Odd LA political culture lets Edwards levitate

Besides the more immediate concerns of electoral politics, a recent poll also shed some insight into the evolution of Louisiana’s political culture.

The JMC Analytics survey of last week, among queries focusing on this fall’s Senate contest and next year’s gubernatorial race (and even extended to the 2026 Senate one in asking about the falling political fortunes of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy), asked about approval of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, who frankly has no electoral political future in the state and seems set on slipping away from state politics after his term ends. Respondents gave him at best lukewarm numbers at 48 percent approval (28 percent very) and 44 percent disapproval (27 percent very).

This is somewhat below the more dated Morning Consult number that it collects for all governors and would put Edwards squarely in the middle of the pack. It also indicates a snap election would find Edwards in trouble, for two reasons: an incumbent who can’t pull 50 percent is vulnerable, and especially in one where the median voter is closer to the other major party than his. Another way of putting it is few of the disapprovers can be enticed to support such an incumbent, but many of the approvers would switch to another candidate of which they also grant approval.

Historic veto override implements valid map

Game, set, almost certainly soon to be match, and with some historical import thrown in.

Today, the Louisiana Legislature overrode a Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards veto of maps passed apportioning the state for the purpose of electing members to Congress. He had nixed two different bills of identical content creating one majority-minority district of six passed by the majority Republicans, opposed by Democrats who wanted two such districts made.

The vetoes weren’t surprising. As an ultra-loyal Democrat, Edwards had to do it in order to promote any chance that his party could pick up a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives over the next decade, as black voters traditionally have cast ballots for Democrats. Additionally, it wouldn’t hurt with any legal challenges for there to dilute bipartisan resolution to the matter.

Poll shows Kennedy big winner, Cassidy big loser

Recent polling results provide winners and losers not just for this fall’s Senate contest, but next year’s gubernatorial race as well and even insight into the 2026 Senate election.

JMC Analytics surveyed 600 likely Louisiana voters last week on these topics, and Republican Sen. John Kennedy emerged as the biggest winner. Insofar as his 2022 reelection attempt goes, MacAoidh gave a trenchant rundown on what his drawing 53 percent of the sample and any other name save one in the single digits means: he likely will draw approaching 60 percent, black and woke Democrat Gary Chambers will hit around 30 percent in monopolizing the black vote, and great white hope Democrat Luke Mixon will have a hard time cracking double digits (in fact, a pardoned ex-con who now runs a nonprofit aiding ex-con women, Democrat Syrita Steib who announced but has spent no money on her effort, polled at almost half the level of Mixon who has raised almost $200,000 – just over a tenth of what Kennedy has).

This matches Kennedy’s approval number and makes him the most popular politician polled (and the only one above 50 percent). Perhaps then unsurprisingly among the several names polled for next year’s governor’s race – only one candidate has declared, GOP Treasurer John Schroder – Kennedy also comes out on top, at 22 percent. He won’t run, given how he punches above his weight for a freshman senator with his loquaciousness and wit that, like a moth towards a flame, draws even the leftist mainstream media to him and he would gain more influence still in a second term, so with him out much of his vote would go elsewhere.

Mugshot restriction bill needs strengthening

It’s a good first step, but Louisiana needs to go further when it comes to dissemination of booking photographs of arrestees.

Last week, HB 729 by Democrat state Rep. Royce Duplessis advanced out of committee. The bill would change public records law to shield booking mugshots of arrestees from release, except under circumstances that would aid law enforcement agencies in corralling a dangerous individual, from media outlets that require payment to remove a mugshot from publication. LEAs would be prohibited from disseminating this information to outlets suspected of doing this.

Duplessis and other legislators argued that arrestees entered into a correctional facility have a presumption of innocence and reputational damages could occur regardless whether ultimately no conviction related to that arrest happened. They also argued media had plenty of other online sources to grab photos of many arrestees (or could do it the old fashioned way, send out a photographer) and only the mugshot would be withheld, with all other arrest information still available.

Data show LA must stop embrace of Rx ganja

Maybe this dose of reality finally will stop Louisiana from its headlong dash to marijuana legalization under the guise of the herb’s medical use.

Ever since legal changes began in 2015 that have culminated in making its use legal for any imaginable malady in any form you like, a narrative has circulated, largely unchallenged outside of spaces other than this one, that it conveys more benefits than costs. As such, that impetus continues to expand its use even further with this legislative session seeing proposed changes to counteract supply constraints – after all, if you all but legalize it, more people will demand it under the prevailing illusion – through increasing more production and distribution points.

This despite a long history of scant evidence that cannabis use produces positive outcomes for any but a small number of medical ailments. Plus, it carries a number of negative outcomes. And this momentum otherwise has resulted in other bills cropping up calling for decriminalization of marijuana possession, even as research continues to demonstrate harmful effects from its use.

Data demand negating reckless kid jab mandate

What was a strong case against Louisiana public schools requiring a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine for attendance now has become airtight, requiring the Louisiana Legislature to act in the face of defiance by Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Late last year, Edwards’ Department of Health proposed adding that to the vaccine schedule, but the House Health and Welfare Committee vetoed that over concerns that procedures weren’t properly followed in the rule’s vetting and this overstepped rule-making boundaries. However, statute provides the governor the power to override when the committee has this power, and he did, thereby making this a required vaccination beginning next school year.

But earlier this month, newly disseminated research revealed the minimal effectiveness of one current vaccine against the dominant strain of the virus for children. This highlights the ever-changing nature of the virus (which is characteristic of coronaviruses) that always will leave attempted vaccines behind the curve, making any such mandate largely useless (with influenza having the same mutative characteristic, this is why no regulation ever has come about to force vaccinations for this involving attendance).

Touchy attitudes impede better BC governance

If the Bossier City Council were a bar, Republican Councilor David Montgomery would be that guy, as he recently reminded on the most inoffensive issue.

Drinking establishments all have one. You know, the barfly that’s always been there for decades, faithfully patronizing the joint. Sometimes he’ll be garrulously good-natured, to the point you wish you could just move on. That’s not so bad. It’s when, all of a sudden, something – a snippet from a nearby television, an overheard conversation, or maybe for no identifiable reason at all – happens that triggers him. Then everybody within earshot gets treated to some kind of harangue equal parts impassioned, inconsistently informed, and embarrassing until he finally runs out of steam, to onlookers’ relief.

The public received such an outburst from Montgomery at last week’s meeting, over the most innocuous of proposed ordinances. It would have prohibited a contractor, affirmed through affidavit, from employing an agent of any kind to land a city job, which mirrors R.S. 38:2224.

Don't dilute LA habitual crime sentencing laws

As pitiable as stories about Louisiana convicts serving long sentences for small crimes might be, legislators would be unwise to unwind laws that allow sentences based on habitual criminal behavior.

Every so often, a media story pops up about how somebody who committed a series of petty crimes, such as stealing hedge clippers, ends up spending decades in the slammer and leads to teeth-gnashing by the usual suspects. Last year, laments abounded for a guy who spent 20 years behind bars as a result of a string of thefts, ending with a couple of shirts. He was freed after an interest group petitioned for his release because his last crime had been reclassified from felony to misdemeanor a decade earlier and this fit Democrat Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ vibe.

Naturally, the Angry Left would prefer to undo habitual offender sentencing laws with the latest justification being, naturally enough, that such laws are “racist” because racial minorities disproportionately get hit up this way as a means of systemic control by whitey. That constipated line of thinking even made its way into Louisiana Supreme Court annals when, as one of her last decisions in 2020 before a blessed ushering into retirement, Democrat former Chief Justice Bernette Johnson went on a nonsensical rant dissenting against keeping the hedge clippers guy in the stir.

Lawmakers must pick pro- over anti-child bill

Louisiana legislators have a clear choice between two bills this session: one that protects children from potential irreversible harm and another that invites it.

The pro-children bill comes in the form of HB 570 by Republican state Rep. Gabe Firment. It would ban physical medical interventions to alter the sex of a minor child except where an identifiable physical disorder exists.

Research solidly endorses this view, which specialists term a wait and watch strategy as opposed to the more recent trend of immediate intervention of children even just a few years old. This is warranted because adolescents and earlier, being adolescents/earlier and emotionally immature, often can’t process their feelings well and are swayed unusually by fad and fashion, so they may change their minds on whether they think they ought to feel and behave as a particular sex. It’s difficult to ascertain a precise proportion of children who at one point feel they should have a different sex and subsequently change their minds because of the nature of the subjects studied, the subjectivity involved in measuring such a nebulous concept, and in the political interpretations and biases many researchers insert into their explanation, but perhaps the best baseline comes from Dutch practitioners who pioneered techniques to cause physical changes in youth from one sex to another, who estimate 63 percent of youth over time eventually change their minds.

Reeves makes offer Edwards can't refuse

Last week, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards received a stern warning: make any move to throw former Louisiana State Police head Kevin Reeves under the bus and the low-tech, Louisiana version of Republican Pres. Richard Nixon’s White House tapes may emerge publicly – which likely won’t flatter Edwards’ actions regarding the investigation of a black motorist’s death at the hands of the LSP.

The Louisiana Legislature has launched hearings into the incident, where in May, 2019 Ronald Greene died in LSP custody. He led LSP units on a car chase, ending with a minor wreck, only afterwards to be restrained in a dangerous fashion that included a severe beating, whereupon he died while being transported away from the scene.

Plenty of suspicious LSP activity followed, from its telling the Greene family that he had died in an accident despite media reports only hours after the incident relying on the original (now deleted) news release, body camera footage going missing, apparent obstruction of internal investigations that led to firing impartial investigators, suppressing any information about this and, most egregiously and running counter to procedures, erasing text information exchanges among top department officials during the period where the incident would have been discussed. While eventually this all became public knowledge, testimony at the hearings reiterated and expanded upon that.