LASC ruling invites U.S. Supreme Court intervention

The Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision regarding a civil matter may end in a monumental First Amendment decision setting a landmark for future jurisprudence in the area.

At issue is the court’s ruling in case #2013-C-2879, which orders a Catholic priest to answer questions potentially about the content of information he heard from a then-minor female five years ago. The girl allegedly was abused sexually, told the priest in confession, who then it is argued did not follow the law. This is relevant to a suit filed by the girl’s family against the family and business of the reputed abuser and, later added as plaintiffs, the Diocese of Baton Rouge and the priest; the alleged abuser died not long after the reputed confessional sessions took place.

Louisiana law generally grants an exception to its mandatory reporting law to clergy when the communication of possible abuse of a minor or other crime comes as part of confidential communication relevant to the performance of a professional duty; in this instance, the sacrament of confession. However, the law (Code of Evidence) also states that the receiver of the communication “shall encourage that person to report the allegations to the appropriate authorities.” Also (Children's Code) stated is that "Notwithstanding any claim of privileged communication, any mandatory reporter who has cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health or welfare is endangered" by alleged conduct has a duty to report.

The suit seeks to discover whether that advice was given and if the priest thought there was endangerment, being that this at best is a judgment call and it's entirely possible the way it was communicated he did not think so. The Court says these may be discovered because it interprets the law to put the locus on what is treated as such communication in the hands of the sender of that communication, and the girl has made public what she said was communicated by both parties in a series of confessional sessions.

Democrats fantasize about Maness saving Landrieu

And so it’s come to this: if one of their leading avatars is indicative, Louisiana Democrats have become so pessimistic regarding Sen. Mary Landrieu’s chances for reelection that they place their faith in Republican candidate Rob Maness.

That comes from an opinion piece written by veteran operative James Carville, who has the honesty to admit in it that he provides aid and comfort to the Landrieu campaign. Not admitted, if he even realizes it, is that he is whistling in the wind like other observers who do not understand the serious trouble in which the campaign finds itself. Bluntly, the data and dynamics present at this time point to Landrieu’s losing.

Which perhaps explains why he mentions, in expounding upon four reasons why the contest should interest the attentive public, this:

GOP without good candidates faces CD 5 going bad

Rep. Vance McAllister, upon announcing a reversal of his previous decision not to run for reelection, in effect forced Democrats to make a decision and threw something into the Republican Party’s punchbowl.

This space being devoted to political analysis, it will eschew the more gossipy speculation about McAllister’s stated primary motivation for the turnaround, that his wife, whom he cuckolded some months ago, told him that the district’s constituents deserved his representation so that he should not unilaterally remove himself from their adulation. No doubt many a journal article will be written by marriage counseling professionals concerning the amazing speed at which this marriage found repair, the need for achieving this being the reason McAllister once gave for eschewing reelection, so that McAllister and his wife once again could tackle the unglamorous, penurious, and empty social life and standing that comes with being a Member of Congress and a spouse of one.

While comparisons between McAllister and Sen. David Vitter will get made in judging McAllister’s chances of success, the accurate ones will note the considerable dissimilarities. Vitter, who admitted to a “serious sin” believe to be consorting with prostitutes, made the announcement many years after the alleged last act, from which time he appeared to have behaved in this department without reproach. It also came after several years of service in Congress that his constituents on the whole found more than satisfactory, and three years before he ran for reelection.

EWE unchanged motives diverge from changed culture

No, Prisoner #03128-095 is not running for redemption and, barring a series of unlikely events, he’s not running to win. He’s running because that’s what he wants to do and what he is, and serves as a marker to the changing Louisiana political culture.

Months ago, when the former Gov. Edwin Edwards, after being a guest of the federal government for 102 months, launched his campaign for Congress, already noted then were his general reasons for running: as an attempt to make people’s last memory of him as a campaigner and politician that invites recounting of his past triumphs instead of as a pathetic felon; to assist Sen. Mary Landrieu’s reelection efforts by boosting turnout for her among his yellow-dog supporters (in theory; possibly this could backfire as those who feel acrimoniously about him may come to vote to levy a form of punishment and also vote disproportionately against her); and to boost his ego by providing another opportunity to treat (as many politicians do) every vote he receives as a sign of adulation for him as a human being. Redemption isn’t relevant; he has neither the wisdom nor self-awareness to accept what he did that got him put away in the slammer was wrong.

Nor should he, his campaign palaver aside, expect to win absent fantastic occurrences, such as making the runoff (probably the most likely do so as the only quality Democrat in the contest) and then having a Republican opponent get caught with a live boy or dead girl. He may whistle into the wind about raising more than a million dollars for the effort, but the only reason might come close is as an indirect means for others to give beyond limits to Landrieu.

Landrieu backup request carries future political risk

What happens on election day this fall may determine whether New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will be on the ballot in 2015, and must in part motivate a decision that easily could backfire to keep him from running for governor next year.

Last week, Landrieu put in a request to the state to supply New Orleans with 100 state troopers to police the city, in response to a horrific seemingly random shooting in the open in the French Quarter that left one dead and several injured. Legally, state policeman have jurisdiction anywhere in the state and Landrieu was taking advantage of a power often invoked by past governors at local officials’ requests. However, given manpower constraints, the state will provide only 50 through Labor Day. This past holiday weekend 30 already were there.

Word that at a major worldwide tourist mecca without warning one could catch a bullet will travel fast, and it doesn’t exactly thrill the residents and workers there that random bullets fly about the area (I used to live just down the block from where it happened), so undoubtedly Landrieu’s action was designed to allay fears of a major industry which contributes mightily to the city’s coffers as well as to constituents. But the event and subsequent request also may have a more political motive, to build support for a tax increase on Orleanians, its path to reality beginning with a statewide referendum this November.

Solar industry fights loss of subsidies with bogus claim

Recipients of Louisiana’s second-biggest transfer of wealth by the state’s tax code, facing their lifelines potentially attenuated even further, are pulling out all the stops to keep utility ratepayers in the state to continue padding their bottom lines.

The last year has not been kind to solar energy system installers in the state. In 2013, the Legislature sunset the absurdly generous tax credit of 50 percent for installation, which when combined with the federal version meant 80 percent of an installation (roughly $25,000 on average residentially) could be paid for. This made installation companies sprout like mushrooms with money that would have gone to the state instead going to purchase their services, for a technology that continues to be low yield for high price.

Wisely, the credit was reduced to 38 percent, but even better it will go out of existence after 2017. This puts companies on notice that they need to be competitive in the market by then, this weaning being the intent of these kinds of credits. Understandably, this has caused a crisis among them, knowing that a lot has to happen in the next 42 months to allow them to become so or else most are going out of business.

Puff piece on LA Medicaid expansion serves poorly

The political alchemy continues coming from Democrats through tactics of distraction and distortion to make the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) not serve as a liability to its midterm election candidates – and, in the case of Louisiana, aided by at least one media outlet.

Yesterday, the Pres. Barack Obama Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers released a document purporting to show the impact of states not accepting expansion of Medicaid, listing how many of the indigent as a result do not have health care coverage, procedures they could receive with it, and alleging that it would create jobs. Louisiana is one of the almost half of all states that have refused to do this.

Naturally, the slanted information produces a cornucopia of omissions and selective use of data, with the last assertion of job creation being the easiest shibboleth to demolish. Theoretically, it fails because the reasoning used – more government spending creates more jobs – would mean then we should proceed immediately to end-stage Soviet communism by eliminating the private sector to achieve full employment and maximal economic growth through making government the only economic producer, and we know well that worked out in practice. The argument also fails analytically because it does not take into account the jobs destroyed by taking more of what people earn that they could use through their own market-based decisions to create wealth and jobs.

Accusers of intolerance toss stones from glass house

So it turns out that a special interest is aggrieved at having a northeast Louisiana family business sponsor the Independence Bowl. Unfortunately, that exemplifies the continued impoverishment of political debate.

Still trucking along approaching four decades, earlier this year the organization inked a new sponsor in the form of the Robertson family’s Duck Commander hunting supply business based in West Monroe, which is featured as part of a reality television show. This came not too long after the founder of the company, Phil Robertson, made some controversial remarks. In essence, he asserted that blacks were happy before the civil rights movement in the 1960s and that homosexual behavior was sinful. Since then, he has reiterated in public several times his belief in the sinful nature of homosexual behavior.

This seemed to be too much for Shreveport’s People Acting for Change and Equality, whose spokeswoman mused publicly whether the Bowl having Duck Commander as its title sponsor (the contract is through 2019) was for the best. PACE lobbies for increased legalization of aspects related to homosexual behavior, such as supporting same sex marriage.

Reform away use of bonus money for operating budget

It’s not so much as how not to run a railroad, to echo the vernacular used by Louisiana’s Treasurer John Kennedy, but in running the railroad better when it comes to using revenues coming from one-time events.

Kennedy made this characterization when releasing information about monies still owed to the state even as the fiscal year was coming to a close. He claimed the amount to be $134 million, out of $413 million derived from property sales, legal settlements, lease payments, loan repayments and other financing arrangements.

Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols reminded that, for accounting purposes, any budgeted money collected prior to Aug. 15 would be credited to fiscal year 2014 completed today. Only then would the state face a shortfall if that didn’t come through. She predicted that, except for money from the sale of Southeast Louisiana Hospital that got delayed and slightly reduced for legal reasons which could be compensated from greater proceeds from an anti-fraud initiative than figured, the other missing funds would come in by then.

Line item vetoes show continued Jindal policy relevance

Even as the need for casting line item vetoes in the mind of Gov. Bobby Jindal seems to have greatly diminished, his treatment of Louisiana’s fiscal year 2015 budget shows he continues with no less enthusiasm to use them when needed that hints maybe a hypothesized inability to influence policy concerning the Legislature seems exaggerated.

The edition of the state’s spending plan drew only eight line item vetoes from Jindal. This contrasts with the 258 from the first one that came his way in 2008, when he had laid out guidelines to govern the funding of nongovernment organizations which many line items didn’t follow. Very quickly legislators got with the program and in recent years most of his vetoes of this kind have come over policy disagreements about what government should fund and where.

One was to close off an attempted carving out of funds for a University of Louisiana at Lafayette organization that didn’t make the final cut, another to axe a favoring of one area New Orleans NGO at the expense of others, and still another was to prevent an apparent sweetheart deal concerning a nursing home that could keep its reimbursement rates higher than otherwise that had germinated in the House Appropriations Committee. But the two most consequential dealt with emergency room reimbursement rates and a continuing feud propagated by a legislator.