Early data signaling even lower LA rates to come

Early hopeful signs concerning vehicle insurance costs for Louisianans might escalate, data from elsewhere portend.

With the end of the roadblock that was the pro-trial lawyer Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards upon his leaving office at the start of 2024, that year and last year the Republican legislative supermajorities and GOP Gov. Jeff Landry got busy with meaningful tort reform. Those supermajorities hardly breached the Edwards firewall protecting a legal system designed to disproportionately shovel money to trial lawyers, but Landry proved far more accommodating in ushering in agenda that has chipped away at this archaic edifice, with the assistance of Republican Insurance Secretary Tim Temple (although the two came to loggerheads sometimes with Temple wanting to push the pace faster than did Landry).

Given a fair amount of lifting over the past couple of years in the books, 2026 will look to be much quieter for insurance changes as a period of digestion seems in order. Yet already it appears fruits of this labor are accruing to consumers. Amid a half-dozen announced insurer average rate reductions since the start of 2025, pushing down the overall statewide average personal vehicle rate a calculated three percent, more dramatic changes could enjoy a pause, as results from similar legislation enacted in Florida show.

Bossier Jury makes excuses rather than follow law

It would be so easy to defuse the controversy if the Bossier Parish Police Jury would just do a few easy, simple things to follow the law.

Jurors apparently were not pleased with a recent post here (remarks reiterating that also were delivered during public comment period at the Jan. 14 Jury meeting) that pointed out deficiencies in it following the law concerning the parish’s Library Board of Control. In at least five ways, the Jury violates the law in the composition and operation — really, non-operation — of the Board.

In response, the Jury dispatched the 26^th Judicial District assistant district attorney seconded to it for its legal affairs Patrick Jackson to defend it in print. The effort fell flat, as the rejoinder didn’t address the Jury’s actions required under law but merely tried to provide justification for the Jury to operate as the Board given past Board actions that jurors alleged were insufficient.

Letlow enters Senate field in pole position

So, here we go. Republican Rep. Julia Letlow has entered the Senate race, and that entrance reverberates throughout Louisiana’s political environment putting her, for the moment, in the catbird seat.

She can be quite competitive. One lingering question has been whether jumping in nearing the qualification deadline over a year after the first serious challenger to incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy did would affect her ability to raise resources. With a little over $2 million in hand, as substantial as that might be with the Cassidy account at almost eight figures and several million more in political action committee funds, plus with other challengers having at least as much as she (plus a lead of months to build up name recognition statewide), she’ll need likely as much again and within the next four months.

That’s not insurmountable. As she received Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s effusive and explicit endorsement, that should open the taps to national donors in case those in state have fatigue. And it should poke off the sidelines those more comfortable with a Washington insider but who frowned upon Cassidy’s last five years in office.

Everyone and their dog may join LA CD 5 race

If Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District becomes an open seat, what often is a frenetic process probably goes onto steroids courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Because Louisiana is just a handful of states that does not have most state and many local elections held during even-numbered years, contests for Congress tend to two directions: either one or two candidates consolidate support very early in the process or, absent that, a number of quality candidates end up offering themselves. As this is due to the fact that most candidates holding a state or local office do not have eschew running for reelection in order to take a shot at Congress, that encourages more candidates than typical to hit the hustings if at least one candidate hasn’t worked the political ecosystem hyper-effectively. It doesn’t matter whether blanket or semi-closed primary, the dynamic remains the same.

Thus, if Republican Rep. Julia Letlow does take a hint from GOP Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsement and jumps into the U.S. Senate race, expect a land rush of names to put their hands up to take her place in a district that basically clips Monroe, clips Alexandria, clips Baton Rouge, and sprawls eastward from all of these points. One report already has dug up five names, all state legislators, who have expressed interest in competing for the seat if Letlow shunts it aside.

Trump endorsement possibly upends LA Senate race

And now, the Louisiana Senate race of this year gets really interesting.

The contest seemed pretty much set in its field at last summer’s end. Five Republicans – incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, state Rep. Julie Emerson, Treasurer John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, and Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta – emerged that had the chops to win it all. Most likely, Cassidy would make the semi-closed primary runoff against one of the other four, who then would be favored over Cassidy given the sourness among Republicans over Cassidy’s reversal to vote to convict GOP Pres. Donald Trump on half-baked impeachment charges, as well as concerning his sucking up on various pieces of legislation to the Democrat majorities in the first part of the decade. That challenger then easily would claim the seat in November.

Among those contenders, all vied for Trump’s endorsement, which is thought to convey an almost unimpeachable advantage to whoever receives it. However, concerning incumbents of his party that have displeased him running for reelection, Trump had not endorsed any challengers although, as in the case of Cassidy, he also withheld endorsements of some incumbents. Absent that, Fleming, who once worked for Trump as one of his senior White House aides, was considered in the best position to be viewed as the candidate Trump implicitly backed, although Miguez has played up his association with Trump’s policies as often as he could.

LA case gives chance to bolster impartiality

And this is why the U.S. Supreme Court should grant broad latitude for diversity cases such as Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish.

This week, the Court heard the case, focused on a narrow issue: should this kind of case be heard in federal or state courts. The minutiae of the case make it turn upon just how deputized energy companies are when the federal government gives some authority to their activities. The Court is asked to decide the level of assignment necessary to allow an entity to have a case heard in federal court as opposed to under state law.

In this case, the parish (and others consolidated into the case) accused Chevron (and the entities that it absorbed, plus others consolidated into the case) over decades of straying outside the boundaries of state law in its activities that supposedly caused environment degradation. Independent Judge Michael Clement of the 25^th Judicial District ruled in the parish’s favor, slapping a $744 million judgment onto Chevron that could bring the trial lawyer firm of Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello nearly a quarter-billion dollars. Chevron contends federal law protects it from this punishment.

LA pushing courts to dismiss outdated decrees

With determined effort, where once dozens of school districts in Louisiana several decades ago were under court orders and supervision to desegregate racially, by the end of 2028 every one might be relieved of this useless burden, blazing a trial for other states to follow.

When cases were brought against many of these districts 60 years or more ago, they were deserved. Segregation was rampant, even after a dozen years had passed since Brown v. Board of Education (emphasized by other such cases in the intervening years). It would take a couple of decades to ensure policies were in place to prevent discrimination in education provision in many of these instances, and when such changes were brought to the attention of the particular federal district court its judge would resolves these.

Yet others dragged on for decades after corrections had been made. Entering the second Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration, Louisiana still had a dozen systems under these orders. The cases continued on autopilot, long after the designated judges or even original plaintiffs had died. Fortunately, the Trump Administration has aimed to clear these cases from the books, seeing them as promoting race-based behavior in the absence of any proof of discriminatory intent.

Dueling reports add up to better LA economy

So, are people coming or going in Louisiana, and what does it all mean for the state’s economic and political futures?

Each year, Atlas Van Lines puts out data about their service moving households, calculating how many trips go from one state to another. For 2025, Louisiana repeated its performance of 2024 by being the state with the highest ratio of outbound to inbound trips of family goods, of nearly 2:1.

Also each year, U-Haul publishes rankings on rentals that happen in one state with the vehicle or trailer deposited in another state. Using raw numbers, unadjusted to population, Louisiana ranked 31^st for dropped-off rentals, but this is significant because it jumped 13 places from 2024.

Allow expedited process to leave consent decrees

Long-suffering families in Concordia Parish and its school district finally might get some relief from once necessary but now burdensome and needless regulation over details about how parish public education operates.

For years, district administrators have tried to exit the school system from court supervision over a desegregation consent decree now six decades old. In these instances when plaintiffs, almost always joined at some point by the U.S. Department of Justice, sue to stop a state and/or local district from engaging in an illegal practice, often the defendants enter into an agreement to take remedial action that corrects the discrimination. This all playing out could take many years, even decades, so the presiding judge and then any successors monitor progress.

Concordia officials implemented a series of reforms long ago agreed upon by the plaintiffs and the court and, with the exception of the opening of a charter school last decade that had to be fit into the decree, for about 45 years little has changed in terms of carrying out agreed-upon actions. As with many of the ten Louisiana districts at present under decrees, this has devolved into an annual exercise of status reports with only incremental statistical changes without the need of any practice alterations, wasting enormous taxpayer resources to continue compiling and reporting with no actual need present.

Data center surge may give Port bills traction

For Republican state Rep. Danny McCormick, it’s not just a matter of trying again, but trying harder to correct potential secret government overreach on property rights as the issue becomes amplified by the data center boom in Louisiana.

McCormick has been a persistent critic of alienation of property without owners having sufficient say in what happens to their possessions. In his second term in office, he has sought to shield owners from overaggressive expropriation, side effects of carbon sequestration, and particularly the ability of the Port of Caddo-Bossier from imposing its will in those two parishes.

In 2021, a law was passed that basically gave the Port Commission, an appointive body chosen by area governments, the ability to make economic development deals anywhere in the two parishes without oversight by other elected officials and bodies. Other local governments could not have any input into those deals, or even know any details about these in the negotiating phase. This included tax abatements that could detract from revenues of these governments.