Devil will be in details of Blanco's next special session call

The “unofficial” Legislative special session call has come from Gov. Kathleen Blanco, consisting of a mixture of opportunity and danger.

Blanco aims true when she says she will ask the Legislature to take up levee governance reform, as well as housing issues (perhaps dealing with the uncoordinated response to trailers where she did throw some weight around to get New Orleans to locate more there and more quickly – levee governance could be in place already had she chosen to do the same last year), and consolidation of Orleans Parish government (again, success here will depend upon her willingness to commit political resources). Her other two proposed items can be much dicer, depending upon the specifics of her call.

Concerning insurance, it’s not so important how Blanco would like the Legislature to deal with the many uninsured affected by the hurricane disasters (which will depend upon the fate and final form of Rep. Richard Baker’s current legislation in front of Congress), but in how to prevent the same problem in the future. The state needs either to mandate that all people who live below sea level have flood insurance or, even better, leave it optional but pass laws preventing those caught short from suing insurance companies or the state after the fact, and prohibiting the state from reimbursing these irresponsible owners.

The most potential mischief rests with election issues. Blanco will act responsibly if she limits the agenda to operational concerns such as precinct lines, polling places, elections commissioners’ residences and ratios per precinct, etc. But she will allow subversion of democracy if she includes plans promoted by Secretary of State Al Ater to allow persons who never have appeared in front of an election official for registration verification to vote by mail.

To do so would facilitate election fraud. Who knows how many people currently on registration lists really exist or are still alive, with names usable by unscrupulous political operatives? Or how many fictitious “people” would get created between the time this one-time exemption goes into affect and the close of rolls for participation in delayed New Orleans elections?

While Ater claims the federal government or U.S. District judge Ivan Lemelle might look askance at any plan that does not allow for displaced voters who did not register in person, bad policy should not be made as a result of bad jurisprudence, and the swift and compliant response of the U.S. Department of Justice to the state’s previous requested modifications of voting standards (mandated under the Voting Rights Act) shows that it is a controversy only in Ater’s mind.

Blanco needs to keep these issues at the forefront when she does formulate and issue the formal call around Jan. 31.

Recall petition presents quandary for advocates of change

With a recall for Gov. Kathleen Blanco now officially launched, this presents a double-edged sword, and her ouster may fail to improve the policy situation in Baton Rouge for now and the foreseeable future.

Little doubt exists that Blanco failed as a leader for the catastrophes that struck Louisiana in a one-month period beginning in late August. That and her subsequent actions also signal as suspect her ability to lead the state out of the severe consequences of the hurricane disasters.

But a successful recall would promote Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu into the Governor’s Mansion (which would give him another chance to redecorate). In the aftermath of the disasters, Landrieu has articulated more sensible, and more politically astute, policy preferences than has Blanco it appears in an effort to launch a gubernatorial candidacy in 2007.

While what he has said may make him appear to be a superior governor than Blanco, we cannot forget that Landrieu is as faithful as she a card-carrying member of the good old boy, politics as usual crowd to which Blanco belongs. The flashes that make it appear he is heading away from his (and his family’s) populist background towards the political center likely will prove just that, intermittent, and his true liberal ideology would shine through forcefully if handed the reins of state government.

This could hamper the state in providing the leadership it needs in 2007 when elections come around. If Landrieu assumes the top spot earlier, this could solidify his chances at getting the job for the full term at that time.

So, potential signers of the petition have a choice to make. Landrieu might prove to be a better leader in the short term than Blanco, but the long-term impact of his occupying the capitol’s fourth floor probably will not be any better (in fact, it may boost the flagging fortunes of his sister Sen. Mary Landrieu, herself just as reliably wrong-headed on many issues of the day as her brother and Blanco) than what she can do and could reduce the chances of far superior leadership emerging in 2007.

Government consolidation efforts provide silver lining to hurricanes

As one of the few silver linings to the hurricane disaster cloud, the storms’ impacts have triggered a useful debate in Louisiana about government consolidation and even have seen the idea translated into practice.

The merging of many functions of the law enforcements agencies in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, and St. Bernard Parishes may presage similar, and welcome, news. The concept around the state isn’t new by any means: witness the many merged governmental functions among the four cities in East Baton Rouge Parish with the parish government, as well as the metropolitan governments of the city of Lafayette with Lafayette Parish and Houma and Terrebone Parish.

But the impact of the storms has given new impetus to the idea that tremendous scales of efficiency can be achieved by taking separate agencies geographically proximate to each other and largely doing the same thing and consolidating many, if not all, of their functions. Even politics-as-usual Gov. Kathleen Blanco belatedly has jumped on the bandwagon with her next special session call likely to include measures concerning consolidation of levee governance and to reduce the fragmentation of some local government in New Orleans by paring the number of assessors from seven to one and merging the criminal/civil tracks in administering the justice system.

Even the traditional media, after paying scant attention to the issue, now seems interested (although government reformer/critic C.B. Forgotston has long championed the idea). An intriguing concept comes from Chris Tidmore who writes of merging entire Orleans and Jefferson governments and provides a good case not just for doing so (which always has existed) but why it is at least politically feasible at this time (which has never before existed). In past columns in other venues, I have argued that Caddo and Bossier Parishes would benefit greatly from merging all governments (save school districts) in the majority of their functions.

Americans often resist this idea because we believe strongly in self-government, and that fragmenting power among many subgovernments not only facilitates this, but also it reduces the power of any one government that, at least at the lowest levels, reduces its potential for mischief (although when considering higher governments, James Madison’s arguments in the Federalist #10 are compelling). Efforts in Orleans will provide a valuable test of political will to achieve this – for example, to date the inefficient, often patronage-laden Bridge Police, Causeway Police, and Harbor Police adminstrators have shown no enthusiasm for a consolidation that likely would eliminate their agencies.

While the state was grateful that the storms’ surges quickly and briefly washed over the landscape, let’s hope the surge from this idea is much longer-lasting past any recompiling levee governance and Orleans Parish. Miraculously, it even could lead to downsizing state government. And that would create a very nice, extensive silver lining to the otherwise bad impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Landrieu, others need to have deeds match symbolism

Part of the dysfunctionality of Louisiana politics is so often lip service gets paid to policy desired considerable, while these same elected officials fail to address or take responsibility for conditions that prevent the desirable outcomes from occurring. Such as example looms as various state politicians make their ways to The Netherlands for tomorrow’s seminars on how that country handles flood protection.

While Sen. Mary Landrieu, one of the organizers of the effort, correctly noted that “[i]t's all about the technology, the will and the right priorities,” either unintentionally out of a lack of wisdom or intentionally to deflect from her own culpability, Landrieu failed to clarify that she and others, in the past, have failed on the accounts of will and priorities. Prior to the hurricane disasters, Landrieu put politics ahead of protection in her lobbying that served to siphon money from more valuable flood-control efforts to lesser, even peripheral projects. Prior to and since the disasters, Landrieu has done little to promote reform of systems that would better produce the “right policies,” both at the federal level and state level.

Proper political will could solve for problems at both level of governments. Members of Congress can refuse to try to influence which projects get funded on the basis of perceived interests and sources of future votes, something which Landrieu could champion in both word and practice. Landrieu also could have joined the chorus of state voices that clamored for meaningful reform of levee governance, who, along with other important voices that stayed on the sidelines such as Gov. Kathleen Blanco, could have prevented its thwarting by other, pettier interests in the state’s lower legislative chamber in the past special session.

Unless Landrieu – and others with similar records as she who have not visibly tried to take political credit for this move like she has – takes responsibility publicly for her past inadequacies in this area of policy and genuinely seeks to change the political climate (such as deciding priorities in funding on the basis of principle and in throwing her weight behind levee governance reform) to prevent the problem from resurfacing, this exercise merely becomes show-and-tell and an empty publicity stunt. All the best plans and technology in the world will go to waste unless politics as usual gets removed from flood control policy.

Prudence penalized, risk rewarded with Louisiana insurance

You are a Louisiana homeowner who bought insurance, kept the premiums up to date, and made no claims on it. The reward for your foresight is a 15 percent rate hike to pay for a state welfare program.

In essence, that’s what the state has done for the next year to replenish the risk fund of its home insurer, the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Further, it can keep two-thirds of that increase for up to the next 25 years. The government corporation writes policies, at a higher average rate of at least 10 percent that a parish’s top 10 insurers, where other insurers might not write such policies.

(It is not mandatory that insurers assess this charge, which applies to fire, homeowners, allied lines, and commercial multi-peril - nonliability, but if the state is going to hit up insurers extra, you can be sure they’ll want to recoup the extra charge rather than sacrifice revenues elsewhere.)

ULM has chance to make trenchant social commentary

You can’t fight The Man, and in intercollegiate sports for all but the smallest schools the National Collegiate Athletic Association is The Man. Unfortunately, it’s also terribly politically correct in its assertion that schools cannot use any “hostile” or “abusive” racial/ethnic/national origin mascots, imagery or nicknames at any of the NCAA's national or regional championships.

Never mind it’s another example of people eagerly seeking victimhood and then using it to assert their own peculiar moralities on the rest of the population. Or the hypocrisy of it all – the NCAA seems to think Notre Dame University’s “Fighting Irish” is all right, even though that conjures up the stereotype of the red-nosed, heavy-drinking Irish who then get into brawls. (As part-Irish, I should object to this but, frankly, I never gave it another thought until right this minute. So there.)

Notre Dame can get away with it because it’s the only university with more officially rewarded championships in football than the University of Oklahoma and has enough muscle to negotiate its own football broadcasting rights unlike every other school. But the University of Louisiana at Monroe, having suffered through one name change just a few years ago, now finds it must change its nickname from “Indians.” It could appeal but that seems like a waste of time, or it could not send any mascot or reminder of the nickname to any NCAA championship rounds in which its teams might play. (Personally, I would have ULM’s spirit squads and the like wear black headbands with a feather attached in the back as a protest during these contests, but it’s that kind of forthrightness which keeps me as a little old college professor rather than gets me promoted to be a university president or chancellor.)

(Another thought: isn’t OU’s nickname “Sooners” also pejorative? It basically glorifies lawbreakers – Sooners were people who jumped the gun before the official time to get more and better land when the Indian Territory was opened to white settlement. But, as mentioned above in reference to ND, when the NCAA is dealing with the Alpha and Omega of college football ….)

Nevertheless, yet again to perform public service, I will suggest five candidates for new nicknames for ULM, taking into account the uniqueness of the Louisiana cultural, historical, and political experience. Starting with the obvious:

Coushattas – this tribe signaled acceptance of the current name, and the NCAA says if names that are tied to individual tribes are approved by that tribe (designed to appease big-money schools like Florida State, Utah, and Illinois) they’ll accept it, so why not give the Coushattas a little free publicity (although given ULM’s performance on the athletic fields in recent years, it may not be all that much and not even that desirable, but it’s the thought that counts). It can’t hurt, given who used to be one of the Coushattas’ lobbyists.

Governors – if it’s good enough for Austin Peay … Louisiana’s had some pretty colorful ones, so why not celebrate this part of our heritage, even though another name might be more appropriate when referring to them, or to politicians in the state in general …

Jailbirds – can you imagine the interesting situations that could develop from having this nickname; for example, uniforms could be white and black stripes, definitely distinctive and causing maximal confusion with the uniforms worn by most sports’ officials? And it also neatly sums up what far too many college ex-athletes, or even current ones, eventually turn into.

Hurricanes – yes, this may be more appropriate for some of ULM’s southern brethren which actually get flooded out by them, but why not? It would bring pride to the state to show we don’t fear these storms by embracing them, and it recognizes the unique cleansing they bring to the state in terms of a more-efficient state budget, of endangering electoral careers of politicians who are way past their primes if they ever had them, etc.

But there is one, indisputably superior choice that would represent a period in state history, adhere to the dictate (as other schools are allowed to use it), and would show the stupidity of the entire idea of political correctness run amok and hypocritically applied in college athletics:

Rebels… fight fire with fire. Maybe the NCAA can get a load of a nickname with some genuine social commentary -- against its idiocy.

Lawsuit may expose Louisiana's cosmetic electoral change

Here we go again with Louisiana trying to set a date for physical enactment of federal elections, and looks as if the state may once again discover another reason why the blanket primary election system needs to be replaced.

Almost a decade ago lawyer G. Scott Love in essence challenged the entire blanket primary system, which could have the effect of electing members of Congress prior to the national election day specified by federal law. The Supreme Court agreed with him. (Note: Louisiana’s system often incorrectly is called an “open” primary. It is not. An open primary is one where separate party primary elections are maintained although voters of any partisan affiliation or none may participate in any one party’s primary. In Louisiana, there are no separate party primaries, hence its correct name “nonpartisan blanket” primary or blanket primary for short.)

Last fall, the Legislature finally addressed what it saw to be a loophole in the law. Act 282 changed technical language in the Revised Statutes to declare candidates “elected” on the federal election date, even if the actual election itself occurred earlier. As a result, this time Love has sued on behalf of his daughter Julia arguing the earlier date deprived her of the right to vote as her 18th birthday in 2006 would occur in the interim between the two dates.

The crux of the matter is defined in the opinion as “a contested selection of candidates for a congressional office that is concluded as a matter of law before the federal election day, with no act in law or in fact to take place on the date chosen by Congress, clearly violates” the statute. The state claims the new law in fact satisfies the requirement that a trigger of sorts go off on the federally-defined day by stating that candidates get elected “at the close of the polls on the day of the general election” regardless that the physical enactment of the election may have occurred earlier.

The plaintiffs may have found an ingenious way to contest this. Using the state’s logic, what’s to prevent other states to from bumping their elections up as far back as they like using the same reasoning, and basically subverting the intent of the federal statute? Unless the judiciary declares that there should be a limited time in which to do this that would seem to be the end result. It could declare a limit to moving forward such as the residency requirement; that is, an election can occur no more than 60 days minus the state’s residency requirement in days prior to the date set by federal statute (60 days because that is the most at which the Supreme Court will allow a state to set its residency requirement).

If the law is declared unconstitutional, however, it should provide yet another sign that the state needs to change the system. Many such compelling reasons exist to make the switch but probably the main thing now holding it back is less-liberal Democrats probably would be seldom elected since even in an open primary system more-liberal Democrats probably would beat them. A closed primary system, where only voters affiliated with a party can vote in its primary, would reduce the electoral chances of these Democrats, a number of which haunt the Legislature, even more. Compounding that is the generally unfavorable electoral environment for incumbents but especially Democrats over the next few years will discourage them from making elections more explicitly partisan.

This new law represents merely a treatment of the symptom, not a cure of the disease. Regardless of the outcome of this case which probably will go on well past this year’s federal elections, the blanket primary needs to go.

Statistics, reality shouldn't reassure Democrat officeholders

If you take a walk with a Democrat elected to a Louisiana state office past a graveyard in the middle of the night, expect to hear a lot of vigorous whistling, if their reactions to assessing the electoral realities of the next two years are any indication.

Much can happen before statewide elections next year, but trends continue to point to Democrat electoral carnage at state-level contests, consisting of three ominous signs for them. First, Hurricane Katrina has disrupted their reliable voting base in New Orleans beyond all repairs. In fact, what might seem to be a positive thing, scarcely declining voting rolls in Orleans, provides no reassurance. As yet, displaced voters have had little reason to switch in their new locations, as they take care of more important matters first and become acclimated to their new political climate. Worse, some may wait to switch just so they can vote to punish current officeholders to exact for themselves a sense of justice, and that will work against Democrats (nobody who stays will delay switching just to vote for an incumbent)
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Because, secondly, some segment of the population will wish to visit retribution against those in power for the state’s lack of preparedness to and response after the crisis. The fact is, Democrats now hold all executive offices and still control both chambers of the Legislature so they will disproportionately suffer.

Third, let us not forget that mandated term limits will forcibly sweep some monuments, disproportionately Democrats, out of the way in the Legislature as well (slightly in the favor of the GOP in the Senate, but overwhelmingly so in the House.) Almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans cannot run again (and one such Democrat, populist and defender of the mediocre Tommy Wright, resigned effective today).

Some elected Democrats can’t bring themselves to face, or are incapable of understanding, these ramifications. At best, you’ll get out of them a “pox on all houses” response that argues any incumbent will face difficulty. There is a germ of truth to this – Republicans who are part of the good old boy ethos may well have their hands full with aggressive challengers from their own parties. But the fact is, the hurricane disasters of last fall will favor reform advocates and they disproportionately have run as Republicans as Democrats have favored the liberal/populist agenda of the past. The last real GOP populist in the state was David Duke, and we know what happened to him.

More sensible observers from the left see reality. Even reliable Democrat shill Lanny Kellar can’t turn a blind eye to the trend, one which has sent three members of the state legislature already from the “D” to “R” column in the hopes of warding off the effects of that scarlet letter. At the statewide level, a growing awareness among the population of the bankruptcy of good old boy attitudes fueled by negative perceptions of Katrina’s aftermath could give the GOP the majority of those offices for the first time ever.

If Louisiana Democrats’ (currently lacking a permanent state party chairman) putting on a happy face is a strategy to try to change perceptions, it’s no match for reality. If it’s designed to blunt reality, Democrats are even in bigger trouble as denial will make their response to the dilemma even less effective.

New year, but same good old boy attitudes in Louisiana

It’s a new year, but too many of the same old attitudes remain in regards to those people in power in Louisiana’s government.

Less than a month ago, Secretary of State Al Ater was issuing all sorts of reasons why New Orleans should delay its elections until around the end of September – it was the federal government’s fault in not providing lists of displaced voters, and also that pre-clearance would take too long, not enough poll commissioners would be around, etc. Suddenly, he now is saying they could happen in March, even though about a week ago he thought elections in April would be a stretch.

Such a dramatic conversion in attitude likely has come from the confluence of outside forces that Ater neither hoped nor thought would occur. He probably knew all along that the federal government would be much speedier in providing clearance and information, taking away these excuses, and considerable pressure by a U.S. district court on his dilatory stance no doubt also caused an attitude adjustment. But perhaps the biggest impact came from the near-universal scorn heaped upon him and Gov. Kathleen Blanco by the public, pundits, and other politicians. Democracy works even in Louisiana, when you have a citizenry willing to inform itself and to prod its policy-makers.

But the good-old-boy attitude that would minimize the voices of the people in their own governance has infested itself strongly among the state’s political elites and, while it was not strong enough in Ater’s case for him to resist, it still has significant redoubts. One such is that of the Gromyko of the State Senate, its president Don Hines, has shown little enthusiasm for changing these ways that, frankly, is what he used to accumulate political power while simultaneously holding back the state. This manifests in his attitude that a Legislative special session is unneeded whose crux rests on levee board governance reform.

This obviously puts Hines on the wrong side of the issue that, besides delaying elections, has most galvanized the public in Louisiana since the Band-Aid special session. Hines did nothing to support meaningful reform in this area and instead focused his energies on making it easier to raid the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund to continue his strategy of shifting monies to favored constituencies rather than undertaking funding reductions which likely would endanger these interests as other needs are much more pressing.

And it should go without saying that Blanco herself remains captive to this ideology. Anybody who observes her televised remarks understands she continues to attempt to shift blame instead of taking responsibility, and at the same time comes off as hypocritical in her desire to say others try to distort her record (she claims because it’s politics, because it’s gender bias, ad naseum) when she herself in front of Congress did her level best to distort her role in the leadership breakdown after Hurricane Katrina. It’s always excuses for what continues to fail, rather than admitting mistakes and, more importantly, embracing sensible change.

It may be a new year, but nothing changes among Louisiana’s Democrat political elites – something voters need to keep in mind when many of these same characters and their ilk offer themselves for reelection next year.

Blanco doesn't get it; neither will she get reelection

The reason why Gov. Kathleen Blanco will not get reelected in 2007 is she just doesn’t get it.

Blanco seems to think that the public’s low marks given for her and her reelection chances are a function of a perception of her as weak and indecisive. To her and her handlers, the solution then seems to be an image makeover. If so, that belies a lack of reflection and understanding about a singular fact: ideas have consequences.

The fact is, Blanco is a liberal politician in a state growing more politically conservative. She expresses some conservative viewpoints (such as being pro-life) but on issues of the economy and government activism she easily fits into the mold of the national Democrats, with a dash of populism thrown in. She has shown a consistent desire to raise taxes, to expand the size of government, and to resist efforts to govern efficiently rather than primarily politically.

Like most liberals, she remains captive to one or both of two fictions: either that liberalism resonates among the public (or perhaps doesn’t because of mean, illegal, subversive efforts of Republicans and conservatives that continually fool the poor saps that comprise the mass public that are so intellectually inferior to her and her kind – if this were true, wouldn’t we have passed into a dictatorship long ago instead of having the world’s greatest democracy and economy?) or that liberalism does not but that her kind needs power because the poor saps that comprise the mass public that are so intellectually inferior to her and her kind can’t be trusted to do the right thing, so it’s necessary to fool them into her “helping” them.

Obviously, that mindset is the undoing of both her and other liberals. It’s not the image or style that turns people off about Blanco’s tenure; it’s the policies, stupid. Just to name perhaps the most recent of many examples, running after the levee reform horse after the public opinion barn door has closed is a perfect example of how Blanco can’t see past her ideology and understand its inherent flaws and the need to embrace conservatism not only to become in greater touch with the peoples’ policy preferences, but to provide better governance.

Unless Blanco begins to do things like dramatic paring of fairly unneeded government functions thus causing a big drop in government spending, rescinding tax hikes and even cutting taxes more, using her power to insist on efficient operations rather than patronage and electoral spoils, etc., she will not be doing the things necessary to govern effectively in Louisiana’s time of post-disaster need, nor convince enough people who eyes have seen laid bare by the disasters her suboptimal ideological predispositions to give her another term.