Gas tax holiday ultimately makes LA worse off

It’s even possible that Louisiana and its residents might in the short-term benefit from a three-month gas tax holiday as proposed by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and supported by the state’s only congressman from that party, but they surely lose big in the long run.

Biden has asked Congress to knock off the 18.4 cent per gallon federal excise tax temporarily as a means to quell surging gas prices. Nationally, they have about doubled since last spring, and in Louisiana as of this writing average about $4.50 a gallon for regular-grade fuel.

This could make for some good political optics, emanating the appearance of lowered prices at the pump, even as in reality it will do little to alter prices except immediately and briefly . Likely, a substitution effect will occur where demand increases because of the lower price, while supply will not have changed, so prices will rise to compensate. As well, “savings” only incompletely would be passed along the supply chain and the move negates Biden Administration policy fixated on preventing the myth of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming from fruition by increasing the amount of carbon burned into to atmosphere.

Edwards veto zeal invites overrides, power loss

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, like last year, has thrown down the gauntlet. But this time, it might get thrown back at him, and then some.

A few days ago, Edwards released his latest round of vetoes for bills from the recently-concluded regular session of the Legislature. That brought the total to 23 – all but one by Republicans with the remaining one innocuous in nature but done against no party state Rep. Roy Daryl Adams as payback for voting to override the Edwards veto of the state’s reapportioned congressional districts – meaning that before the deadline for veto issuance that comes by the end of the month, the number may surpass last year’s 31.

The past two years have ticked higher in number because Edwards lost much control over the Legislature after 2019 elections and the increasing ideological drift to the left his policy-making has exhibited since after that election he could no longer run for reelection. 2020 didn’t feature much discord because practical issues surrounding combatting the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic dominated proceedings, but since then the Republican majorities in each chamber haven’t been shy about legislating their preferences, with the occasional help of dissenting Democrats or no party/independent members, that stand inimically opposed to his.

Edwards shows use of faith as political stunt

In case any doubts lingered, in his latest announcements about disposition of 2022 Regular session bills Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards officially confirmed, when it comes to matters of public policy, his status as a “cafeteria Catholic” who puts political expediency ahead of giving witness to actual faith.

That term refers to someone who calls himself Catholic yet picks and chooses which parts of his faith to which to adhere. It’s widely considered that it’s tough for a practicing Catholic not to act this way; for example, despite the Church’s teaching that any contraceptive method not natural (except in extraordinary circumstances) violates God’s law, one poll a few years back revealed only 8 percent of people who identified as Catholics deemed artificial birth control as morally objectionable.

It's not for anybody to cast scarlet letters on others to castigate them on their supposed infidelities to their religious beliefs; that’s reserved to God and His mercy to offenders is endless in any event. People have enough trouble looking out for their own souls and, beyond bearing witness to their faith as best they can, have no time left over to intrude uninvited into others’ lives over such matters.

Bogus claim fueled unwise teacher pay hike

The argument used to justify granting pay raises for Louisiana teachers as well as making it easier for some retired teachers to double-dip, a shortage, statistics shows is at best specious.

The just-concluded regular session of the Louisiana Legislature featured a number of bills to combat the presumed shortage. Principally, a $1,500 average pay raise went to educators in the public schools, and a new law allows rehiring of former teachers where there exists a “critical shortage,” with some able to keep their entire pensions paying out during their temporary contracts.

Lawmaker after lawmaker emphasized these items addressed a situation where too few teachers chased too many students, requiring too many substitutes or teaching not in areas of certification. Some, along with Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, wanted $500 more thrown in, all to ameliorate the presumed shortage.

RINO Bernard opts out, ushers in Seabaugh

What could have set up as the most controversial state Senate race for 2023 essentially ended earlier this week with evaporation of any drama from the almost-simultaneous announcements of the coming retirement of Republican state Sen. Louie Bernard and candidacy of GOP state Rep. Alan Seabaugh.

Reapportionment threw the term-limited Seabaugh into what will become District 31, which will extend over 10 parishes but mainly takes in populations in small portions of southern Caddo and Bossier Parishes, all of Sabine Parish, and most of Natchitoches Parish. Only the last at present is in the district, which will lose its foothold in much of Rapides Parish, with parts of DeSoto, Webster and Bienville added as well to shift the locus of the district north.

This put Bernard on thin electoral ice with the campaign-experienced Seabaugh looking to extend his legislative career in a district whose northern portion with a plurality of voters already has great familiarity with him and his political allies. Within the past couple of years not only did he win reelection comfortably but also allies of his won offices as varied as judicial, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and in Bossier City.

LA reapportionment Hail Mary to change nothing

The dog-and-pony show continues over the use of raw judicial power to force Louisiana to adopt two instead of one majority-minority districts for its six congressional districts starting next year, against which Republicans must hold firm.

Understand that’s all it is, as a consequence of a Hail Mary attempt by the political left to create an environment where it likely could win two rather than one House of Representative seats in the state. Emboldened by the decision of a rogue federal judge, the Louisiana Middle District’s Shelly Dick, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards called the Legislature into special session after she ruled the state had to adopt a two M/M plan, as opposed to the one M/M plan passed by the Legislature over Edwards’ veto in a special session earlier this year.

The adopted plan in concept is similar to one in the state of Alabama, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled would go forward while it would review a suit against it next year. That would address the heart of Dick’s ruling that delivers an unprecedented and ahistorical interpretation that a state’s proportion of congressional M/M districts roughly must match the proportion of black population in it, with the Court making it very clear that it would not rush matters in making its constitutional determination as Dick has done.

Corporate welfare for LA newspapers continues

Another year, another serving of taxpayer paid-for and wasted welfare to Louisiana newspapers is the answer to one Bossier City Council member’s inquiry.

At last week’s meeting, Republican Councilor David Montgomery asked, when it and other governing authorities across the state do this time of year, upon the Council taking up naming an official journal for the coming year whether something could be done about reducing the expense associated with that. Council Clerk Phyllis McGraw said the city spent at least $25,000 annually in legal notices, which she said duplicates what the city puts online. She also spoke that if there were newspapers in an area then these had to appear in one or more of these, which then made the city hostage to their publication deadlines for referrals.

Well, to answer his question, on almost an annual basis for the past several years legislators have brought bills to remove the requirement to publish, in whole or part, in a newspaper a jurisdiction’s public notices. A number of states have broadened eligibility to allow an online format published by nongovernment entities, but recently Florida became the first state to allow bypass of that entirely by allowing governments in larger-populated counties with impunity to publish notices solely through their own websites, while those with lower populations must demonstrate they can do so without unduly impeding public access before being able to avoid use of newspaper publishing of these.

BC at-large system not broken, no need to fix

There’s no good reason for Bossier City to change its present City Council district arrangement of five single-member and two at-large districts.

Months ago, the Bossier City/Parish NAACP chapter began a campaign to initiate a charter change that would create seven single-member districts. Under this organization, demographics and reapportionment principles suggest that two minority – black – candidates could win Council seats, whereas under the current organization with a single majority-minority district historically only that district has elected a black councilor. According to the 2020 census, Bossier City has a black proportion of the population of 31 percent.

(Although not necessarily would a seven single-member district system elect two blacks, assuming blacks almost universally would vote for a black candidate. Demographer and Louisiana State University Shreveport history Prof. Gary Joiner in his plan along those lines presented to the Council couldn’t carve out two M/M districts. The best he could do was one district 58 percent black and another 46 percent black, 30 percent white, 15 percent Hispanic, and the remainder other or mixed races.)

Only veto may save mugshot-reliant newspapers

Instead of better, things got worse for a small number of Louisiana newspapers to the point they now must depend upon Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards for relief.

When it started out, HB 729 by Democrat state Rep. Royce Duplessis wouldn’t have affected many newspapers in the state. Originally, it would have forbidden law enforcement officials from disseminating booking photos of arrestees to publications believed mainly to derive their revenues from publishing these and that charged fees to have these removed from their web sites, except of fugitives.

While some national sites operate in this fashion that don’t really depend upon advertisements or subscriptions for revenues but instead money to make them go away out of a person’s life – making no exceptions for those not found guilty on the charge – in Louisiana typically are publications like Monroe’s Justified Newspaper, which runs only mugshots but doesn’t charge for removal because it doesn’t remove these, or Shreveport’s The Inquisitor/FocusSB, which runs other unrelated content and doesn’t derive revenue directly from publishing such photos.

Predictable decision sets up plan checkmate

Looks like that legalistic Hail Mary pass tossed by leftist special interests concerning Louisiana’s new congressional districts isn’t going to come up a winner, no matter what happens from here.

After a rogue district judge, against the run of judicial play, from Louisiana’s Middle District Shelly Dick struck down the state’s recent such reapportionment because its proportion of majority-minority districts didn’t match the proportion of black population in the state, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel predictably stayed the order. It then set a Jun. 14 deadline to decide whether to make the stay permanent.

Entirely predictable, because four months ago the U.S. Supreme Court handled an almost identical case from Alabama by putting a permanent injunction in place. It did so because a majority wanted to review the case in thorough fashion and wouldn’t do at the time because, according to the Purcell legal doctrine, election deadlines loomed too large to make that possible. In that instance, qualifying for the offices was just about to commence for the primary elections.