Simien win challenges GOP mayor race success

Earlier this month, the election of independent Marshall Simien, Jr. to the Lake Charles mayoralty marked a curious outlier to recent success that Republicans and white candidates generally have had in Louisiana’s largest cities, and may flash a warning signal to them.

Simien defeated two-term incumbent Republican Nic Hunter in the May 3 runoff. While Hunter’s proportion of the vote barely increased from what he gathered in the Mar. 29 general election, Simien’s essentially corralled support from all others, making up more than an 18-percentage point gap. Hunter is white while Simien, who among other elected and appointed positions in government served a couple of terms on the City Council prior to a previous mayoral run in 2017, is black.

Until May, Republicans had hit their high-water mark in executive control of the ten most populated cities (in a trio of cases, consolidated with the parish) in the state. While New Orleans had a Democrat as mayor, all of Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, St. George (newly a city with an elected mayor as of March), Lake Charles, Kenner and Bossier City – second through eighth in population – had Republican chief executives. Monroe had an independent and Alexandria a Democrat.

Stipend extension not best pay raise strategy

By inserting the stipend Louisiana public school employees have enjoyed for the past two years into the budget for next year, legislators may end up writing checks with their mouths that later they can’t cash.

Somewhat surpassingly, the fiscal year 2026 budget contains, for a third year in a row, a $2,000 stipend for educators and $1,000 for staff. Extending it one more year wasn’t supposed to happen in the wake of the defeat of a constitutional amendment that used educational trust funds to pay down unfunded accrued liabilities in pension plans, which then would have the leftover funds no longer encumbered at the local level passed along into permanent raises.

But House Republicans pulled a rabbit from their hat when the Appropriations Committee, with full support of its Democrats, included the raises again. It took near-magic to do so: blocking $91 million dollars in funding for new vehicle and heavy equipment purchases for state agencies, cutting $26 million dollars in benefits for ineligible Medicaid recipients, plowing in $20 million dollars because of a hiring freeze, by paying down debt early to save $25 million dollars in interest, and halting a $30 million intensive tutoring program in the Department of Education.

Unaccountable Port lobbies to keep privileges

Perhaps it should not surprise that the most secretive local government in northwest Louisiana, the Port of Caddo-Bossier, has been involved some double-secret moves, if not backed by misinformation whether intentionally deceptive, by officials in area local governments.

The Port was established over 60 years ago to govern commerce and traffic as a port. Practically speaking, this means it builds infrastructure around land it leases to tenants. It is governed by a commission of nine appointees, political insiders all, by Shreveport, Bossier City, Caddo Parish, and Bossier City. It rakes in the statutory maximum of 2.5 mills of property tax from residents in those parishes. That’s good enough to gather over $7 million annually and to acquire assets of over $200 million while on the hook for $58 million in debt (2023 numbers; those for 2024 were presented at today’s meeting). (That debt will increase, perhaps substantially, as at its April meeting besides officially levying the property tax for 2025 it also authorized up to $750 million in new debt issuance.)

But statute also gives it enormous powers over what is defined as the “port area” – Bossier and Caddo Parishes in their entirety – and protects it from interference from any other local government. Following a 2021 law that added that and extensively expanded its powers, that gives it pretty free run to do whatever, at whatever cost. For example, it snookered Bossier City into giving it potentially a free waterworks that, unless some unlikely assumptions transpire, will be a net cost to Bossier Citians. It also has the power to expand through expropriation unhindered by any other local government, and, as an economic development entity, to make deals out of view of taxpayers.

Good bill advances DEI shuttering in education

The substitute bill for Republican state Rep. Emily Chenevert’s HB 421 finishes an incomplete job in a way that promotes unbiased learning and respectful treatment of individuals.

The bill, which advanced, on a party-line vote in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee with all from the GOP in favor, in the form of substitute as it met with substantial change, prohibits public colleges’ instructional content that relates to concepts of critical race theory, white fragility, white guilt, systemic racism, institutional racism, anti-racism, systemic bias, implicit bias, unconscious bias, intersectionality, gender identity, allyship, race-based reparations, race-based privilege, or the use of pronouns; and in promoting the differential treatment of any individual or group of individuals based on race or ethnicity, imputed bias, or other ideology related to diversity, equity, or inclusion; or any course with a course description, course overview, course  objectives, proposed student learning outcomes, written examinations, or written or oral assignments that include this content  The original form of the bill included only a prohibition against preferential treatment by suspect categories by state government agencies, but added to that dismantling parts of any state government agency involved in these activities and oversight of this by the Legislative Auditor with possible corrective actions by the majoritarian branches.

On the latter score, it significantly improves upon actions – in the case of the Louisiana State University System, but inaction by the other three higher education management boards – to eliminate in name these concepts and applications of these that collectively are known as diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. DEI assumes that non-minority race or sex individuals by nature unreasonably discriminate against others and therefore government must bestow privileges on the other individuals to account for the difference.

Vanity only reason for Edwards Senate run

This might be fun, to see perhaps the most arrogant, partisan, and fraudulent governor in Louisiana history getting his ego busted.

It appears that Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards has held multiple conversations with Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about running for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat in 2026. It’s not clear who is courting whom, but the electoral map is such that for Democrats to take control of the chamber they would have to have an extremely good election night, which means recruiting candidates that stand at least a ghost of a chance of winning. Seemingly, Edwards said to check back with him later this summer.

Edwards doesn’t fall into that category. He rode into office presenting himself as a generic blank slate but in a manner to make voters think he was conservative by emphasizing alleged traditional social values. He became the only governor ever to win reelection with fewer votes than he did upon initial consecutive election (although that’s a small sample size given that was not possible constitutionally until 1975), barely skating back in by riding the Trump 45 economic recovery wave (even as within the state he pursued an agenda at odds with the ideas that triggered it).

LPSC must prompt pivot away from renewable energy

While both American Electric Power and the Southwest Power Pool made mistakes that led to a blackout under good weather conditions in northwest Louisiana, the most prominent reason should serve as a warning going forward to state policy-makers.

AEP’s subsidiary Southwestern Electric Power last month had to cut power to around 30,000 people, most in Bossier Parish, for a few hours despite no damage from weather or other sources. It had to at the behest of SPP, because there wasn’t enough power available in SWEPCO’s service area. Trying to draw too much from outside wouldn’t have helped, and more from within would have been as likely to cause cascading failures within the service area.

SWEPCO came up short because it had taken offline temporarily some generation locations for maintenance. This act had been planned months in advance with the expectation that mild spring weather would place low demand on electricity, thus the reduced capacity still could serve all demand. However, unexpectedly high temperatures in the SWEPCO service abrogated that plan and forced the blackout.

LA welfare policy must promote, not pander

So, let’s get this straight: not only must Louisiana taxpayers continue to bestow gifts, but that the receivers get to tell what gifts and in a manner that costs taxpayers even more?

More evidence about just how far off the rails the political left has gone in Louisiana, and America, came at a Louisiana Senate committee hearing last week where it claimed taxpayers should continue to facilitate poorer health outcomes. This came over debate about SB 14 by Republican state Sen. Patrick McMath, a bill that would disallow public schools from serving meals that contain ingredients nutrition experts have identified as encouraging chronically bad health conditions and to start a process to remove soft drinks from eligibility for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases, which also contain some of the cited ingredients.

According to extremely old data, about half of all Louisiana students attend schools qualifying for Title I assistance, meaning eligibility for provision of breakfast and/or lunch for free. About a fifth of Louisianans participate in SNAP, which nationally costs almost $113 billion in 2023.

Alarmists hoisted on own petard by hidden report

As it turns out with the now-halted and controversial Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project, the climate alarmism behind it injected into its formation by the Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration ended up hoisting it onto its own petard into suspension, if not downsizing or even termination.

Upon taking office, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry expressed skepticism that the project, the initial stages of which were underway and which would cost $3 billion. Its goal was to divert sediment from the Mississippi River at points around 60 to 70 miles above its outlet into the Barataria Basin in order to rebuild about 21 square miles of land over 50 years. However, there would be spillover effects including destruction of marine habitats that would disrupt oyster and shrimping industries plus other marine life (pushing one species to the brink of extinction) and disrupting negatively flood insurance administration in Plaquemines Parish which would bear the brunt of and opposed from the start the project. The final analysis of it concluded that it would convey slightly higher benefits compared to costs in resources and damage.

Then last month Landry announced a halt of work on it. Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revoked the environmental permit associated with it, citing the suspension. But it also listed other factors into the decision, including that the state “deliberately withheld information … that the state knew it should provide … [for] consideration whether to include that information” for the purposes of issuing the permit. In other words, the Edwards Administration deceptively kept information from the Corps that could have altered the final decision.

Marching term limits bills to worry Bossier jurors

Don’t look now, Bossier Parish Police Jury, but term limits may be headed your way, if momentum takes hold from actions of one of its own parish’s state senators on behalf of other parishes.

This week, SB 103 and SB 113 both advanced onto the Senate floor. Both bills, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh, would call for votes to impose term limits on the police juries in Sabine and De Soto Parishes, respectively. No parish governed under state statutes as yet has term limits, although Lincoln Parish may do so under statute but that depends upon its jury calling for an election, which it has not yet.

Something to that effect happened in De Soto, where in February of last year the five Republican and one no party jurors voted in favor to authorize the jury president to request the legislation, against the five Democrats. SB 113 would establish a three-term limit prospectively presumably if approved for 2028 and beyond. It represents a switch from a 7-4 defeat only months earlier, where in the meantime elections occurred and while a couple of holdover jurors swapped votes, two long-time (32 and 20 years) incumbents who had voted against in 2023 were defeated by newcomers who voted for in 2024.

No back door to universal closed primaries in LA

More well-read advocates of closed party primaries in Louisiana, particularly Republicans, may have become excited needlessly by a recent, if misleading, article about the possibility of applying these to all elective offices in Louisiana by the waving of a magical judicial wand.

Last year, when state lawmakers made considerable revisions to election process, they carved out closed primaries for certain offices – U.S. Senate, U.S. Representative, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Public Service Commission, and the Supreme Court, joining that of presidential electors – while excluding any local, all other judicial, statewide single executive, and legislative offices. Conservative activists in particular were pleased to see this move away from the state’s nonpartisan/nonpreference election system – technically not even a primary election (although often referred to as a “blanket primary”) but rather a general election with the possibility of a runoff where candidates regardless of party affiliation ran together – as it would produce candidates with greater ideological fidelity without members of the other major party able to exert influence selection of favored candidates.

Party activists generally had hoped to see closed primaries applied to all elections, but political realities – specifically, the legislators and governor involved in making this change all had come into office under the blanket primary, so they felt their office selection method not broken and needing no fixing – intruded. But recently, some false hope was offered for extension of closed primaries from a posting by a special interest group advocating legal and policy reforms through increased transparency.