Fewer voters cast ballots early in Caddo, Bossier It may not be enough to accurately foretell next Saturday’s vote, but Republicans must be encouraged seeing what is coming out concerning early voting in at least one parish. Caddo Parish reported almost half of its early voters were Republicans. Compared to statewide metrics, this is significantly disproportionately in the GOP’s favor. For the Oct. 20 election, with 24.6 percent of the state’s electorate registered Republican in time for it, 36.1 percent of the early votes cast were by Republicans, and 28.9 percent of the all votes were cast by those registered with the GOP label. In ratio terms, this means the proportion of Republicans voting early was 46.7 percent greater than their actual proportion registered, and their actual total turnout was 80.1 percent of their early voting turnout. But translating the Caddo figures of this time to a projected proportion of a few days into the future, the percentage shoots up to 40 percent of the actual turnout being Republicans. A comparison to actual past returns lends confidence to this estimate. Those numbers are close to the Jefferson Parish figures of Oct. 20. Caddo now is 26.5 percent Republican, with a 49.8 percent Republican early vote proportion, translating to 40 percent on Nov. 17, is close to the Jefferson figures then of 29.7 percent Republican, 50.1 percent Republican proportion of early voting, that became a 40 percent Republican proportion of the Oct. 20 electorate in that parish. This is good news for GOP candidate for atty. gen. Royal Alexander, who ran a little behind his Democrat general election runoff opponent and barely ahead of the incumbent Democrat. Not leading the primary and with a lot of Democrat votes means he needs disproportionate Republican turnout on Saturday. Better for him, almost all down-ballot runoffs are in the places where significant numbers of voters lie in which he did well in the primary. For example, the Senate District 37 race straddles Caddo and Bossier Parishes where he lead his opponent by over 11,000 votes, and wining Bossier outright. Looking specifically at that Senate race, the news also is good for former State Rep. B.L. “Buddy” Shaw. While the Republican faces another Republican in State Rep. Billy Montgomery, it is widely known that Montgomery is a recent switcher from the Democrats and that the vast majority of Republican votes likely are to go Shaw’s way. Even as Republican candidates including Shaw got 54 percent of the primary vote, it looks likely that Montgomery will spend more money, perhaps a half-million dollars, than any other legislative candidate in the state to try to win this seat, while Shaw is not likely to even hit six figures in his spending. It’s only the result of one parish, but if it mirrors the remainder of the state, the GOP may have a good enough night that could produce a statewide win, three of …
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Leadership races are under way Recently I wrote of the leadership battle brewing in the Louisiana Senate. Republicans cannot realistically hope to bag that position despite incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal being Republican because of the relatively large gap between parties in incoming Senate strength. But even if the GOP does not take the Louisiana House, bet on state Rep. Jim Tucker taking the Speaker’s position. Enough seats are up for grabs so that either party could be in the majority come January, but using the metric I developed to measure partisanship of districts (that is, without an incumbent running Democrats win if their registered voters outnumber Republicans’ 8:3, and vice-versa), I would predict a 55-50 effective Democrat majority (there are likely to be two independents elected, one each leaning to the major parties). Despite the Democrat lead, this indicates the leader of the Republican caucus Tucker is in the best position to take the gavel. With Republican Jindal as governor and the fact that a few Democrat newcomers lean to the moderate side and will want to increase their influence by siding with the governor’s party, Tucker can expect a few crossover votes with otherwise close if not perfect party loyalty from Republicans in a chamber leadership vote. Only if the Democrats do really well in the House elections might this scenario fail to manifest, with the favorite to assume the top job being state Rep. Don Cazayoux. Either way, look for the majority of committee chairmanships to go to Democrats unless Republicans get a majority but if not, still a substantial minority of those top panel positions will go to Republicans. Even as he talks publicly of not intervening in legislative leadership contests, the stakes are too high for Jindal to remain completely out of these determinations. He has struck a theme of bipartisanship, so behind the scenes Jindal forces likely would signal approval of a GOP-lead House with a slight majority of Democrat chairmen, and a Democrat-led Senate with the same balance of committee heads. Tucker would constitute a great choice to assist Jindal and for the state and it seems unlikely Jindal would sit out a contest where Tucker's election would be in doubt. That will create an interesting but not unprecedented situation. Under GOP Gov. Mike Foster’s second term split control of the Legislature’s leadership existed with Democrat Charlie DeWitt as Speaker and Republican John Hainkel as President (who as a Democrat has been Speaker years earlier). Reversed, it’s a formula that well could appear again. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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La. Sec. of State wants to eliminate July elections Sec. of State Jay Dardenne has the right idea in wanting to eliminate the July election date for Louisiana local governments. Cost savings relatively would be small but the greater impact would come from increased participation and representative government. Currently, R.S. 18:402 allows for four election dates, March/April, July, October, and November (and in Orleans Parish, a fifth in February). Until last year there was an additional one in January, but that was done away with and the logic justifying that still applies. Dardenne noted to a legislative panel that the most recent July election got less than 5 percent of the state’s registered voters out (although statistics show it actually was almost 6 percent), and occurred in fewer than half of the state’s parishes. If lower than usual, that is not atypical: in the past several, figures (going backwards were) 10.6, 11.7, 9.5, 11.1, 8.9, 10.8, 11.2, and 11.2 percent, or anywhere from three to four times lower than the typical fall election dates’. Each costs the state a minimum of around a half million dollars a shot. Dardenne’s point is that the money can be saved by scheduling such an election, almost always for tax issues, either three months early or later. Opponents as in the case of the January elimination have squawked that fewer election dates creates less democracy, but is curtailing options that make a difference of three months really that critical of a reduction of choice? Further, if an emergency situation comes up where the need for money truly cannot wait, the law provides a relatively easy process to have a special election, with concurrence of two-thirds of the State Bond Commission. But it’s the actual motivation for trying to keep the date, not this publicly-articulated one, which stirs opposition to its abolishment – local governments often use this date, as they did the January one, to try to get tax renewals and new taxes passed. Typically since the tax is dedicated to a certain constituency – such as government employee salaries – that constituency will vote in heavy numbers positively for the tax while only a small portion of those much larger numbers who get no direct benefit from the measure but who are only slightly negatively impacted will turn out. Governing authorities hope the high turnout rate of the smaller constituency that gets direct benefits will more than offset the very low turnout of the much larger mostly unaffected populace which as a whole may well vote against the item. Having to put such things on a ballot shared with state or other local elections that will get many times more people to the polls probably increases their chances of losing, or at least will require greater efforts at justification and more compelling persuasion to get them passed. There’s no good reason …
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Retired educators enter runoff campaign for Senate Dsitrct 37 seat Reformism and Republican conservatism were the watchwords of the 2007 Louisiana elections, and each side of the Red River gave us a dose of one or the other. On the Caddo side, a set of predictable races surprisingly made the Senate District 38 race the most interesting. Incumbent Republican Sherri Smith Cheek has one of the most liberal/populist voting records of Senate Republicans, and even in the entire Senate, but with her campaign coffers awash in funds from special interests, particularly the health care industry where she has fought to keep state priorities away from more efficient, individual- and community-based care in favor of more wasteful spending favoring institutionalized care, it was not expected that an unknown Republican reformer, attorney Alan Seabaugh, would give her much competition. But despite being outspent about three to one, Seabaugh, who relentlessly placed himself as a genuine conservative, reform-minded alternative to her, nearly knocked off Cheek whose total expenditures approached the $200,000 level. He came within 300 votes of her in Caddo Parish but only got 40 percent of the vote in the smaller-populated DeSoto Parish part of the district. This should serve as a shot across the bow to entice Cheek to alter her voting record in a more conservative direction. Up against a more experienced, higher-quality candidate she well may have lost, and the outcome should encourage tougher competition against her in 2011 if she does not change. As interesting was the role Republican Party identification played on the Bossier side of the river. Of course, the vast majority of candidates in the parish now avoid the Democrat label; electoral prospects have gotten so bad for them that longtime Democrat stalwart Wanda Bennett didn’t even sign up for the Police Jury District 3 under the party label for which she had labored for decades, choosing to run as no party (a tactic pioneered on the Jury by District 10 member Jerome Darby). It worked, for she defeated a Republican. Maybe Coroner Rita Yanez Horton should have followed that lead. The incumbent ran as a Democrat against newcomer John Chandler and was blown out. Democrat District 5 juror Henry Mitchell might have benefited as well, getting upended by a Republican, Barry Butler. Outside of state Sen. Robert Adley’s brushing off a college-aged longshot and longtime member Winfred Johnston getting reelected, the Republicans triumphed up against Democrats. But perhaps the most significant demonstration of the power of the GOP label came in a contest of two Republicans the House District 9 tilt between School Board member Henry Burns and education official Richey Jackson. Despite Burns having switched from the Democrats only months before, the parish GOP endorsed Burns, who ended up winning by less than 100 votes. Although a party endorsement doesn’t mean much in Louisiana, in a race that close, it probably made the difference. The intriguing collision of …
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Bobby Jindal's task More than two years past, liberal elites continue trying to impose a template on the “after Katrina” story that simply does not match reality, if a Washington Post editorial is taken to be indicative. The newspaper essentially blames Republican Pres. George W. Bush for foot-dragging on providing recovery dollars for Louisiana, citing as a recent example the Road Home shortfall. In doing so, it ignores a few facts. First, progress was slow because Democrat Gov. Kathleen Blanco couldn’t get her act together. By the beginning of 2006 plenty of federal recovery bucks were waiting to be used. Instead, because first she supported an entirely unrealistic $250 billion level, then because she pinned her hopes on the flawed “Baker plan,” the cumbersome Road Home program didn’t get up and running until the second half of 2006 and has been plagued by inefficiency since. In the meantime, GO Zone lending and granting had been authorized providing potentially large infusions for commercial applications of which many have taken advantage. Second, the reason the Road Home shortfall exists is because of deliberate actions by Blanco’s administration. The federal government set down one set of rules about who would qualify for what money if federal dollars were going to it, yet the Blanco Administration disregarded them and without permission vastly expanded the program. This put Washington over a barrel: either cough up additional money or be made to look unfair and have eligible people under the proper rules not receive promised funding. For political purposes, Blanco tricked the federal government and the American taxpayer out of billions. Finally, it’s difficult to blame Bush for perceived funding shortages in the past year because of his reduced leverage over a Democrat-led Congress. Not one bill specifically designed to address the Road Home gap or any additional funding has even been allowed to come to the floor by the Democrats. It smacks of intellectual dishonesty to give Democrats a pass on this when they’ve been the ones who have refused to date to give additional funds, and instead to try to fob that off on the White House. The editorial essentially wishes Republican incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal luck in getting the recovery going but entirely misidentified the problem. It’s not Bush impeding things, it’s the past mistakes of Blanco as well as a culture of dependency and a too-prevalent belief that government exists to acquire and transfer wealth rather than facilitate its creation. But understanding the true causes of a slow recovery would violate the “blame Bush and/or GOP” script. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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Play is emblem of New Orleans' problems It can’t really be a tale of two cities in physical terms because they’re in the same city. But it might as well be in terms of attitude, and the wide gulf that separates two illustrate the challenge that Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal and other reformers will face statewide over the next four years. Recently in New Orleans Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered on an outdoor stage in an area largely unreconstructed over two years after flood water pooled in it. There, former residents and others were heard to likening the “waiting” in the play to that which they say they have faced in their experiences with government, that they wait on government to provide for them in order to get things rebuilt. In the meantime, little gets done. Meanwhile, only a short distance down the road, some people didn’t wait on others. The largely Vietnamese community radiating around the Michoud Blvd. and Chef Menteur Highway intersection not long after having their homes flooded got together didn’t wait on anybody to start rebuilding. As much of the rest of New Orleans east residents complained about not having things done for them, these people got to work, helped themselves, and now the Village de l’Est area is almost completely rebuilt. Where Louisiana needs to be is adopting the mindset of those that didn’t wait, not where it is which is too many people waiting because they wanted somebody else to do it for them, and then blame others for it not getting done. It’s the difference between a dependency inculcated by a governing philosophy that posits big government as the solution for everything and government as the tool by which resources are distributed, and the independence that comes from getting government out as much as possible out of people’s lives, a government that does not take too much from people to disable their sense of independence and to encourage dependency. Louisiana’s historical problem, why the state underachieves so much, has been big government that either saps people of initiative, interferes too much to allow them to exercise it, or both. Reformers like the Republican Jindal articulate the different vision but those who benefit from aggressive use of government as a means of resource distribution will fight them strenuously. It will take much effort by them to cause the cultural paradigm shift that is necessary for Louisiana to improve its quality of life in any way, and they need to be prepared to fight to do it. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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November 2, 2007…Finally after almost five insufferable years in office, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan announced his resignation this week. Laughably, he was late in sending in this letter of resignation to the Secretary of State’s office, proving once again that he was incapable of doing anything right. However, he did make the right move by leaving as his departure can only mean good news for a city suffering from a high crime rate and poor image. Jordan presided over a completely disorganized office that failed to prosecute criminals and in fact allowed criminals to be released from jail and commit more crimes on our streets. Why was Jordan such a pitiful District Attorney? For one, he was never qualified for this important position. His political handlers sold the voters of New Orleans a bill of goods in the 2002 race for District Attorney. Orleans Parish voters thought they were electing a tough as nails prosecutor, the man who convicted former Governor Edwin Edwards. In fact, Jordan was nothing more than a face man for the real team of federal prosecutors, led by Jim Letten, who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office and who actually prosecuted Edwards. As a columnist and talk show host, I covered the 2002 District Attorney’s race. During the campaign, one of Jordan’s former assistants in the U.S. Attorney’s office approached me with some disturbing information. She told me that the judge in the Edwards case admonished Jordan for falling asleep several times during the trial. So, to say the least, Jordan was not actively involved in the prosecution of Edwards. When I questioned Jordan about this allegation, he was visibly upset and claimed that he was not sleeping, but “deep in thought,” an almost ludicrous explanation. How much “thought” did Jordan give to his actions as District Attorney? Did Jordan think about the ramifications of firing white employees with hundreds of years of cumulative experience and hiring his African American campaign supporters with almost no prosecutorial experience? Jordan should have realized the consequences of following the direction of his mentor U.S. Congressman Bill Jefferson (D-New Orleans) and firing all of these individuals. This ill advised action was ruled to be racially discriminatory and led to a $3.7 million judgment against the District Attorney’s office. The judgment has been upheld by several courts and was the major factor contributing to the resignation of Jordan. With Jordan gone, possibly the $3.7 million payment can be arranged through a combination of city and state government and possibly the business community. The firings were not only racially discriminatory, but the loss of this experience in the District Attorney’s office also hurt the entire city by robbing the citizens of the talented professionals the office needed to prosecute criminals. Along with Jordan’s incompetence, the firings are one of the many reasons that crime is so rampant in New Orleans. Sadly, too many hardened criminals are not being prosecuted in New Orleans, they are back on the streets right after …
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GOP hit the polls harder than Demos It’s not that Republicans appeared any more motivated to vote last month in state elections, it’s that Democrats weren’t and many have left the state and taking potential Democrat votes with them – consequences of which will reverberate in future elections as early as this month’s. The state has compiled official voting statistics which prompted one analyst to assert that a “motivated community” or Republicans marked the contest. Actually, when comparing the results of the elections to those of the 2003 primary where 54.4 percent of Republicans votes, shows there was little difference. The real difference, which was under 4 percent for the total turnout between 2007 and 2003, came in Democrat voters and especially with black voters, as white Democrat participation dropped from 60.2 to 52 percent, but black Democrat participation swooned from 49.4 percent to 37 percent. Three things explain the GOP voters staying essentially the same while Democrats suffered declines. First, switching and migration patterns favor the GOP, and at least among the switchers, since they are involved enough in politics to feel switching is necessary, are more likely to vote. Second, presented only with second-tier candidates for the governor’s contest, Democrats were unenthused and disproportionately less likely to turn out in October. Third, Democrats disproportionately, especially blacks, have been dispersed from Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Orleans Parishes by the 2005 disasters and, while their names remain on the rolls, are highly unlikely to participate in elections. While the dropoff in total vote in Jefferson was less than 10 percent or about 11,000 for governor, it was off almost 42,000 in Orleans or over a third, and in St. Bernard it plunged by over half or a loss of almost 14,000. The last factor explains most of the decline and jeopardizes the fortunes of Democrats in statewide elections. For example, given that Republican Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal avoided a general election runoff by around 50,000 votes and that 67,000, majority Democrat, votes were “lost” from the previous primary, it would have been touch-and-go for him to have avoided the runoff had demographic patterns remained the same. This is a long-term problem with which Democrats must deal. But even in the short run, it could prove costly. The Jindal candidacy and the chance to vote against Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom may have rallied Republicans in the primary. Yet if they retain motivation this could help GOP candidates principally Royal Alexander for attorney general. In 1999, another year when the governor’s race was decided in the primary, while GOP registrants’ rate dropped 17 percent, Democrats’ rate dropped about 20 percent. If that happens again, not only will Alexander have a real chance at giving the GOP six out of seven statewide offices, but the Republicans also may gain control of the House for the first time in over 130 years. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed …
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Blanco recaps administration, vows to continue pushing for remaining Road Home money One would think that, even in the waning days of her term, Gov. Kathleen Blanco would have more to do than try to rewrite history inaccurately. Apparently not, judged by a recent visit of hers to tour economic concerns of which she had practically nothing to do in procuring for Louisiana. Invited to recall her time in office, Blanco offered that it was her administration’s program to offer pre-kindergarten to all 4-year-olds from at-risk families. In fact, the legislation to so do came in 2001, three years before she took office. More accurately, she tried to increase funding for it. She also talked of ethics reforms she supported. And she got some passed which barely tightened up campaign finance laws, before the 2005 hurricane disasters. But after then, she testified, she had to drop the matter because other issues had become more important. Yet the Legislature had made a full-blown effort this past session that would have made sweeping ethics changes in reporting requirements. Huge majorities supported it, until Sens. Don Hines and Robert Adley used parliamentary maneuvers to put the bill into a position to be killed. Throughout, Blanco adopted a hands-off attitude that if she had forsaken and put some weight behind the bill, surely would have overcome Hines and Adley – and, having forsworn running for reelection, would have been in the perfect position to have done so, yet she remained unengaged. She also commented that, in the state’s futile chase to land a steel mill, that as a result of her efforts “t positioned us as a player. We were not players when I started. We were an afterthought.” Which shows how poor her judgment was and still is on these matters. Until Louisiana reforms its business tax structure – of which Blanco rejected such efforts such as her veto of HB 505 this past session except for the most tepid measures – and adopts sweeping ethics reforms that Blanco did not try to get passed, Louisiana almost always will be an afterthought in this regard. But her most gross misstatements came in regards to her conduct right after and for the next couple of months after the 2005 disasters. She claims short of “immediately turning Republican,” she said she doesn't know how she could have gotten more help more quickly from the Pres. George W. Bush administration. Which shows either her memory is incredibly short or incredibly selective. First, Blanco completely botched the process by which to request aid. Even though just a year earlier she had participated in a simulation and had a near-miss, she didn’t know how to request aid. Had she known what she was doing, immediate aid would have come more quickly. Second, as her e-mail messages show, almost from the start she viewed the crisis through political lenses, …
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