid for by Bossier City taxpayers which he vociferously demanded expediting and approving – and other entities with which Montgomery has done business, or who interact with agreements with Bossier City from time to time requiring Council approval. Suffice to say, if Montgomery was some garden variety insurance agent without any political pull in this town, he never would have landed these deals.
But he did, and he did because he was in office and, most importantly, with every indicator that he would continue to wield power in or out of office, as long as it was conceivable that he could deploy formal political power as an elected official. Take away the reasonable expectation that he would – or could – not be in office some day and there’s no reason to do business with him.
Under the just-implemented term limitations to the city charter, that reasonable expectation could exist even if a hypothetical councilor in this position served three consecutive terms, because then he could lay out a term and try again (maybe, for example, if previously elected in a district going for at-large, or vice-versa). Even forced out of office temporarily, he would continue to be in a position to curry favor from special interests as a credible elected-official-in-waiting soon to be in a position to carry out their wishes.
By contrast, the stricter version on the upcoming ballot prevents this aggregation of power by an ability to move back into government after being forced out, because with these limits a dozen years is a dozen years. These obviate completely any return to formal power in that previous position, thereby diminishing the cachet an elected official could have in championing, whether public or private, a special interest’s agenda whether that commitment was made when in office.
That’s why a vote for even stronger term limits is desirable. If Bossier Citians want a city whose decisions are the least warped to favor personal interests, if not also prevent this influence over others of their local governments that have some kind of authority over them, they need to vote for the pair of term limits propositions this Saturday.
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