Even in situations where electoral politics literally
should stop at the water’s edge, their appearance seem inevitable, as events
surrounding a curfew in East Baton Rouge Parish indicate.
Earlier this week, EBR Sheriff Sid Gautreaux issued one that
looks to last only briefly, after law enforcement made scattered arrests for
looting consequent to the flood disaster soaking the parish. This imposition elicited complaints from both businesses disproportionately
affected by shutting down commerce early and politicians claiming to look out
for the public’s ability to engage in it and for business owners and employees
to earn money off of it. In at least one case, both views found representation
when Metro Councilman John Delgado penned
an open letter to Gautreaux asking him to lift the curfew.
Delgado owns several nightclubs and later said the
order closed down a large number of establishments like his, grocery stores,
and gas stations (perhaps more to the point, convenience stores that sell
gasoline), making it an overblown reaction to few reports of looting. In
reality, the 10 PM deadline would affect few grocery stores or any other
businesses except bars and convenience stores, so the vast majority of
commercial enterprises remained unaffected.
The good news is state and local government handled
well the recent
catastrophic flooding in and around Baton Rouge and Acadiana. The bad news will
entail paying for it all in a precarious fiscal environment where politics
surely will rear its head.
State and local agencies, aided by citizen
volunteers, worked commendably to rescue, evacuate, and provide shelter and
provisions to those affected by the disaster. Compared to the dysfunctional
responses by the state and New Orleans concerning the hurricane disasters of
2005, state and local governments have learned lessons. In this kind of situation,
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards showed much more of the cool resolve of his Republican
predecessor former Gov. Bobby
Jindal than the flustered response of his Democrat predecessor and current
appointee former Gov. Kathleen
Blanco.
But politics seem destined to enter the fray over
who pays what. While about a third of the state’s parishes eventually expect to
become eligible for federal disaster relief funds, almost certainly state and
local governments will have to pay some costs. Federal regulation permits
the executive branch to reduce three-fifths of the 25 percent match by state government
provided that the total cost, in Louisiana’s case, exceeds around $579 million
(although some spending in the first ten days of the declared disaster may
receive full reimbursement). Even if substantial, projected costs unlikely will
turn out that high, leaving the state on the hook for tens of millions of
dollars.
There’s nothing like leading
from behind, as a number of Louisiana Democrats have demonstrated in the
month since the party’s state Sen. Troy
Brown racked up his second violence charge in well less than a year. Why
belated remonstrations against his behavior only now have started to surface
provides a lesson in partisan politics and absent leadership.
His initial arrest came last November concerning striking
a woman apparently his mistress. He claimed then that he remembered nothing of
the episode due to the after-effects of a car accident a quarter-century ago.
Neither his legal difficulties nor his admission of cognitive impairment his
Democrat colleagues then found troubling enough to conclude that he could not
represent his constituents – as he had done already for four years, having just
secured reelection – which would entail his resignation from office.
Then last month, not long after the marathon
legislative sessions of 2016 had concluded, he reputedly went primal on his
wife with family present, allegedly biting her. During the session, his
Democrat colleagues, including Gov. John Bel Edwards and
state party officials, self-righteously
if not hypocritically found time to criticize a Republican state legislator who
could not tell a joke to save his life that only served to objectify women. But
after Brown’s second run-in with the law, once again they lost their voices.
In the complicated world of campaign finance
reporting, policy becomes unhelpful if misunderstanding the purpose of that
disclosure in the first place.
In a piece
that explicates recent campaign decisions made by front-running U.S. Senate
candidate Republican Treasurer John
Kennedy, independent journalist Jeremy Alford notes that Kennedy a huge
amount of money from his state campaign account to a political action committee
active in electing Senate candidates. This PAC presumably will spend on behalf
of Kennedy this election cycle, but Alford points out that state reporting
requirements, as 2016 is not a statewide election year, will not reflect the
transaction from Kennedy’s account until the filing of annual reports due in
early 2017.
Alford doesn’t like that lag and therefore
proposes changing state law to require at least quarterly reporting in
non-election years. Not only does federal law require that of active federal candidates
and officeholders, but many
states also do that and often even more, such as mandating monthly
reporting.
That the cause
of elections integrity has suffered setbacks in some states in recent weeks
does not mean that Louisiana should not do more to strengthen its semi-lax laws
regarding voting.
Of course, recent judicial interventions
overturning state laws requiring forms of photo identification to vote, done largely
at the hands of appointees of White House Democrats and who tend to liberal
jurisprudence, represent a political strategy. By hoping to push these cases
into the Supreme Court next year, now equally balanced between justices who
make decisions on the bases of activism and of constructionism, in counting
upon a leftist jurist to replace the vacancy of the late Assoc. Justice Antonin
Scalia they hope to find a way to create a court to invalidate such
requirements. The left believes by degrading elections integrity it will gain
an electoral advantage as non-citizens and less-informed citizens who would be
less likely to make the effort to acquire photo identification typically are
more manipulable and more
prone to identifying as Democrats.
Scalia, probably the most brilliant member of the
Court over the past several decades, probably would have applauded the dissent
in the highest profile of these cases, Veasey V.
Abbott heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which pointed out
the majority’s politicized assumption that strict identification laws
automatically connoted discriminatory intent. The problem is activist judges
routinely commit such errors in pursuit of a political agenda, and his
replacement if of that sentiment likely would send the entire Court in that
direction on this and many other issues.
That giant sucking sound you heard came from film
industry locusts extracting money from Louisiana’s taxpayers. But after that
happened, a model for the future of the state’s Motion Picture Investor Film
Credit had
its debut recently in Shreveport.
In less than a month from the Jul. 1 reinstitution
of the state’s buying back of these tax credits, the amount eligible, $239
million, got vacuumed up by largely nonresidents. Program reforms put a
moratorium on the state’s repurchase, 85 cents on the buck, for the previous
fiscal year. Relatively low demand for this break’s use against state income
taxes meant only $121 million got applied against each fiscal year’s $180
million cap, so that amount left over rolled into this year’s.
This starkly reveals the program’s past use: as a
tool to siphon taxpayer dollars into financing the making of movies in a
one-off fashion, contrary to policy-makers’ intent that it serve as an
incentive to develop a homegrown filmmaking infrastructure. Otherwise, more use
against taxes and less as transfer payments would occur.
The hair-splitting in Louisiana’s U.S. Senate
contest continues
its exponential growth, providing a clear indicator of all but one
candidate’s insecurities in making it to the inevitable general election
runoff.
With two dozen candidates on offer and perhaps
with 10 who actually can affect the outcome of the race, the scramble to get in
the runoff has all but one of them desperately searching for issues by which to
differentiate themselves positively to voters. Only Republican state Treas. John Kennedy, universally indicated in
polls as having a hefty lead over all comers, had abjured from this approach.
It began almost three months ago when Republican
Rep. John Fleming sent
out a press release accusing fellow GOP House member Charles Boustany of promoting higher
taxes and insufficient zeal against social engineering supported by Democrat Pres.
Barack Obama.
Focusing on one bill, H.R.
5055, Fleming contrasted his votes concerning it with Boustany’s.
As Louisiana looks to create a more fiscally-sound
budget, a welcome review of the scope and role of state parks should bring focus
to policy options that fulfill appropriately the function of government yet do
not forget the public service aspect.
With state revenues having difficulty in keeping
up with spending, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser
and officials dealing with parks, part of his portfolio as the state’s
second-ranked executive, have investigated
a number of ideas to draw in more and more stable receipts to fund
Louisiana’s 32 parks and historic sites. Among others things, hikes in entry
fees and rentals and awarding naming rights have come under study.
To save money, Nungesser’s predecessor, now
Commissioner of Administration, Jay Dardenne removed
personnel from lightly-visited historical sites, mostly war-related, but no
parks have closed for fiscal reasons. In fact, from fiscal year 2008, parks
have seen their budget increase from $33 million
to $35
million, so the expenditure side has driven the monetary pinch that parks
now experience.
