LA hasn't plague of locusts, but of pessimism

Louisiana doesn’t suffer from the plague of locusts realignment theory, but from a plague of pessimism that poses a challenge its Republican majority must address.

Looking back at a midterm election that broke decades-old reliable modelling of partisan outcomes, one hypothesis to explain focuses on the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic’s tendency to have some individuals, argued disproportionately likely to vote for Democrats, move from areas with surplus Democrats to those with a relative paucity, in order to escape restrictions typically imposed more heavily in states run by Democrats.

A corollary to this not so event-specific is that policies, such as higher taxation and more wasteful spending and transfer payments, in Democrat-run states increasingly burden individuals, particularly those producing more economic benefits for society, so to escape these some people – including especially those who ironically backed politicians that delivered those very policies they now seek to avoid the consequences of – move to places without such policies. More bluntly, that subset are locusts who degraded their former environment now taking wing to more pristine ones to do the same if they can help it. After all, they and their families always can move on while the less advantaged stuck there have to suffer their damage.

Attack ad volley won't alter Tarver path to win

Unsurprisingly and inevitably, first one then the other shoe dropped in Shreveport’s mayor race, muddying up a contest the candidates had kept clean while leaving its trajectory essentially unchanged.

Last week, a radio ad began circulating on stations with larger proportions of black listeners that highlighted Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver’s past marital difficulties. It claimed his first two spouses accused him of abuse, and that one shot him “to save her own life.” That may be conjecture; what we do know publicly is nearly 35 years ago after returning from a legislative session Tarver entered his residence where his second wife was and a short while later exited with gunshot wounds. No charges ever were filed but a divorce was not long after, followed by his marriage to his third and present wife.

Upon this surfacing, Tarver alleged runoff opponent Republican Tom Arceneaux had leverage over their appearance. Apparently, a group called Watchdog PAC LLC had produced it, which Tarver said also had produced attack ads on behalf of vanquished candidate Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins prior to the general election. Contrary to statute that requires any entity spending at least $500 in an election cycle that, among other things, opposed a candidate to register with the state and to produce donation and expenditure reports, while a similarly-named political action committee run by a longtime Republican political operative registered with the state through 2017, this group isn’t currently registered.

Clearer still, Edwards virus policy cost lives

If only Louisiana’s political culture had been different and Democrat John Bel Edwards not been governor, a significant portion of Louisianans might be alive today who perished in the first almost two years of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

The first point is being made even as I write and you read this. In communist China, its typically servile population has taken to the streets to protest government attempts to impose harsh lockdowns in a futile attempt to bring the zero Covid fantasy to life. Although official government reporting of virus statistics is highly suspect on this issue, a recent wave of infections prompted the reaction, which unlike in the past the populace seems willing to challenge.

At one time, early in the pandemic Louisiana had restrictions almost as virile. Edwards and most state governors issued orders that didn’t entirely stop movement and commercial relations, but did substantially restrict activities in public for what was considered nonessential for a few weeks, justifying this by arguing it would allow public health authorities time to get ahead of the virus to stamp it out.

Lower income taxation may bring sports winners

As a recent blockbuster baseball deal showed, Louisiana legislators in the midst of studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system might want to consider rearranging things to boost sports performances that in turn could increase state and local tax revenues.

The Texas Rangers last week landed baseball’s best pitcher (when healthy) Jacob deGrom in free agency with a five-year, $185 million deal. When reviewing details of the deal, a major consideration why the Rangers outbid other clubs for his services was no state income tax in Texas. If the Lone Star State had the same tax system as the Bayou State, that deal to deGrom would have been worth (without any manipulations for tax avoidance) almost $4 million fewer (major leaguers nationwide are taxed half on their home state/country, the other half on the various state/country tax laws where they visit to play road games).

Legislators have met this fall to gather information on tax system reform, with many in the body articulating that a rate reduction, if not abolishment, of individual income taxation should be up to the plate. Among its neighbors, Texas and Tennessee have no state income tax, Mississippi has cut its recently and its governor wants elimination of it next year, and Arkansas and Oklahoma have joined Louisiana in recent reductions.

BC no bid fixation to grift taxpayers again

This week, the Bossier City Council seems poised to offer up another sweetheart deal to public works contractor Manchac Consulting Group and to deliver the sucker punch to taxpayers telegraphed weeks ago when it renewed a deal for a facility hardly any citizens use.

With the backing of Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler, the Council will consider dipping into its anything-goes debt-fueled slush fund to spend $1.5 million on new tennis courts at the city’s Bossier Tennis Center. Fewer than three months ago it approved a no-bid three-year contract renewal at $36,000 annually for a company run by longtime center tennis professional Todd Killen to operate it, which obligates him to make a few kinds of service provision but lets him rake off whatever revenues he otherwise can gather, without his having to make any capital expenses.

At the time, in particular GOP Councilor Chris Smith voiced concern about that kind of arrangement, musing that rethinking the deal, or even city ownership of the facility, might make sense especially because the bargain didn’t set aside some of the revenues an operator could keep for future capital expenses. He was ignored, and now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Edwards pandemic policies cost youngest readers

The wages of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ overly-oppressive Wuhan coronavirus pandemic policy continue to accumulate, this time at the expense of the youngest children.

This week, the Louisiana Department of Education released its annual Reading Report, which evaluates reading ability for children in kindergarten through third grade. While the older children made gains, the youngest showed a decline. Superintendent Cade Brumley fingered a pandemic policy that effectively caused closure of early learning centers and face covering mandates that may have delayed speech development and language acquisition.

Both conditions Edwards needlessly foisted onto families. Actually, very early in the pandemic while schools exited in-person instruction in the last two months of the spring, 2020 semester, many centers remained open. The problems began when Edwards didn’t lift commercial restrictions and then imposed masking that summer and kept these in place far too long, becoming one of the last states to ditch such policies two years later even as considerably earlier the relative lack of efficacy of restrictive policies had become apparent.

DeSoto jurors must scrap unconstitutional plan

For those hollering about Louisiana’s reapportionment over the past several months, the shoe now is on the other foot in DeSoto Parish.

This week, aggrieved residents notified the parish’s Police Jury that unless it reconsidered its reapportionment within two weeks they would file an injunction to prevent its reapportionment, decided at its Apr. 18 meeting, from going forward. They alleged the jurors drew districts that substantially didn’t have equal populations, violating a 10 percent deviation standard (the highest and lowest being over 17 percent apart) which intentionally awarded more representation to the parish’s largest municipality at the expense of the parish’s northern part.

As a result, the Jury will address the topic at its meeting next week. It very well should, for the citizens have an excellent case, starting with the obvious 10+ percent spread. That isn’t an absolute standard, but to go beyond that limit requires some compelling reasons that don’t appear to apply.

Dueling endorsements maintain Tarver advantage

Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver, in a runoff for Shreveport mayor, should hope that his latest association with a politician named Edwards works out better than it did a quarter of a century ago.

Tuesday, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards appeared at a news conference to endorse Tarver for the city’s top job, with the election coming on Dec. 10. Tarver pretty consistently has backed Edwards’ agenda, perhaps most controversially when he voted to uphold a veto Edwards cast against a bill that would have promoted competition fairness in women’s sports by not allowing biological males to compete in those, but which the year later passed into law with Tarver’s support and Edwards’ refusal to sign.

Tarver’s last experience with Prisoner #03128-095, formerly known as Democrat Gov. Edwin Edwards, for him turned out less satisfactorily. That Edwards earned his new moniker at the same trial that exonerated Tarver on similar corruption charges, after which Tarver didn’t run for reelection, sitting out for eight years before regaining office in 2011.

Legislature must excise favoritism scholarships

Bad enough that in general academia increasingly has become immersed in politics replacing scholarship and learning. Worse, in Louisiana politics still drives too much even basic decisions in the realm of academia, a condition that should be eliminated recently illuminated by another example of unethical behavior.

The politicized nature of Louisiana higher education is well known, with Louisiana State University alone the scene of attempts to suppress free speech of students, of faculty members, and giving athletics the run of the place. But politicians and their appointees also intervene in the more mundane aspects of administration in order to convert power into favoritism, with former LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans Chancellor Larry Hollier having been revealed as a crass practitioner of this.

An internal investigation last year revealed Hollier intervened to help arrange scholarships for each of his grandsons and thousands of dollars in awards for his grandson’s girlfriend. Hollier denied giving them any assistance and remains a faculty member with a salary in the half million-dollar range after having served in the top spot from 2005-21. He left that abruptly amid charges he pushed for improper pay bumps for his inner circle, underpaid women, and violated the university’s policies while hiring and firing people, as another report indicated.

Fiscal crisis looms for high-tax Bossier schools

Over the past four years, things deteriorated for the high-tax, burgeoning-deficit, above average-performing Bossier Parish School District. That recent elections returned largely the same cast of School Board members calls into question whether the situation will improve any time soon.

Only two new faces will grace the Board when it convenes in the near future, although one of the remaining ten joined only last year and was the only one to face a reelection challenge, and another newcomer slid in unopposed. In essence, nine incumbents sailed back into office without opposition despite some uninspiring data concerning their policy-making.

On the performance side, in academic year 2018 Bossier schools ranked 21^st out of 70 in the state with a district performance score of 82.8 (state average: 76.1) or graded “B.” Last AY, the district jumped to 11^th out of 64 (Lafourche, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, and Terrebonne didn’t report; four ranked ahead of Bossier in AY 2018) with a score of 86.4 (state average: 77.1). Both in an absolute sense and relative sense, there was minor improvement.