Natl results spell trouble for LA Democrats

Louisiana Democrats received bad news going forward about their statewide prospects from the 2020 elections, both in state and nationally.

In a year that supposedly some “blue wave” would swamp the country, little evidence of that showed up nationally and in Louisiana. At the national level, while Democrats likely narrowly won the presidency, they likely barely kept control of the House of Representative and likely gained hardly any Senate seats, too few to take control of the chamber.

Specific to Louisiana, Republican Pres. Donald Trump received about the same proportion of the vote as he did in 2016, 58 percent. Republican members of the House cruised to reelection, with only the Second District’s Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond chalking up one for his party in a district drawn heavily in the party’s favor. Incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy easily dispatched a baker’s dozen of opponents, with Democrat endorsee Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins drawing a humiliating 19 percent of the vote and candidates running under the party label obtaining just 35 percent total.

Bridge toll poll brings out demagoguery

Word about continuing efforts to build a toll bridge to replace the Jimmie Davis Bridge shook up south Bossier City and some of its politicians, underscored by looming city council elections.

Last week, a firm styling itself Opinion Strategies called from an upstate New York area code to quiz area residents about their approval of a new bridge for State Highway 511 that crosses the Red River. The survey operated in “push poll” fashion, with questions and their ordering designed to entice positive responses.

The impetus for this likely came from a Louisiana Transportation Authority meeting in June. There, the firm United Bridge Partners made an unsolicited pitch to build a four-lane bridge, remove the old two-lane bridge, and then collect the revenue from it for 75 years while not exporting any costs to the state. The more the state contributed up front, the lower the tolls would be, although the company declined to reveal tolling prices.

Reduced prospects, Biden need entice Richmond

Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond’s risky intended departure from Congress reveals both something about his own personal political ambitions and the precariousness of a putative former vice president Joe Biden presidential administration.

With Biden inching closer to winning the recent presidential election, Richmond said he would resign soon to take an unspecified but senior role in the White House, but obviously only if Biden’s victory withstands legal challenges. If this comes to pass, he gives up much.

By doing this, Richmond trades out essentially a job for life. He also forfeits the chance to orbit among the most influential Democrats in Congress, having already headed up the Congressional Black Caucus that makes up almost a quarter of Democrats in the House of Representatives and still is relatively young with plenty of upside. Being a pal of Biden’s – he co-led his campaign committee – would have magnified his power further in the chamber.

Edwards vetoes for bogus, politicized reasons

Always count on Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards to politicize matters instead of relying on principle that better serves the people.

That tendency he put on display again when he vetoed from the 2020 Second Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature two helpful bills. One, SB 20, would have changed the emergency elections procedure to increase its flexibility.

Under current law, under an emergency the secretary of state can propose temporary changes to the election code with the force of law. These then would have to obtain legislative and gubernatorial approval. The change would have allowed a pair of chamber panels meeting together to suggest changes to the secretary that it would approve before the entire chamber and governor would review. It also gave the chambers the option of overriding a gubernatorial veto.

Ludicrous petition ruling defies common sense

It was such a ludicrous decision concerning Louisiana Revised Statute 29:768 that the exceptionally poor reasoning involved seems unlikely to be a product of mere blundering.

Last week, Republican 19^th District Judge William Morvant declared part of this law unconstitutional. It allowed one house of the Legislature to end gubernatorially-declared states of public health emergencies, which the House did in late October to the then-extant proclamation made by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards concerning the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Morvant clearly wanted nothing to do with it, as indicated by an attempt to sidestep the whole controversy. He made two distinct rulings, the first that the matter was moot because the petition addressed proclamation 134 JBE 2020, and that had expired with replacement by 158 JBE 2020.

Left misdiagnoses LA amendment defeats

And this is why the Louisiana left doesn’t win elections in aggregate.

The state’s electorate made subpar decisions to vote down Amendments #4 and #5 earlier this month, at the urging of the political left. The former would have changed the formula that computes the state’s annual spending limit and put a potential five percent cap on it, while the latter would have made it more practical for entities to enter into payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangements with local governments.

Neither would have made more than a marginal change. The new formula over the past few years would have resulted in smaller potential expenditures increases, and none of its results in recent years would have hit the proposed percentage cap – which, because of an up-and-down revenue picture never got close to hitting the overall dollar cap, which the Legislature twice moved downwards as permitted by a two-thirds vote. And PILOTs already are being constructed across the state, but some owners hesitate to transfer property title to the local governments in question.

Veterans Day, 2020

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday 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 Sunday through Thursday 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 Wednesday, Nov. 11 being Veterans' Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to this page.

Don't count on Edwards, Richmond leaving soon

Are they staying or are they going? Chances are the former for Democrats Gov. John Bel Edwards and Rep. Cedric Richmond, but for different reasons.

With more certainty that Democrat former Vice Pres. Joe Biden will secure enough electoral votes to win election to the White House, speculation has started about the futures of the two most prominent Democrats in the state, that they could move on to jobs in a future Biden Administration. Richmond is a Biden friend and co-chairman of his campaign, while Edwards is the party’s only governor in the deep south, a region that Democrats hoped to improve upon their performance but instead, outside of the razor-thin presidential contest in Georgia, as a whole underperformed.

But Richmond has plenty of reasons to stay in his post, starting with it’s his job for life that could lead to a prominent congressional career. Already having headed the Congressional Black Caucus, within a decade he could be jockeying for party leadership in the chamber. Additionally, over the next four years he could wield much influence particularly from 2023-24 because of his friendship with Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, the second-ranking Republican. With Democrats barely holding onto a House majority, history assures the GOP will take control of the House in two years, and because of a White House connection Richmond will be the most powerful Democrat when they become the minority with his ability to grab Scalise’s ear.

Biden, voters finish off what Edwards started

Democrat Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, spotted heaping straw onto the camel’s back, naturally denied it last week when the creature’s back broke.

It’s no accident that just as election returns showed Democrat former Vice Pres. Joe Biden taking a lead in the close 2020 presidential election, Royal Dutch Shell announced it would close its Convent refinery. It has tried to sell the plant for months, as part of a larger strategy to shed its free-standing refineries and retaining integrated units that include its Norco facility in favor of developing more alternative energy and focusing more on chemicals production. It was quite a turnaround from just three years ago, when Shell bought out its partner at Convent.

Days before the sale announcement, it had warned it might have to shutter plants couldn’t sell. It didn’t matter that the Convent location was fairly current technologically. It becomes the largest of the nine refineries closed in North America in 2020 and comes on the heels of Calcasieu Refining’s shutting down its Lake Charles refinery.

GOP makes electoral progress in NW LA

Mirroring their party’s declining statewide fortunes, Republicans continued to solidify their grasp with the upper hand in Caddo Parish elections, which may hold consequences for Democrat-majority Shreveport.

You can’t say the same about Bossier Parish – because Democrats there already are an endangered species. In and around Bossier City excepting the small towns to the north, what few races even had a Republican being contested, with several GOP candidates drawing no opposition including the 26^th District Attorney Schuyler Marvin, produced GOP winners, with the most high-profile being the passing of the city judge post from retiring Tommy Wilson to ally Santi Parks.

As another indicator of evaporating Democrat fortunes in Bossier, Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell – a fixture in Bossier elections for nearly a half-century – barely squeaked back into office. No thanks to Bossier, which handily gave it support to his GOP opponent from Ouachita Parish who hardly campaigned.