Suchergebnisse

Older Swiss women have set a global legal precedent for challenging their nation's climate-change policy.

Angelina Inesia-Forde (Walden University) has posted The American Founding Documents and Democratic Social Change: A Constructivist Grounded Theory on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there...

Jean Galbraith (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School) has posted Derivative Foreign Relations Law (George Washington Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We treat U.S. foreign relations law as a discrete body of law—and it is. But...

Juan Auz (Tilburg Law School; Hertie School; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) has posted Climate Crisis and the Testing of International Human Rights Remedies: Forecasting the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (The Hague Academy's Centre for Studies and Research...

Another joker popped out of the deck last
month concerning the increasingly-voluminous and complex litigation
surrounding Louisiana congressional reapportionment that likely makes the odds
even more certain that resolution won't come until the 2026 election cycle.North of the state in the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals, a three-judge panel agreed in an Arkansas case
that only the federal government can file judicial action against maps under
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Louisiana case, which seeks to
invalidate the state's current map with one out of six majority-minority
districts in a state where residents claiming some black ancestry make up
almost a third of the population, was filed by a private group, not the federal
government.That case, which has ping-ponged between the
state's Middle District and the Fifth Circuit, as part of its deliberation by a
separate three-judge panel briefly
addressed this issue, known as a private right of action. It conceded that
as other jurisdictions had acknowledged the right exists that it would assume
the same in this instance.But that's no longer the case with the Eighth
Circuit panel ruling, and with that divergence now begs U.S. Supreme Court
intervention, pending what the entire circuit will do assuming the plaintiffs
appeal that way. The Court almost certainly would intervene if a party with an
active case, after two circuits with open cases have ruled differently on the
issue, asks for that.However, before that step, Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, now citing the Arkansas
case, has added this to a request
for the entire Fifth Circuit to hear the case that, at its last stop, went back
to district court to administer a deadline set by the panel of Jan. 15 for the
state to redraw the current map. Subsequently, the district
court extended the deadline for the state to act to Jan. 30.Yet even if the entire circuit refuses to hear the
case, leaving the private right of action in force, then Landry could appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court and freeze the case. Presumably, the Fifth Circuit would
act on the request no later than the first of the year, just prior to the
change of administrations to Landry and seating of a new Legislature, which
then Landry if turned down then could launch an emergency appeal to the Court, and
because of the inconvenience involved to the state almost certainly would act
quickly to freeze the case and then potentially decide to hear it over the
issue of private right to action.Or, the Fifth Circuit could hear the case, which
in its present form is about how much opportunity and time the state would have
to draw a new map, pushing back any resolution. Or, a party to another active
case outside the Eight Circuit could ask for that Court to deal with the
private right to action issue, which would freeze the Louisiana case.You get the picture. Given that, practically
speaking, a map must be in place no later than the end of the regular
legislative session in early June for a fall election without harmful confusion
to occur, adding this issue to existing ambiguities in that no existing law or judicial
decision as of yet requires Louisiana to draw more than one M/M district
which is what the plaintiffs want as a solution and that the decision in the
Court case
earlier this year that opened the door to giving race preferential treatment in
reapportionment also contains the seeds
of a constitutional challenge to that means lengthy legal byplay making
meeting that deadline virtually impossible.This tussle is like an overtime professional
football game where a team (the defendants, the state) were driving to the
winning score but were thwarted on the goal line by the opposition (the
plaintiffs, the special interests, when the Court ruled in their favor). But,
instead of driving the length of the field to secure the win against a stout
defense, the other team wants the officials immediately to award them the win (the
two M/M districts) as soon as possible without further hiking of the ball.With now two serious constitutional questions in
play as well as uncertainty over just how preferential a role race can play if
that interpretation withstands the questions, you can't rush matters, which the
plaintiffs want so they can impose for them a politically-desirable solution
without proper scrutiny. Hopefully, the judiciary will allow for hashing out
these questions, which almost certainly would leave present district lines in
place for another election cycle.

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards converted
on an eleventh-hour chance to roll back in one respect education reform in
Louisiana, after a long eight years of playing defense.

Coming into office with the support of special
interests opposed to the reforms which emphasized choice, accountability, and
standards, Edwards made little legislative headway in turning back any of these
implemented earlier in the decade. His presence in the Governor's Mansion,
however, did block continued reform such as creating a
money-follows-the-student funding distribution which probably could have drawn
legislative majorities or, which happened twice, preventing state aid for
students with disabilities to attend schools of their choice.

He had help from pliable Republicans House Speaker
Clay Schexnayder
and Senate Pres. Page Cortez,
who tried to bottle up such bills, but he had little luck in reversing reform
in any meaningful way. Except for now with the Board of Elementary and
Secondary Education, which this week forced the most significant retreat over
the past eight years.

That came in the form of adopting
a new policy that subverts academic rigor behind awarding a high school
diploma. To earn one, a student had to score from 10 to 38 percent (yes, that
low) in areas on standardized tests. Failure to do so meant no diploma, but starting
now an appeal process to bypass this requirement approved this week has created
a nebulous, subjective review process with little accountability.

Districts have wanted this because some have been
embarrassed by the discordance between worse student performance on tests but
higher average course grades handed out, which indicates lax instruction that
lowers their district performance scores which become a political talking point
for elected school board members seeking additional terms. And poorer
performances truly are a matter of individual district performance, because
many flailing districts have their students do much worse than others with
similar demographic traits, so it's not a matter of alleged inherent unfairness
in testing that is producing such differences.

Until now, unlike most states Louisiana didn't
have an appeal process, but this new edition is almost a get-a-diploma-for-free
card. Performed at the district level with no oversight, there is next to no
incentive to prevent abuse of the process to increase district prestige and
score political points by inflating graduation rates. Further, it will
encourage some students to put forth less effort in seeing a backstop in place.
Superintendent Cade Brumley on behalf of the Department of Education, who echoed
the concerns
of a number of people and interest groups 
that lowering standards will reduce quality of life for those credentialed
yet essentially unprepared for the modern work force as well as will hinder employers
seeking qualified workers, also pointed out the process sidestepped several
legal requirements in its making.

Yet, largely because of Edwards' position that
gave him three appointments to BESE, the measure squeaked through a pair of narrowly-affirmativevotes to become policy. One alternative to prevent this would be suing over the
legal questions raised by Brumley.

Absent that, a political solution can come by the
election of a Republican as governor this week, along
with a mix of Republican incumbents and newcomers. This would produce in
all likelihood at least a 9-2 reform majority on BESE and the ability to alter
severely, if not reverse, the change within the next two years, as well as to
help kickstart reform measures from their moribund state.

But, for now revanchists, whose policies that
looked out more for the interest of adults than of children which had shaped
Louisiana education over the decades, have won their only significant clawback
for the past decade. Let's hope the resulting damage is minimal.

A whole generation goes by, and nothing changes for
Bossier Parish apparently playing fast and loose with the law when it comes to
squeezing money from the citizenry.

The Bossier
Watch transmission of Apr. 16 contained a couple of minutes of commentary
and video of a sign reading "VOTE SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024 BOSSIER PARISH
LIBRARIES" planted near a roadway. The hosts recounted they had seen some
around, although the exact location of this one was unknown. On that date is
the spring municipal runoff elections in Louisiana, where a 7.43 mils property
tax renewal to fund Bossier Parish libraries reengaging in 2026 for 10 years is
the one item that will appear on ballots parish-wide.

What follows is a reprint of a post
I made at my Louisiana-centric blog site, Between the Lines, on Dec. 30, 2010
that reviewed events of four years previous. (Keep in mind nearly 18 years ago
that the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway stopped at the southern end of the
now-Brookshire Grocery Arena). It's amazing how little things (and people
involved) change:

As 2011 approaches and observing that Bossier
Parish seems to have no difficulty, even in trying economic times, in finding
money to service road construction, as well as reviewing the past year and
digesting the renewed enthusiasm that the people have acquired courtesy of
over-reaching national government to monitor the activities of government, it
makes me think back some years ago about an object lesson concerning how
government operates. The specific example is Bossier Parish's, and the apparent
whimsy of situation might amuse save for the unsettling consequences implied
had things turned out differently.

Perhaps somebody remembers in the days leading up
to the 2006 fall elections that a sign touting an affirmative vote for Bossier
Parish raising property taxes essentially threefold, at what was then the
southern end of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, was moved a short distance away
only a few days before that election. Blame me for the consternation.

I first noticed the sign on Sep. 21 and became
simultaneously curious and concerned. It didn't state who sponsored it, and it
was in a spot I thought might be part of the public right-of-way, and certainly
was on public property (Bossier City's). Obviously, it was an attempt to
encourage passage of the measure which should bring pause to anyone who
believes in fairness by government: Bossier City was permitting a pro-vote
sign, supporting a Bossier Parish measure which would enrich the parish coffers
by $2 million a year, to be placed on its property, regardless of whether its
citizens supported such a measure.

According to the Unified Development Code for both
the city and parish, this is permissible under certain circumstances. Article
9 Section 10 states: "Temporary signs containing no commercial message and
related to an election or other event or matter of public interest may be
erected in any zoning district of the city or parish but not within the public
right-of-way." Note, however, that the Code does not mention placement on
government property.

After a couple of phone calls I got hold of Parish
Engineer Joe "Butch" Ford, who said a private entity had put up the
sign (and a similar one elsewhere). At least no government was using taxpayer
dollars to try to influence its citizens voting behavior. Still, apparently it
was on city property and the right-of-way question he couldn't answer, so on I
called the Bossier City engineer to find out the answer to the latter.

He took time out of his busy day to relay to me
that the public right-of-way extended to the back side of the barricade
blocking the end of the pavement (about 25 feet from the roadway). However, the
sign was located on the front side of the barricade, meaning it was in the
public right-of-way and therefore illegally placed.

I then placed another call to the Metropolitan
Planning Commission (I had placed one the day before but, like the call to
Ford, had been close to the end of the workday and, unlike the one to him, was
not answered). The employee there said they would deal with the situation, once
I informed him of it. Since this was early Friday afternoon, I didn't know
whether anything would happen before the weekend.

Early the next Monday, now five days prior to the
election, I got a call from the Bossier MPC director Sam Marsiglia, who said it
was legal to have the sign there because "it's a public sign." He alleged that
a government had put it there, and that was legal. I informed him that the
parish engineer had said otherwise and tried to explain that wouldn't look very
good if a government was using taxpayer dollars to sway their votes so a
government wouldn't do that, but he was insistent and said I should call Parish
Administrator Bill Altimus about the matter.

I had duties to attend to so it was about 20
minutes later that I dialed Altimus. He cheerfully informed me the sign would
be moved. As soon as I hung up, Marsiglia called, saying it would be moved to
the Reeves Marine property (adjacent east of the barricades) and to check back
with him if it wasn't done. (It would have been out of the right-of-way simply
by moving it behind the barricades but would have remained on city property.)

This, I might add, is simply wonderfully
neighborly behavior by the city and parish and Reeves Marine. Silly me, I
thought whenever illegal campaign signs were discovered they either were
destroyed or confiscated to a location where their owners could liberate them.
Instead, not only were the interests behind the sign being allowed to move it,
within only minutes of being informed of that necessity Reeves Marine
graciously volunteered to host the sign. What a friendly place! Future
candidates for office, now you know, if you place a sign on Bossier City
property and/or illegally, it won't be destroyed or removed, they'll let you
move it, maybe even to Reeves Marine. (If you ask nicely, maybe they'll even
move it for you!)

(Note: in a subsequent communication, even Bossier
City elected officials seemed confused over the incident. At my request, city
councilman Scott Irwin wrote to Mayor Lo Walker, whose office's reply did not
even discuss the legal issue and did not address the propriety of an
electioneering sign on city property, adding "With your concurrence I will
consider this ITEM CLOSED." Maybe not; maybe this issue of propriety is
something that ought to be addressed by the city.)

Regardless of the sign's position (or of any
others; there were several other similar ones touting the bond issue around the
parish), the proposition narrowly failed. It took one concerned citizen to make
the system work properly regarding the sign. Sep. 30, 2006, it took a majority
of concerned citizens voting to make the Bossier Parish Police Jury see the
truth that it didn't need to raise taxes to make sure the parkway was extended
expeditiously and, even with deteriorated economic conditions, then to proceed
to fulfill the other projects that had argued could be completed only with the
increased taxation.

And confirmation of this came earlier this month,
when the extension to the Parkway opened (through where the sign originally had
been) without the extra tax dollars having gone into its construction. Lesson:
watch government very closely lest it take what it does not need nor deserve
from the people.

And now to 2024 … the sign displayed on Bossier
Watch seemed awfully close to the road, meaning it's in the right-of-way, and
the Bossier UDC hasn't changed since making that placement illegal. Thus, it would
be incumbent on either the parish or whatever municipality may have such signs to
remove these.

And where are they coming from? Campaign
finance disclosure law would mandate that any political committee spending
money on electioneering at this date close to the election would had to have
filed a report about the expenditure for signs. None has, meaning either some
PAC somewhere illegally hasn't reported this or no registered PAC has done it.
That leads to a loophole in the law (R.S. 18:1501.1): any person who spends in
opposition or support of a candidate or ballot item must report that – unless
the aggregate contributions and expenses involved don't exceed $500. It is possible
that, if there are few enough of these signs, that their cost didn't exceed
that figure, and that someone or a few people got together and did that.

So, the public never may know who is doing this, and
what their potential relationship is to Bossier Parish's government and libraries.
In fact, it may be quite close, given the wording of the sign which ambiguously
doesn't advocate for or against the ballot item. It merely exhorts the viewer
to vote on that day and slips in "BOSSIER PARISH LIBRARIES." By doing this, if
discovered government employees actually were involved, the parish could claim
it wasn't electioneering but merely informing the public there was an election
on Saturday, Apr. 27.

Of course, the signs' presentation implies something
critical about libraries will appear on the ballot and, further, people should vote
in whatever manner available to support libraries. After all, who is against libraries?

If anybody in Bossier Parish government knows
about this, they need to go public. At the very least, parish government must remove
any such signs on public rights-of-way; tolerance of this denotes acceptance
not only of illegal behavior but also endorsement of a political preference.
And state lawmakers would do well to clarify statute to make it expressly
illegal for any government to spend any dollars to electioneer, even if in a
manner that doesn't explicitly advocate for or against something on the ballot.
Because when it comes to gorging themselves on taxpayer dollars, government
will try any dodge available to keep other peoples' money rolling in.

Prof. Mary Anne Franks lays out the legal changes needed to protect people on the Internet

Against all odds – and
jurisprudential good sense – Louisiana finds itself having to revisit congressional
reapportionment, although unlikely with any changes until after 2024, if even
then.

Over a year ago, the chances of the state having
to follow the dictates of special interest groups in drawing two majority-minority
congressional districts rather than maintaining its one were about as likely as
a football team succeeding with a Hail Mary pass at a game's end. Yet with a
Supreme Court decision
since on an Alabama reapportionment case, it seems the ball actually got hurled
with enough strength to reach the goal line and offensive players in position
to catch it.

But the offense has to come down with it. Whether
it does begins with the Court also declining
to hear the state's appeal of a district court decision a year ago that set
the stage for drawing the two M/M map after the state legislated a one M/M map not
too different from that of the present.

That means the Court thinks its recent Allen v.
Milligan decision provides sufficient guidance for lower courts to
implement in this case. That is, despite
the wording of the Voting Rights Act, previous court rulings that allowed for
non-neutral application of race in guiding reapportionment remain in place,
giving race a preferred position among several recognized principles of
reapportionment.

Practically speaking, the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals has the case, where, if it thinks Louisiana's case is sufficiently
different from Alabama's, will overturn the Middle District court's ruling. If
not, it can ask the Legislature to try again, but if for whatever reason it
doesn't think the Legislature can create a plan tailored to the jurisprudence
at present, it will skip that step and allow the district court directly to
impose a two M/M solution.

Actually, it kind of works out the same. Politically
speaking, the Legislature is unlikely in special session to submit to a two
M/M plan, because GOP legislators who comprise a supermajority simply won't
sign over the likely converting of a Republican representative into a Democrat.

But it also makes good jurisprudential sense because
of the exceptionally confused Supreme Court ruling that signals the last hasn't
been heard on this issue that isn't close to resolution. The convoluted ruling
leaves room for drawing another one M/M map slightly different from the first
that produces an even sharper distinction between race and other criteria used,
principally communities of interest.

This would illuminate even more the greater role race
takes in evaluating the Louisiana plans than in the Alabama ones, where the
adopted one M/M plan didn't much more neatly observe other principles than did the
two M/M rivals. By
contrast, the Louisiana one M/M plan is much cleaner in its fidelity to other
principles compared to the rather severe violence done to these in the name of race
by any two M/M plan, which may tip the scales in the minds of the Circuit Court
to follow genuinely the words of the Voting Rights Act that says race cannot have
so much prominence as to guarantee proportionality in population and
representation. It also would have to demonstrate a state frustrates minority representation
where plaintiffs have to overcome the fact that since 1990 many elected Democrats,
including many blacks, with influence in the process explicitly rejected
proportionality-based mapping sought by the plaintiffs.

As impaired as it is, the ruling does make clear that
at least two challenges not yet considered by the Court could be brought: that race-conscious
criteria inserted into the law by the Court may have grown stale and that the
entire section of the Act interpreted to allow the injection of race as a
criterion is unconstitutional. Indeed, while there are those
on the hard left who with the ruling consider the creation of two M/M districts
a done deal in time for 2024, hard
leftists in the legal profession expressed alarm at the ruling precisely because
they see it granting only a tenuous, even temporary, vehicle by which to keep
race as a criterion.

Thus, whether the Legislature has a
reapportionment special session matters only in the speed in which the matter
winds back up in court if a court doesn't find a one M/M plan acceptable (taking
comments from GOP state Sen. Sharon
Hewitt who led the effort in her chamber, a challenge in that case from the
Legislature is inevitable). At the very least, the process will take months to
play out, starting when the Fifth Circuit decides what to do.

Add to this the Court's Purcell
principle, which means to avoid electoral confusion changes in boundaries can't
happen too soon to the start of the election process. In
practical terms, that means in Louisiana all litigation would have to be
wrapped up by the end of May, 2024. In fact, it may be more like the end of
January because state Republicans choose delegates for the national convention
in part by congressional districts, with the primary election on Mar. 23. In
neither instance litigation will be complete, and the decision courts, likely
involving again the Supreme Court, make in 2024 or 2025 may be to uphold through
different reasoning the present map or something near it, so a two M/M adopted plan
may not materialize for 2026 or ever.

So, it's not that the ball has been grabbed by an
offensive player who just has to reel it in. There are plenty of defenders yet
with a shot to see that doesn't happen. Any judgment that Louisiana soon inevitably
will end up with a two M/M solution is most decidedly premature.

With most through to another four years of office, in
their latest meeting Bossier Parish police jurors reverted to their typical
arrogance and obtuseness. Perhaps they should pay attention to the shape of their
future: what happened at the last Bossier City Council meeting.

Recent election results guaranteed nine jurors
would return to office. The one runoff that remains will send a new member to
the Jury since District 10 four-decade veteran Jerome
Darby retired, but vying as his replacement leading into the runoff is his
brother Democrat Julius Darby. Republican challenger Keith Sutton defeated
incumbent Republican Mac Plummer in
District 12, while the GOP's Pam Glorioso beat incumbent Democrat Charles
Gray in District 9.

But over the past two years, all jurors had
engaged in questionable, if not illegal, acts. They hired, knowing
full well it was against the law, Butch Ford as parish administrator, because
he was not a registered voter in Bossier Parish. He would not become one until
ten months into his tenure, but even
now some dispute remains over whether that residence qualifies for that purpose.
They also filled completely the parish's Library
Board of Control with themselves, a move which
is of uncertain legal status and unprecedented across the state.

When at that latest meeting
a couple of citizens questioned the reappointment
of Republican Juror Doug
Rimmer to the Board, drawing upon attorney general documents that declared
sitting jurors on library boards was dual officeholding, as well as questioning
why all five board members had to be jurors when in a parish approaching
130,000 residents surely there were more than enough non-jurors willing to
serve, the likes of Rimmer and another juror on the Board, Republican Julianna
Parks, at jury meetings and other forums have asserted the necessity of
having jurors on the Board because of alleged and nebulously specified problems
with the Board. As well, at this meeting Rimmer stated, on the advice of Parish
Attorney Patrick Jackson, that the ability for jurors to serve on the Board was
unquestioned.

The problem is, in addition to the Attorney
General's office publicly taking the opposite position, case law not addressing
this exact situation – at the meeting Jackson erroneously implied that it had
and in favor of his interpretation – and conflicting statutes that seemingly give
a parish the ability to dodge dual officeholding restrictions in this instance,
Jackson himself doesn't have a good track record when it comes to understanding
what the law means concerning appointments in parish government. In the past, he
told jurors that, absent a court
ruling otherwise which eventually happened, that Jury appointee Robert Berry
to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation
and Water Conservation District could serve in that capacity and as the agency's
executive director without violating dual officeholding law. And Rimmer stated at
a recent Republican Parish Executive Committee meeting that Jackson also advised
jurors they could appoint Ford as parish administrator despite his voter
registration not being in Bossier while he looked to rectify that, which appears
nowhere in the law and an action Ford showed no signs of pursuing until this
space publicized his continued registration in Caddo parish ten months after
his appointment.

Worst of all, Jackson either apparently was
unaware of, tacitly approved of, or actually counseled in favor of the fact
that the Board, then comprised of Rimmer, Republican Bob
Brotherton who won reelection, and Gray illegally had made Ford interim
library director in October, 2022, in contravention of R.S. 25:215 that states
any head of a library system must have qualifications under R.S. 25:222, or a certification
by the State Board of Library Examiners. Ford would serve six months in that
job.

This unequivocally illegal action by three jurors
(probably four, as minutes of that meeting never haven been made widely available,
if they exist; the next meeting's minutes imply at that previous meeting
Republican Juror Glenn
Benton had been appointed but it's unknown whether he participated in the
vote to appoint Ford) belies the argument that jurors were necessary to "clean
up" the Board. In fact, they disgraced it and themselves by behaving illegally.

And the whole argument of juror necessity to respond
to some problem is untenable, if not a mendacious excuse to justify the juror
takeover. In fact, jurors were serving on the Board as long ago as 2016,
when the Jury expanded the Board to include Rimmer and Brotherton with five
other citizens (boards can have five to seven members). If there were alleged
difficulties, not only have these been going on a long time, but also jurors by
definition contributed to these so how can adding more jurors – and retaining the
two already there – solve for problems jurors already are creating? So what's
so great about juror service on the Board if they act illegally and supposedly
badly enough to need outside intervention?

Of course, to clarify about whether jurors can
serve on the Board, a simple request to the Attorney General's office for an opinion could be pursued. That
would take a resolution passed by the Jury, but no juror has suggested this
happen – perhaps because they know their policy might be in trouble. And the
dismissive attitude that Rimmer and other jurors showed in the meeting towards
citizen concerns on this issue illustrates their haughtiness and a belief they
are above the citizenry, if not the law, emboldened now by recent electoral
success.

If it stays that way. And it may not, if the
latest Bossier City Council meeting indicates anything. Because three years ago,
the Council was much like the Jury today. Back then five members of almost two
decades or more service on the Council, actively supported by another more
junior member, ran the show with little transparency, using their voting power
and a compliant mayor to foist an avalanche of unneeded capital spending fueled
by debt onto the backs of the citizenry.

However, the stench of that awakened enough voters
so that two of the graybeards lost their jobs and eventually were replaced by
newcomers Republicans Chris Smith and
Brian
Hammons. Since then, the pair have become increasingly vocal about use of
tax dollars going to genuine needs rather than to monuments, figurative and literal,
to long-serving councilors' egos.

While Hammons missed the last meeting, Smith more
than made up for the both of them with a display of this critical attitude over
spending. On an item
for more capital expenditures for parks and recreation, Smith pointed out that
in recent years over $20 million in tax dollars had gone for capital expenditures
at the Tinsley Park complex, yet tax-paying citizens often couldn't use these
in being crowded out instead by out-of-towners paying fees to use these.

Sparring with head of the Bossier City Department
of Parks and Recreation Clay Bohanan, who with past mayoral and current Council
graybeard support has pursued a model
that puts revenue generation ahead of citizen ability to use certain facilities,
Smith not only fought back against Bohanan's arrogance, who was joined by graybeard
Democrat Councilor Bubba Williams
implying that their exclusionary pay-to-play model was unimpeachably correct,
but he also made the heretical suggestion that in following that model it would
make more sense just to sell off the facilities to private operators.

In the larger scheme of things, Smith's argument
was that instead of taxpayer dollars going to paying of the principal and
interest on debt on things of little value to the citizenry, it could be
reserved to fund employee raises, particularly for public safety personnel.
When Williams subsequently challenged (actually calling untrue) a Smith
statement that Bossier City's salaries ranked at the bottom of the region by
pointing to a study
done a couple of years back comparing Alexandria's public safety salaries to
others in the state that put Bossier City police in the middle of the pack,
Smith trumped him with his own very recent data looking at regional agencies,
almost all in Texas, which had Bossier City salaries at or near the bottom.

Such argumentation would have been unheard of
coming from the Council three years ago. But Smith and Hammons' elections in 2021 brought a breath of fresh air into Council debates that until then had been
almost always get-along-go-along with no dissension on big spending plans with
total disregard of airing out negative implications of that spending.

Hopefully, those kinds of debates will commence
and flourish now that at least one reform-minded outsider, Sutton, will join
the Jury. Glorioso was part of the cabal united with the Council graybeards
when she served as Bossier City chief administrative officer until her boss
lost reelection, so it seems unlikely that she would act differently in opening
up the Jury. Perhaps Darby's opponent Democrat Mary Giles would ally with
Sutton, while Julius Darby seems unlikely to.

But as the events surrounding Bossier City
government over the past couple of years have shown, you don't have to have a
majority to change the atmosphere. Perhaps a couple of years from now the
sunshine even one dissenter can bring will have started to show results in curbing
the Jury's penchant for lawless, sanctimonious behavior while deflating its members'
attitude of insufferably unaccountable behavior.

"We have to admit that Hong Kong is gradually getting worse. And it will continue to deteriorate. But it is still important to meticulously document every small change in the city."

Martin Lockman (Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School) has posted Climate Entrenchment in Unstable Legal Regimes (Northwestern University Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: American climate law is the subject of serious and...

Steven Ferrey (Suffolk University Law School) has posted Legal History Repeats Itself on Climate Change: The Commerce Clause and Renewable Energy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Discrimination and power: Federal courts found that some state renewable power laws violate...

Jasmine Harris (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School), Karen Tani (University of Pennsylvania), & Shira Wakschlag (The Arc) have posted The Disability Docket (American University Law Review, Vol. 72, 2023) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The monumental changes emanating...

Arianna Vedaschi (Bocconi University, Milan, Italy; Bocconi University - Baffi Carefin Centre) & Chiara Graziani (Bocconi University ; Bocconi University - Baffi Carefin Centre) have posted Post-Pandemic Constitutionalism: COVID-19 as a Game-Changer for "Common Principles"? (University of Pennsylvania Journal of...