Will Ethics Board act on more than just Richard?

OK, so the Louisiana Board of Ethics got state Rep. Dee Richard. What’s the holdup on everybody else?

Next week, the Board reportedly will announce a settlement with Richard over $37,000 in campaign funds he apparently misspent. R.S. 18:1505.2 states that campaign funds shall not be used, loaned, or pledged by any person for any personal use unrelated to a political campaign. Richard will admit he spent that on gambling, an addiction he maintains he developed as a result of taking legally-prescribed medication.

A dose of irony comes along with that. Richard has made a career in the Legislature in efforts to reduce the addiction that state government has to spending money, and now he gets busted over his own profligate, illegal spending. Term-limited but not intending to resign early over the incident, his district’s voters now may decide whether to attempt his recall over this breach of trust.

Edwards' model unlikely to gain his party's favor

Can Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards teach Democrats how to win in the South? The answer to this title of a recent Politico website story is more pessimistic than it lets on.

Written by my The Advocate colleague Tyler Bridges, who pumped this out as he left for a fall semester gig as a Shorenstein Media Fellow at Harvard University, it explores whether Democrats elsewhere in the region can transport Edwards’ shock win in 2015 to their own turfs. Bridges gives the effort some hope, writing that the “progressive” elements in Edwards’ governorship should convince his fellow partisans beyond the border to overlook his seeming anti-abortion views and support for the Second Amendment that produce a perception of him  by some as a social conservative.

But Bridges oversells this case – one that he admits isn’t that strong to begin with – in two important ways. First, Edwards’ fidelity to the playbook that gives Democrats their only shot to win in the South – at least pose as a social conservative while espousing class warfare – has serious holes in the first instance.

Will LA left indulge in fascism on donations?

Will the Scarlet D reverberate in Louisiana? More interestingly, how will cultural elites, especially on the political left, react to any appearance by it?

If delayed, it turns out that higher-dollar donors to former Louisiana state Rep. David Duke can face consequences for their support of the white supremacist’s U.S. Senate campaign last year. The Federal Election Commission reported 129 contributions of $250 or greater in 2015-16 – campaigns must report information on persons making these – to fund Duke’s effort, and it seems some have caught significant grief over this.

In California, business fell at a longtime restaurant forcing its closure because of boycotts over the owner’s gift. In Minnesota, many employees staged a walkout from a bar owned by a Duke donor.

Edwards' SNAP policy continues to hurt LA

It’s Labor Day, although one noxious policy decision by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards makes every day for some like Labor Day’s excuse for not having to work.

As soon as he entered office, Edwards rescinded his predecessor former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s last-minute change that allowed the state’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program waiver to expire. That allowed able-bodied adults without dependents to continue receiving food stamps beyond the three out of 36 months period unless working or in a training program for at least 20 hours a week.

Edwards later issued a cosmetic executive order allegedly addressing the open-ended nature of the benefit, mandating that recipients had to report regularly for job training centers – which they already had to do in many cases to receive unemployment insurance, replicating for SNAP the same undemanding requirement to draw that. This does little or nothing to encourage work, which withdrawal of SNAP benefits certainly would do, if history provides any guide.

The Advocate column, Sep. 3, 2017

Here's why it's past time to reform TOPS
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_91e3c5b4-8db2-11e7-b4b3-d762deaceb9c.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_2862a3aa-779e-11e7-b673-a3ee5efe3d4f.html
http://www.regents.la.gov/assets/docs/2016/TOPS2016.pdf
https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/NormsChartMCandComposite-Web2015-16.pdf
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/24/state-aid-program-changes-debated-several-capitals

State wisely lets go of park money sinkhole

Finally, a park that entered the state’s realm under suspicious circumstances will return to where it came, eroding little its value to Louisiana’s recreational system while relieving taxpayers of a large load.

Confirmation came this month that Hodges Gardens State Park would close and transfer back under control of the previous owners. A private citizen had developed the area initially as a private home, and over time opened it to the public. Known mostly for its horticultural offerings, under state control it would expand on amenities that provided camping, oversight lodgings, boating and fishing, and an amphitheater.

The foundation that had run it offered it to the state around the time of the hurricane disasters of 2005. A number of aspects should have discouraged the then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco Administration from accepting it. Money would be tight for a couple of years, yet the state would incur startup costs of over $1 million and roughly the same in operating expenses each year. Much of the park had features similar to several within a few dozen miles in a sparsely-populated area of the state, but this one would cost much more to run in order to service the botanical gardens, the one unique feature not only in comparison to the nearby alternatives, but also statewide.

Litmus test strikes again for LA Democrats

You would think Louisiana Democrats would embrace Derrick Edwards as the perfect candidate for state treasurer. But the party’s litmus test plus its aversion to looking impotent instead makes him an outcast.

At its most recent meeting, the party’s executive committee failed to endorse Edwards despite his qualifying as the only Democrat in the contest. Moreover, he ticks off two victim class boxes, racial minority and person with disability; Democrats generally allege that American society discriminates against minorities and the disabled, mandating increased government efforts to redistribute resources their way. And, Edwards seems competitive as he polls in the lead for the spot.

Historically, the party has abjured endorsing even those statewide candidates who show strength. In 2011, it refused to back the contestant who would garner the second-most votes in the governor’s race, Tara Hollis, claiming it did not want to coronate a candidate in a field with multiple Democrats running. But it also didn’t endorse Democrat Donald Hodge, the only opponent to Republican Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, where Hodge would go on to capture around a third of the vote. And in 2015, in a governor’s race with multiple Democrats running, it did endorse current Gov. John Bel Edwards (no relation to Derrick) months earlier than typical.

Shreveport chases team at taxpayers' expense

In the latest iteration of a northwest Louisiana’s build-it-and-they-will-come fantasy, Shreveport has decided to go all in on attracting a minor-league basketball team by spending up to $30 million in taxpayer money. How this provides a net benefit to the taxpayer remains unexplained.

Mayor Ollie Tyler cajoled a City Council majority to approve of the courtship with the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association. Many league teams sponsor a second-division club in the newly-renamed G-League, and, after an initial pitch by Tyler, the team has narrowed its choices to Shreveport and Pensacola.

Landing the squad would provide quite a boost for a metropolitan area that has seen a long list of failed minor league professional franchises in recent years. The 1990s turned out as the golden era of area pro sports, when Shreveport boasted teams in second-division football and basketball and in third-division baseball and hockey, plus a second-tier golf tournament.

Liberal Landrieu not enough so for hard left

Clear-headed, politically-knowledgeable Louisianans surely are scratching their heads over a piece in a national opinion journal that declares New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu insufficiently liberal.

Appearing in the decreasingly center-left New Republic (which has had to head further left to recapture the luster lost through the Glass Affair, among other problems), the article by one Michael Stein – who has demonstrated far left chops in work for the extremist web site Truthout – complains Landrieu hews too close to the political middle. He calls Landrieu a “run-of-the-mill centrist Democrat, one who appeals to the left with illusory calls for progress even as he ingratiates himself with center-right supporters by straddling the ideological line.”

Really? A review of Landrieu’s issue preferences and actions as mayor reveals otherwise. Let’s check them off:

The Advocate column, Aug. 27, 2017

John Bel Edwards used veto to play politics, and Mother Nature caught up to him
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_46d11588-88fb-11e7-97d6-2778606bc84b.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_ca1a2434-81cb-11e7-85d0-efa9ccb360a1.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/politics/article_b84a04d6-8685-11e7-99be-0374ef778dd8.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1053007
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1053032