Landry puts leftist business-as-usual on notice

That crash you heard was Republican Gov. Jeff Landry throwing a brick through the plate glass window of business-as-usual leftist populism infecting Louisiana public policy. And not a moment too soon.

Landry gave the state a head start in knowing some of his policy priorities of when projected inclement weather bumped up his inauguration a day early (although he would not officially take the reins for another 19 hours). In his subsequent speech, he made clear he would come after certain orthodoxies underpinning policy of his predecessor Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and allies.

His overall theme – Louisiana as home, but welcoming back those who had departed it for presumably greener pastures – pulled back the curtain on what was to come: leaving implied things were wrong with the state that could be fixed. He gave in the first part a paean to Louisianans, interspersed with hints of what was to come with assertions that government was not to “disenfranchise” people nor to be driven by divisive elite interests, and spoke of a need to “repair and reform” government.

Third time charmed to bury LA's liberal populism

Louisiana was at this same spot 16 years ago. We don’t need to return to it a third time.

There was much optimism then as Republican Rep. Bobby Jindal prepared to take the oath of office as governor. He had said a lot of great things in his campaign and swamped the field, with the promise that he could make a definitive break from the state’s dying corpse of a liberal populist political culture, unlike the outcome of the only previous semi-serious attempt, the governorship of Republican Buddy Roemer.

In retrospect, it was too much to expect. Jindal had won as much for his agenda as he had as a reaction to botched administration, as well as inferior policy-making, by Democrat Kathleen Blanco. And he did do as he said, making government smarter, as well as deliver on ethics and education (and to a lesser degree civil service) reform and on income tax cuts.

Bossier govts violate comment law; some worse

Bossier City didn’t quite get right new transparency requirements required under state law. And other parish governing authorities haven’t even tried, in violation of that law, while some of those others have violated a different but related law for over a decade.

Last year, the Louisiana Legislature passed what would become Act 393 of 2023, effective last Aug. 1. This mandated for most state government boards and all local plenary governing authorities that they broaden their capacities for people with disabilities or their caregivers for direct participation in most meetings of those bodies, including those appointed or elected to such bodies.

The new law covers a lot so perhaps it’s no accident that Bossier City didn’t get around to changing its rules for compliance until its first meeting of this year, in conjunction with a change to its meeting dates. The new policy adopted enables both councilors and potential participants to participate remotely if the former “provide[s] a medical certification of disability on forms provided by the City Clerk” and the latter “complete[s] an application for remote participation and provide a medical certification of disability on forms provided by the City Clerk.”

Supreme Court squabble solved best by expansion

Partisan, racial, and electoral politics have all come into focus over membership on the Louisiana Supreme Court, as conflict bubbling behind the scenes over the past few years has burst into open struggle among the justices – begging old wine in a new bottle from incoming governor Rep. Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry.

Last month, most Louisiana Supreme Court members signed onto a request for the Louisiana Legislature to take up its reapportionment soon. The Legislature almost certainly will be called into special session in fewer than two weeks by Landry to deal with an unrelated and court-forced reapportionment matter.

The Court hasn’t been reapportioned since 1999 when it was rejiggered to create a minority-majority district among eight. Constitutionally, states who elect judges aren’t required to reapportion on the basis of population because judiciary are not considered to be majoritarian organs of government making policy as they confine themselves to adjudication, although a languishing long-shot suit trying to reverse that in Louisiana remains pending.

BC Council needs resolution not to act illegally

It’s nothing new for Bossier City to make end runs around the law to accomplish what a handful of governing elites want. But at the first City Council meeting of the year it’s unusually ambitious in its attempts both to tempt constitutional fates over public expression and, yet again, violate its own charter and ordinances.

Already this year a Council majority has brought infamy onto itself by rejecting a charter imperative – all of Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby on multiple occasions – to schedule a pair of ballot items on term limits for elected officials, resulting from certified petitions following charter guidelines. It also managed to get itself sued over conduct relating to restrictions on public comment at meetings and attempted secret meetings.

Part of that suit addresses behavior under the existing rules for comments, but another part asks to have the entire set declared unconstitutional because it is overly restrictive. Existing jurisprudence suggests that those rules are on thin constitutional ice, and certainly leave much room for patently unconstitutional behavior in their application.

Court clears race redo likely favoring Whitehorn

In Louisiana politics this year, perhaps the only thing more inevitable than a Republican Jeff Landry gubernatorial victory was the Louisiana Supreme Court denying an appeal of lower courts’ decisions rerunning the Caddo Parish sheriff’s contest. By contrast, successfully picking a winner in the Mar. 23 faceoff is very much evitable, an exercise that will be determined more by forces outside of the contest than the campaigning and dynamics within the parish.

After the Nov. 18 runoff, Democrat former Shreveport police chief and chief administrative officer Henry Whitehorn led Republican former city councilor John Nickelson by a single vote. However, a district court found enough irregularities under law to order another election, and the Second Circuit agreed. This week, the Louisiana Supreme Court ratified that with its action.

Given the undisputable proof and wording of Louisiana law, as was the case with the appellate court. the only real question was whether the non-Republicans on the Court would try to bring the matter to a potential reversal. Once again, they tried. Democrat Assoc. Justice Piper Griffin voted to hear and in a dissent essentially repeated the same objections made by the dissenters at the appellate level: elections with illegal ballots have these sanitized into legal ones if the unrealistic laws in place to challenge these can’t be followed. No party Chief Justice John Weimer provided a further rationale in his for empowering tainted election results and dispensing with common sense by saying procedures to overturn certified election results should be onerous, if not unworkable, such was the sanctity of the process compared to the desirability of judicial intervention.

Arguments which Republican Assoc. Justice James Genovese easily slew in his concurring opinion:

In a two-candidate race, the mere fact that one candidate ends up with one or more votes than his opponent, without regard or consideration given to proven fraud and unqualified voters casting ballots, does not equate to a just and fair election under our law and jurisprudence. A just and fair election can only be had when one candidate wins by a majority vote of qualified electors ….

… this election was not a free and fair election. A one-vote margin of victory supported by clearly established eleven unqualified voters cannot be said to constitute a fair election.

What is fair and essential to the candidates and the electorate, and to preserve election integrity, is to have a new runoff election with a winner decided by qualified voters.

As clear-cut as the case for a new election was, who will win is anything but. The date is significant in that it will coincide with the state’s presidential preference primaries, which for both parties will come later rather than sooner in the national delegate-collection process.

This means the most likely outcome of that process would be both nominees – almost certainly Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and Republican former Pres. Donald Trump – mathematically will have been decided by then, leaving little on the ballot to generate enthusiasm for the mass public and lowering turnout for all partisans. The next most likely scenario is that Biden has things wrapped up, but that Trump still hasn’t sealed the deal although it may be only a matter of time. Less likely still is neither has unassailable leads, and the least of all that Trump has secured the nomination but Biden hasn’t.

Reviewing the general and runoff elections this fall, Nickelson did better the higher the turnout. Reviewing those turnout figures with past Louisiana presidential preference primary turnouts under the varying competitive environments, this means if the GOP’s nomination remains in doubt, he will have the edge; otherwise, Whitehorn likely does, all things equal.

Money initially seems to be. Nickelson plunked down $565,000 throughout but held only $16,000 at year’s end. Whitehorn spent only $140,000 and raised nothing after the general election, but has $50,000 banked. Nickelson likely can outraise Whitehorn, but the latter seems to be able to gather enough to offset the former’s advantage.

Yet Whitehorn has a better rallying cry to mobilize partisans, regardless of exogenous turnout factors or money. Look for his campaign to trot out some version of he was robbed of a win, coupled with the race card played in some diluted version that stands the best chance of mobilizing his largely black voting base. Note that as soon as the news of the Court’s declination came out, he began going very negatively against Nickelson and his supposedly favored treatment by the courts, and earlier he alleged, using a racial dog whistle, that prospective voters in the runoff supporting him needed to vote “Because Your Life May Depend Upon It.”

It may well work. Excepting that one scenario where the GOP presidential nomination remains somewhat competitive, the turnout cards are held by Whitehorn. Nickleson will have to come up with an excellent strategy to outplay those.

Reverse sentencing subversion to deter murder

Life in prison doesn’t mean life in prison in Louisiana, even for murder. Given the current state of capital punishment in America, this translates into more heinous criminal activity and is something incoming governor Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry and Legislature need to fix.

Just before Christmas, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards commuted the sentences of 40 murderers. This requires four of five votes from the Board of Pardons prior to that choice and has the practical effect of allowing out of prison people sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, in essence making a mockery out of the original sentence specifically but more generally eroding the deterrent effect of that punishment for first and second degree murder on the incidence of commission of homicide.

In recent years with Edwards at the helm and with the chance to appoint or reappoint members to the Board, who serve four-year terms concurrent with the governor, it has tilted more and more towards granting commutations and for murderers. Excepting 2020 when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic limited activity, Board approval of commutations and gubernatorial approvals have increased steadily. Most notably, reviewing the more than 50 years sentenced category of commutations which is murderers, he commuted only 17 in his first term and none in 2018 the year before his attempted reelection, whereupon his commutations in this category skyrocketed to 28, 12, 49, and at least 40 this year once he had achieved reelection and became term limited.

Edwards legacy may moot LA Congress map tussle

Maybe all the controversy over reapportioning Louisiana’s congressional districts will become moot by the end of the decade, the latest national apportionment data suggest – which also increases the urgency of the incoming governor Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry to turn around the more than 100,000 population loss suffered under current Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Currently, the state is locked in a legal battle with special interests challenging the state’s last reapportionment. In a state where almost a third of the population identifies with at least some black ancestry, only one out of six Congressional districts has a majority-minority composition. Plaintiffs argue there should be two, and with some legal backing to their side the process continues that for now rests in the hands of the state but which could be decided by the federal judiciary.

But whatever comes from this, which likely won’t confirm the present map or rely on a new until 2026, it may then only apply for that and the next two elections. Because according to a group researching reapportionment, after 2030 Louisiana may be entitled only to five seats in the House of Representatives.

Set rates to curb BC property tax hike temptation

Not only will the start of 2024 greet Bossier City with a decision whether and how to extend the city’s public-private partnership with Manchac Consulting, but also a chance to signal to a beleaguered citizenry that holds taxing decision-making power that its days of splurging on questionable spending priorities are over and the consequences mitigated.

Until recently for two decades, an out-of-control City Council majority, aided by past mayors, spent several hundred million dollars, with a couple hundred million of that – on a money-losing arena, a parking garage for a landlord that went into receivership, on a high-tech office building that never lived up to inflated promises, on a road to nowhere, and for other less grandiose schemes – going to what charitably might be called questionable priorities, but perhaps more realistically can be described as wasted and unneeded. Debt owed at the end of 2022 was almost $435 million and has left residents with the highest per capita debt of any city in Louisiana at just under $7,000 each.

Operating monies as well show a pattern of dubious use. Besides the Manchac contract, the city subsidizes tennis playing and out-of-towner use of parks at residents’ expense. And a new hybrid, potentially giving away to the Port of Caddo-Bossier a water distribution facility unless an unlikely chain of events occurs to compensate fully the city, is an unforced error looming over the city for decades to come. Meanwhile, many city employees can’t receive pay raises in an era of higher inflation, or retired firefighters get stiffed on the city contributing to their health insurance premiums due to overbearing debt and poor current spending choices.

Christmas, 2023

This column publishes every Monday through Friday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Monday, Dec. 25 being Christmas Day, I invite you to explore this link.