Relieve representado por normales ; Orientado con flecha ; Leyenda de 'Anthorities' ; En el margen inferior izquierdo: "Series 1. Vol XXXIV. Part 1. Page 218 ; Indica con distintos colores las fuerzas de los dos ejércitos ; Con el informe del Col. John S. Clark
Laws and ordinances relating to health and sanitation of the city of New Orleans: 1906-1907 ; 1906/07-1908/09 include also: Report of the Board of Health of the City of Shreveport, 1907-1909. ; 1900/01-1908/09 include also: Report of the Board of Health of the City of New Orleans, 1900/01-1908/09. ; Report year irregular. Report for 1866-1867 covers period from June 1, 1866 to Jan. 31, 1867; that for 1867, from Jan. 31 to Dec. 31, 1867. The "Annual report.for.1882" covers the period from Jan. 1, 1882 to July 1, 1883. ; No reports published, 1861-1865, 1868, 1876. ; Laws and ordinances relating to health and sanitation of the city of New Orleans: 1906-1907 ; 1906/07-1908/09 include also: Report of the Board of Health of the City of Shreveport, 1907-1909. ; 1900/01-1908/09 include also: Report of the Board of Health of the City of New Orleans, 1900/01-1908/09. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Found also in Louisiana Legislative documents, 1857- .
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Bossier City's long history of trying to count coup on Shreveport for once might serve it well, with an opportunity presenting itself through a blunder by the latter.
For decades, Bossier City leaders have burdened themselves with a psychological inferiority complex relating to their larger and better-known (and, to many outsiders, with a more easily-pronounceable name) neighbor across the Red River. Feeling overshadowed, they have pursued policies attempting to make their city stand out from, if not look better than, Shreveport.
Usually, it has led to undesirable consequences. Leaders chafed when no comprehensive hospital located in Bossier City, so they decided to build the government-run Bossier Medical Center. That worked out until it became apparent that Willis-Knighton Systems would come to town with an initial offer allegedly for $42 million to buy BMC, whereupon egos kicked in and city leaders refused it. WKS then built its own, drove BMC numbers steeply into the red, and in a short time the city had a fire sale of the facility, which no longer operates, for $18 million. (Two city councilors from that era, no party Jeff Darby and Democrat Bubba Williams, still serve on the Council.)
That was just an opportunity missed, as opposed to the current money pit that is the Brookshire Grocery Arena. Built just after the BMC debacle for tens of millions more dollars than at first contemplated, it has consistently lost money year after year. But city leaders wanted a modern indoor arena to contrast with what Shreveport had available (the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum, which technically isn't even the city's but is part of a nonprofit organization), so rather than wait on a nongovernment entity to build one it took the plunge, to taxpayers' everlasting regret.
Typically, it has been the heavy hand of government intervention, spending more to bulk up, that Bossier City has turned to in order to draw its intended contrast which then backfired, stubbornly resisting the idea that a government that spent less with lower taxation and fees would create more incentive for people to live and work there. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, to make people love their city, the city ought to be lovely.
Now there presents a way to do that with a much more valid dose of government intervention, courtesy of Shreveport's impending jettison of a total smoking ban at its casinos. Earlier this week it changed its ordinance regarding smoking to require just a quarter of the area of a casino, boat or land, to be nonsmoking. It's uncertain whether Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux will veto it or, if so, that veto would be overridden as it passed on a 4-2 vote.
Practically speaking, that means there is no ban at all. No technology can prevent smoke from wafting around nonsmoking areas. In essence, this puts the facilities off-limits to anybody who suffers physiologically from having to breathe smoke.
Shreveport thusly becomes the first jurisdiction in the country to reverse itself on a smoking ban. The rationale for the declining city, facing sharp population loss and revenue retrenchment as a result, to do this was the restriction hurt the bottom line of the city's casinos and therefore related city tax collections. Theoretically, one could make an argument that enforcement of nonsmoking could do this, for gambling is an addictive behavior like smoking with a relatively high association between the two, Thus, a smoking ban disproportionately could chase away chumps.
Yet the data don't indicate as such. Smoking bans have gone into place in all of the state's largest cities for casinos, but changes in revenue in places that did largely have tracked those located in jurisdictions that continue to allow smoking. Indeed, a review of Shreveport and Bossier City markets, with the latter continuing to allow people to smoke up in casinos, shows no significant difference in revenue changes.
Changes trending down, of course, that have little to do with smoking and everything to do with increased competition from Texas but particularly tribal casinos in Oklahoma. It seems that smoking bans are basically unrelated with revenues because of a substitution effect. Smokers tend to be older, less educated, and lower-income compared to nonsmokers, so it may be that potentially fewer admittances by smokers could be partially offset by some nonsmokers who then lose more lucre.
Regardless, a deeper civil rights issue remains. A growing portion of the population suffers from pulmonological conditions where even a hint of smoke can send them into distress, something they can't control – as opposed to smoking, which is an entirely voluntary action where consequences are exported to other people who can avoid these only by curtailing their own autonomy. In fact, with smoking in the population at nearly half its rate of two decades ago, the proportions of smokers and people with pulmonological diseases are about equal.
While argumentation about exportation of smoke onto others, such as casino employees, that can impact negatively their health merit investigation as there appears to be some association between someone's health and breathing in smoke, there is no doubt that a causal mechanism exists where smoke negatively affects directly some people's pulmonological health. In essence permitting smoking in any part of a casino denies a portion of the population the ability to work there, eat there, gamble there, and be entertained in whatever other way there – meaning smokers are privileged in their conduct of a voluntary behavior over those who suffer from a disability they must bear involuntarily.
Decades ago, when mainly in the South and profusely in Shreveport and Bossier City citizens shamefully were discriminated against merely for the color of their skin in the conduct of commerce, the U.S. Congress stepped in and legislated to guarantee that people couldn't be denied commercial access solely on the basis of that. In our constitutional system, health matters are governed by states, and local governments if delegated that way by the states. A statewide ban by Louisiana on smoking in casinos would be best, but absent that local governments should take up that in order to protect equal access for vulnerable citizens.
Bossier City instituting a smoking ban in its casinos would produce a rare instance where the city in trying to distinguish itself from Shreveport acted on the whole actually to increase its citizens' autonomy and quality of life. That it hasn't done this to date is to its discredit, but that's magnified if it fails to act when served this reminder of the west bank's stupidity.
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For Louisiana's Republicans when facing unfavorable local electoral environments, sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't, results from elections from this weekend show.
It worked for Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis, who in facing an electorate about five-eighths black registrants not only won reelection but expanded his majority. Friday, who is white and while he runs as an independent has Republican support including that of a fundraising bundling group designed to steer nationally donations to Republican candidates, bested two black Democrat candidates, one of whom was Democrat former mayor Jamie Mayo whom he deposed four years ago.
All that needs to be known about this election comes from 14 precincts, 11 through 24. With seven-eighths black registrants in these, Ellis pulled down 37 percent of the vote and even won two of them. Considering that he ran up majorities in and around 90 percent in precincts just as heavily populated with white registrants, which also turned out at twice the rate or better than these others, it was no contest.
Of course, as he had four years ago Ellis had the advantage of the controversial Mayo taking up most of the oxygen for black Democrat challengers, who if some other such quality challenger had emerged might have done better. Still, it was an impressive performance and potentially a model for white non-Democrats to follow in black-majority Louisiana jurisdictions.
By contrast, in a barely plurality white electorate in Caddo Parish, Republican former Shreveport City Councilor John Nickelson lost to Democrat former Shreveport chief administrative officer Henry Whitehorn, 53 to 47 percent for sheriff. As in the Monroe contest, the non-Democrat was white and the Democrat black, although it was for an open seat.
This race was the third, after Whitehorn had come out on top last fall in a runoff by one vote, after Nickelson had led 45 to 35 percent in the general election. But the runoff had questionable ballots cast, courts ruled, creating an indeterminate result that necessitated another try.
Nickelson had performed better when turnout had gone just over 30 percent in the general election, but Whitehorn had closed the entire gap when turnout fell a couple of points in the runoff. Conventional wisdom therefore had it that Nickelson would do better the higher the turnout, although that looked unlikely when Republican former Pres. Donald Trump wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination before Louisiana held its preference primaries for both major parties at the same time as spring local elections.
But that didn't matter. In fact, nearly half of registered parish Republicans came out to vote in that primary, which should have spilled over to help Nickleson. However, nearly two-fifths of Caddo Democrats, despite Democrat Pres. Joe Biden also having secured his party's nomination, showed up to vote in that primary.
This did end up helping Nickleson somewhat. In precincts where whites, the majority of whom are Republicans, made up at least 75 percent of the registrants, turnout was 31 percent, while in those where blacks, almost all of whom are Democrats, made up at least 75 percent of registrants, turnout was only 24 percent. (Note that these figures are distortedly low because early voting isn't included, so they are good only for comparison purposes.) Given the close balance between the two races in registrations, that would have favored Nickleson.
Except that racial crossover voting favored Whitehorn. In those precincts with a large proportion of white registrants, Nickelson only received 82.4 percent of the vote, while Whitehorn in those with a large proportion of black registrants snared 95.6 percent of that vote. Compared to historical norms, Nickelson underperformed by a couple of points among blacks and Whitehorn overperformed by a few points among whites. These made the difference.
Clearly both campaigns made an intense effort, so there might not have been anything more Nickleson could have done. Whitehorn's extensive law enforcement background with Nickelson not having any, controversial legislation that Nickelson had introduced that led some to question his Second Amendment commitment, and a blunder late in the campaign where Nickelson's wife used her position in a nonprofit to electioneer may have caused his loss to be set in stone.
Still, Ellis' triumph shows Louisiana conservative candidates do have ways of winning elections even in electoral environments usually considered unfruitful.
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It's not too early to declare some winners and losers in Louisiana's state elections this cycle, primarily because so many contests already have been decided or wrote on the wall what will come in next month's runoff elections.
WINNER: Jeff Landry. The Republican attorney general wiped out all opposition in the gubernatorial race, in the most impressive display of the 1974 Constitution era. He became the first first-time candidate ever to win without a runoff and joining only Democrat Edwin Edwards (1983), Republican Mike Foster (1999), and Republican Bobby Jindal (2007 and 2011) in pulling off the feat of a general election triumph. That he did so bodes well for his powers of persuasion in herding the Legislature, which almost certainly will deliver supermajorities for his party, towards delivering on an agenda that looks to be the most transformative in a century.
WINNER: Billy Nungesser. The chattering class (see Loser below) thought he could give Landry a run for his money and were somewhat surprised when the Republican passed on that race to win reelection as lieutenant governor. Perhaps he knew something that other like GOP Treas. John Schroder and GOP state Sen. Sharon Hewitt didn't, that Landry would win. His big win keeps him in office while others retire or hope to bag jobs in the Landry Administration.
WINNER: Jefferson Parish GOP legislators. Too often, a majority of this group abandoned a conservative agenda in favor of licking the boots of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, which made a few of them targets in their reelection campaigns of conservative insurgents. Those challenged all survived, from narrowly to easily. Now they conveniently can flip-flop to back Landry's agenda (with one exception: closed primaries that threaten their continued service) since they know they can't stop it and thus try to keep their political careers alive.
LOSER: Louisiana Democrats. The party's ruling white powerbrokers ran a poor gubernatorial candidate in the form of former cabinet member Shawn Wilson, knowing they had to have some black face to head the ticket to stave off extremist left insurgent black competitors. The inevitability of Landry also discouraged turnout, dooming any chance to prevent Republicans from doing no worse in legislative contests that ensured retention of a supermajority. Landry's win and separate Board of Elementary and Secondary Education campaigns that also weren't close now gives the GOP a commanding 9-2 edge on that body. And Republicans after Nov. 18 will have swept all statewide offices, after all but one of these contests put them within a few points of winning outright in the general election, if not Landry and Nungesser winning then.
Two other indicators demonstrate the reality of this rout. A white Democrat minister named Danny Cole raised and spent no money in running for governor, conducting his campaign solely through free social media and personal appearances, yet grabbed 3 percent of the vote, such was the dissatisfaction with Wilson. And in Caddo Parish, for sheriff former Shreveport city councilor Republican John Nickelson racked up 45 percent of the vote against black Democrat former Shreveport chief administrative officer Henry Whitehorn's 35 percent, even though Nickelson has no law enforcement experience and Whitehorn has decades of it, in a parish with a solid Democrat plurality and bare white plurality. Statewide Democrats had zero coattails, and the results sends the strongest signal yet that unless it abandons its far-left agenda it will have no impact on policy-making on state issues.
LOSER: Legacy media. Whatever generally left-leaning newspaper and television outlets did, in terms of story selections trying to slow Landry or cajoling him to turn out for debates hoping to catch him off guard, failed. Landry as well as a number of conservative candidates simply ignored media requests and campaigned emphasizing cutting out intermediaries like the media – Landry showed up for exactly one of several media-sponsored candidate forums – by going directly to voters. As a result, the state's chattering class had almost no influence on election outcomes and face increasing irrelevancy in trying to shape policy outcomes going forward.
LOSER: Clay Schexnayder. After four years of serving as House of Representative speaker kissing up to Edwards on budget and several other major issues, although the dictates of the GOP supermajority more often pushed policy in a conservative direction, Schexnayder hoped that this triangulation legacy could retain enough conservatives and capture enough non-conservatives in the electorate to attain the secretary of state's office, aided by business-as-usual monied interests, to extend his political career and set himself up for future advancement. Instead, he finished a dismal fourth that extinguishes his hopes.
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A recent musing about Louisiana population loss contains a lot bathos, signifying the difficulty, if not unwillingness, that the state's leftist institutions have in accepting what's plain to everybody else.
Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate ran a piece about the latest 2023 census numbers, which show most Louisiana parishes lost population. The state as a whole lost over 14,000 people in 2023, bring the total loss from compared to 2015 to nearly 120,000 even as the country as a whole, and most states, grew in numbers. In fact, the state's 0.31 percent loss trailed in percentage terms only New York, and of the seven states that did lose population, four were among the largest blue states, with purple Pennsylvania barely slipping and only West Virigina among red states joining Louisiana.
Only Ascension, Beauregard, Bossier, Calcasieu, De Soto, East Feliciana, Iberville, Lafayette, Livingston, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Vermillion, and West Baton Rouge gained – a few barely – and none over one percent. Metropolitan statistical areas were a mixed bag: energy-intensive areas Lafayette and Lake Charles and northshore Hamond and Slidell-Covington-Mandeville, plus Baton Rouge eked out gains but Shreveport-Bossier City, Monroe, Alexandria, Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, and New Orleans-Metairie shrunk. In fact, New Orleans led the country in MSA slumping at 1.15 percent, while Houma was fifth worst at 0.85 percent, Alexandria 16th worst at 0.60 percent, Shreveport 36th worst at 0.43 percent, and Monroe 46th worst at 0.34 percent. Hammond's 0.92 percent growth was best in the state and 92nd best nationwide.
Louisiana's rural areas fared even worse than its urban, while overall suburban areas held their own. That 50 parishes lost population flummoxed the Advocate, which went on an extensive expedition in search of explanations why since the 2020 census this had happened.
Natural disasters clearly had a role, but this masked some notable divergences. For example, Lake Charles was coming back from its travails, but Houma wasn't. And obviously a lot of places hadn't had adverse weather events strike them in the past three years.
So, setting aside idiosyncratic elements, it had to be policy, and to her credit Alison Plyer, the longtime chief demographer of New Orleans' Data Center, hit upon that when queried by the reporter. But, as students will tend to do in answering essay questions, they may guess correctly right answer but provide the wrong reasons to explain it.
Plyer fell victim to this in two ways, although one was only a partial bogey. She observed the poorer health statistics reflected by Louisianans compared to almost every other state, which would lead to earlier deaths offsetting births. Set aside, of course, that this is a temporary effect; changes in cohort life spans would influence extremely marginally overall population so long as the birth cohorts remained constant, so an ongoing fall caused by shorter lifespans would make sense only in the context of a sudden drop in life expectancy that isn't occurring (even if a relatively rapid one such as during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic happens, it also happened elsewhere, so relative change among states would be extremely marginal).
Yet that shouldn't be happening in Louisiana, using the left's assumptions, because Medicaid expansion! Now almost eight years old, that was supposed to provide all sorts of additional health care people were missing to improve their lives. In reality, a large minority of its new clients years ago simply dropped their private insurance (or their employers did it when expansion rolled out) to get a new freebie, so it's not like they didn't have health care insurance already. If, of course, they could access Medicaid, with its limited providers and a lowest common denominator approach that degraded the quality of care. And while you can throw health care at people, you can't make them live healthy lives that would decrease their health care usage. So, for the extra $450 million or so a year Louisiana taxpayers pony up to subsidize other people's health care, there's very little bang for the buck or explanatory power for population loss (if anything, hanging out a new benefit not available in nearly all of the fastest-growing states should attract residents).
But Plyer also made a very ignorant statement. Not her observation that higher educational attainment helps to drive population growth, but that state taxpayer subsidization falling a third since 2008 on a per higher education student basis indicates that Louisiana spent less money on tertiary education. In fact, in fiscal year 2008 $2.766 billion for 201,557 students was budgeted for higher education or $13,723 per student, while in FY 2024 that will be $3.453 billion for 217,618 students or $15,867 per student, an increase of 15.6 percent. The hoary and tired contention that Louisiana has "disinvested" in higher education is an exhausted myth.
Yes, policy is the explanation, but not derived from the blind alleys in the article. It's very simple: the cause is Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards' big spending, tax raising, benefit boosting (such as Medicaid expansion), social justice pandering regime, insufficiently resisted by a Republican Legislature short on leadership that only deigned to rein in Edwards' worst attempted excesses. It discouraged producers from producing, if not their staying in the state, and encouraged wasteful spending, criminal coddling, and more people jumping on the wagon. It not only led to depopulation, but fewer jobs than when he took office, anemic personal income growth that barely outpaced inflation, crime rates heading higher at an above average pace, and a coarsening culture that pandered to ideological special interests.
And, of course, it was the three central cities with Democrat mayors and solid Democrat majorities on their city councils – New Orleans, Shreveport (although it now has a GOP mayor), and Alexandria – which were among the worst performing local jurisdictions. However, notice how Lafayette and Lake Charles, run by Republicans, bucked the trend.
Those shortcomings are the wages of liberalism and are the kinds of things that drive people away – but leftist institutions aren't going to admit that and will try to find any lame excuse to deflect from that. What's obvious to everybody else they refuse to see, which makes the musings in that article largely irrelevant, if not entirely counterproductive to reversing the state's depopulation trend.
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Collectively, according to recent campaign finance reports perhaps the most competitive Louisiana Senate races are happening in northwest Louisiana, although clarity has begun to emerge in the contests mainly in Caddo Parish.
Those are the three-candidate Senate District 38 and 39 contests. Less certain in outcome are the paired matchups in sprawling Senate District 31, which has a plurality of its voters in Caddo and Bossier Parishes, and District 36, with mainly a Bossier constituency.
The reports filed last week importantly for most of these candidacies reveal for the first time campaign donations and expenditures. These give an idea of the relevant potency of a candidacy and the kinds of supporters it draws, if any.
After qualifying, perhaps the most competitive of the Caddo contests was thought to be SD 39 of the term-limited Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver, with Democrat former Shreveport mayor and two-tern state Rep. Cedric Glover, Democrat caucus leader state Rep. Sam Jenkins, and Democrat former state Rep. Barbara Norton all have a go at it. The open seat appears so valuable that Jenkins and Glover gave up what would appear to have been easy reelections, where four years from now term limits would have matched one or both up likely against an incumbent.
However, finance data tell a more lopsided story. Glover might have had the edge given an almost-uninterrupted quarter-century he has spent in elective office. Yet he also sometimes has acted as a nonconformist among Democrats, most recently by crossing party lines and traditional black political organizations to support white Republican Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux in his successful bid.
This contest appears to embody attempted payback. Glover raised only a few thousand dollars to add little to an almost emptied campaign kitty, mainly from corporate and political action committee sources although this is 2022 data as he apparently failed to file the report 30 days from an election on time. Norton, who in her dozen years in office didn't exactly distinguish herself has done somewhat better but has spent little more on campaigning. Rather, most money, over six figures, has poured into Jenkins' campaign, capturing most of the traditional Democrat dollars – party organizations, activists, and elected officials; labor; and trial lawyers; plus lots of PAC bucks and a few GOP donors, and Jenkins has spent far more than his opposition combined on campaigning. (Not surprisingly, Tarver, who Glover didn't endorse for mayor, endorsed Jenkins.) This grants him the edge going forward.
SD 38, by contrast, has seen finances headed in a more predictable direction. Republican state Rep. Thomas Pressly brought home six figures from traditional GOP allies and PACs. The other traditional Republican in the race, Chase Jennings, in the less than a month of running picked up only a fraction of Pressly's total and disproportionately it seemed came from officials and congregants of Shreveport Community Church.
Former Democrat senator from the district, now running as a Republican John Milkovich, brought in about $75,000 although about half was his own resources. The social conservative but big government spender acts as the stealth Democrat in the race but didn't receive much from traditional Democrat sources as he crossed up the party on social issues during his term. Instead, his donor base reflected an eclectic mix although heavier on the trial lawyer side. These numbers confirm Pressly as the favorite, although he might be pushed to a runoff by Milkovich.
Across the river, the heads-up matchups between Republicans don't have clear favorites. SD 31 presents a classic Bossier political establishment vs. staunch conservative battle between Mike McConathy and state Rep. Alan Seabaugh. Following the age-old script, both are social conservatives, although the former has backing from the diminishing white Democrat base and get-along-go-along Republicans, both of whom favor bigger government, and has raised this year approaching $200,000, while the latter has traditional Republican economic conservatives in his corner and raised a little less but has much more in campaign coffers.
Interesting also are the outside groups stumping for each. The state chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a national group emphasizing limited government and conservative economics, has endorsed and spent for Seabaugh. Meanwhile, a dark money group from Baton Rouge, Republican Patriots Protecting Property Rights run by maverick Republican Scott Wilfong who often crosses swords with the more conservative state GOP leadership, has dropped some change on behalf of McConathy.
The reports confirm the closeness and dynamics of the race. McConathy, who in the past has supported white Democrats from Bossier Parish's former state Rep. Billy Montgomery (who late in his career switched to the GOP) up to Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, having coached basketball at the collegiate level in two places in the district and is the son of a former Bossier Parish school superintendent, is popular but Seabaugh has demonstrated campaign prowess time and time again and his consistent conservatism shown in 13 years at the Legislature has won him many fans in a heavily-conservative area.
The SD 36 contest in Bossier and Webster Parishes is the most convoluted of all. Incumbent GOP state Sen. Robert Mills has an almost unimpeachable conservative record. The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, which distributes a legislative scorecard geared to measuring economic conservatism, rated him at 98 percent over his term, missing on only one vote and that because he was absent. (Seabaugh, for his part, also scored 98 percent over the term.)
His filing demonstrates this, with donations coming from a number of businesses and business PACs, as well as a number of traditional GOP donors. He topped $200,000 and has almost as much in reserve.
But his challenger, Republican Bossier Parish School Board member Adam Bass, is trying to argue Mills hasn't been enough of an economic conservative. Some were upset that Mills, along with the rest of the Senate unanimously, this year voted to allow for more spending on capital projects rather than paying down pension liabilities and topping off the state's main savings account and in a way that might have triggered tax cuts.
Bass tried to drive this point home in a recent candidate forum on the Bossier Watch podcast/narrowcast, pointing to a Mills vote on an amendment to a bill hijacked from taxing marijuana to redistributing revenues from the general fund to capital outlay. In the process, the amendment would have undone the 2025 expiration of the 0.45 percent sales tax increase first in 2016 then renewed in 2018 (where, in the renewal process, Seabaugh successfully maneuvered to prevent a higher level that has ended up saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars).
Several GOP senators joined Mills in voting for that, which Bass argued constituted voting for a tax increase. But Mills and all others later voted to strip that amendment and when the bill passed it was revenue neutral, and concerning his record generally on taxes and spending the LABI scorecard speaks for itself.
Bass raised almost $50,000 fewer for a campaign that got a later start. His filing reflects donors less business-oriented and more Bossier-centric, including solid support from the Bossier political establishment, who never has warmed that much to Mills, an outsider to it, while Bass is firmly a member of it.
It all may come down to Webster Parish. The Bossier City part of the district is new to Mills, but if he can keep it close there his Webster precincts where he likely will do much better than Bass should put him over the top.(note: this has been corrected since original posting.)
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Reapportionment shook up Caddo and Bossier Parish representation in the Louisiana Legislature, setting up for some new faces, refugees from other local offices, and intense clashes on this fall's ballot.
The area's overall declining population rearranged things considerably. Which boundaries are coming and going will create some interesting dynamics.
In the House of Representatives, District 1 won last time for his first term by Republican Danny McCormick, retreated from Bossier Parish to become a completely Caddo-based entity. He will again face Republican Randall Liles in a race that could be closer than last time. Although McCormick eked out a general election win without runoff, he ran six percentage points better in Bossier than Caddo. Still, the foothold he has established over the past four years and votes reflecting the district's ideological tilt should be enough to reelect him.
The Bossier precincts largely transfer into District 10, the Webster Parish-based district held by an unopposed Republican Wayne McMahen. The district him for currently has Bossier's most southern precinct as a footnote, but starting in 2024 his Bossier portion swings north and grows substantially.
The other district within Bossier that largely was an afterthought, the Caddo-based District 2 currently held by the leader of Democrats' House caucus Sam Jenkins, expanded somewhat around old Bossier City. Jenkins will try for the Senate District 39 seat of term-limited Democrat Greg Tarver, and in his place Democrat Caddo School Board Member Terence Vinson will make his second try for the seat in eight years. He is joined by Democrat Caddo Parish Commissioner Steven Jackson.
Vinson's familiarity with the district should help, but his main asset is the quite erratic and controversial tenure that Jackson has had in office. In Bossier, Jackson committed his most recent and biggest folly, convicted for impersonating a police officer, which should just add to fodder that ends Jackson's political career.
Joining Jenkins in pursuit of a Senate seat is District 4 Democrat Cedric Glover. That House territory open, school board member Democrat Jasmine Green, term-limited Democrat commissioner Lyndon Johnson, and former District 3 candidate Democrat Joy Walters, who in 2019 lost narrowly to Democrat Tammy Phelps, who didn't draw an opponent this year, when she lived in that district. This could go in any direction, likely to the candidate who most convincingly runs to the far left ideologically while conveying an ability to bring home the bacon.
District 5 shifted eastward, still containing southeastern Caddo but with much of it now outside the parish, the plurality of that in southern Bossier and the remainder scattered well south into Red River Parish. Former Bossier Parish School Board Member Republican Dennis Bamburg played his cards right to become only one of three rookies to enter the House next year without drawing any opposition.
While that district entered Bossier, District 6 exited it and will pick up a new representative as GOP state Rep. Thomas Pressly will gun for Senate District 38 that moved over to grab east Shreveport. Michael Melerine, present Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member, also will take part in musical chairs by running for this spot. He is a big favorite against no party public defender Evan McMichael and Democrat theater manager and activist Robert Darrow.
In recent years, the traditional afterthought House district in Caddo has been District 7, as most of it is in rural parishes to the south. GOP incumbent Larry Bagley is heavily favored to retain that seat for a final term. In Bossier, the boundaries shoved a bit north, District 8 Republican Raymond Crews faces no opposition for another term.
As previously noted, district boundary changes and Bossier political establishment annoyance will create a rugged reelection battle for Republican Dodie Horton to secure a final term. She squares off against businessman Chris Turner, the establishment's pick. Her solid conservative legislative record might be enough to hold him off.
The reconfigured Senate District 38, open as incumbent Barry Milligan declined to run for a second term, that drew in Pressly managed to retain former Democrat now Republican former seat holder John Milkovich. Voters after one term grew sour on his taste for big government in particular and Milligan handily defeated him last time. Pressly is favored over him and also banker but previously political operative Republican Chase Jennings.
Spanning both parishes with a little presence in Bossier, the District 39 race that attracted Glover and Jenkins also brought back Democrat former state Rep. Barbara Norton, who tried to contest Tarver last time but who ran afoul of the residency requirement. With all three having tasted success in running in parts of the district, this also will be a contest where the winning candidate most convincingly runs to the left and shows an ability to pile up the pork. Making things even more interesting, perennial GOP candidate Jim Slagle is back, with his impact uncertain on who will make the runoff, or even against him. However, Glover's track record also as Shreveport mayor perhaps gives him a slight edge.
Perhaps receiving the award for most far-flung district touching multiple parishes, the plurality of new District 31's residents lie in Bossier and Caddo, washing over the southern reaches of each. As in the case of House District 9 but for somewhat different reasons, this turned out as a battle of the Bossier political establishment, if not of the rump grouping of white northwest Louisiana Democrats whose power steadily has faded, against conservative insurgents. As previously noted, establishment forces back retired basketball coach Republican Mike McConathy while insurgents are behind one of the Legislature's most prominent disruptors of traditional liberal populism, term-limited Republican state Rep. Alan Seabaugh in a race sure to be close. Again, a long legislative conservative record may allow Seabaugh to move into the upper chamber.
Finally, as previously noted another contest in which the establishment has a vested interest occurs in District 36, which has migrated south and mostly out of Webster Parish. Republican incumbent Robert Mills, who beat an establishment incumbent last time that spent the most money on a legislative race in history, takes on another establishment favorite in the form of Republican Bossier Parish School Board Member Adam Bass. Mills has run into difficulty among area conservatives by not backing an effort to hold the line on spending hundreds of millions more dollars on capital outlay this past year, and this disgruntlement presented an opportunity for the establishment to jump on him. Mills will have to hope an otherwise solidly conservative voting record carries him to victory.
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Louisiana's political left finds itself in a pickle as it seeks to defend the indefensible new congressional map, with its members already signaling they have nothing up to snuff.
Within days of the special session last month to redraw the plan under the threat of a federal court potentially to do the same, voters across the state filed suit to invalidate it. The map substantially reorganizes boundaries of the northeast-to-central, northwest and western, and Baton Rouge-to-the-southern-coast districts, most prominently creating a district acting as a dagger into Shreveport with the handle slicing up Lafayette and Baton Rouge. In the process, the new map manages except for Bossier City to crack every major city in the state between various districts.
It was, in words repeated on the record often by its legislative supporters, designed deliberately with race in mind to create two majority-minority districts to avoid a court from doing that. They didn't mention that it destroys communities of interest, violating one criterion of reapportionment accepted in statute and the courts, and that it measures out similarly to a district in a plan determined unconstitutional three decades ago for those reasons.
But now this is all the left has available. The plaintiffs in the original case want theirs dismissed, but even if that judge doesn't, it's the new map that will be under litigation. So, the left is stuck with it and must put lipstick on this pig.
The house organ of it, the web site Louisiana Illuminator funded by far-left sources reflected in its writing and story choices, did its best upon reporting of the suit. It took isolated comments from legislators about how the map was drawn for "political" reasons, harkening to a couple of other reapportionment criteria recognized by the courts as valid: protection of incumbents and its relative, seeking partisan advantage.
Just the slightest scrutiny demolishes this argument. The new map deliberately sacrifices incumbent Republican Rep. Garret Graves, from Baton Rouge, by giving him a hostile district to his reelection chances while making it favorable for a Democrat. Also dividing the city is the district with incumbent Republican Rep. Julia Letlow, based in Monroe, who now likely would face a challenge from Graves (congressmen only have to live in the state which they represent, not necessarily the district) if the map were to be used for elections later this year.
In short, you can't argue either an incumbent or party was protected under the plan. Just as laughable is the assertion in the article by the plaintiffs' lawyers in the older suit that this new dagger-like district isn't racially gerrymandered because it's more "compact," a quantifiable measurement where less compact districts indicate greater willingness to sort voters, among other things, by protected classes such as race.
But that district mathematically measures horribly in an absolute sense, as the new suit details. Further, the entire map from 1994 declared unconstitutional actually scores better than the current map in many ways, especially in that three major cities – Bossier City, Monroe, and Lake Charles – were left unmolested in a single district each.
All its platitudes about voting rights aside, the real goal all along in Louisiana's congressional reapportionment for the left has been to pick up a seat for Democrats. But the map produced is so defective that not only do leftists fear it won't stand ad infinitum, but, worse, that it won't even make it to this fall's elections. The weak spoken defenses of the current map speak volumes about the left's insecurities on this and signals it will have to pull out all the legal stops just to delay the inevitable long enough to have even one election cycle where it gains a partisan advantage.
*Dr. GM Corput, general medical advisor for New Orleans then LA in general: situation much better in state and city; 5-6 grad nurses still badly needed at Emerg Hosp*Companies continue to vaccinate employees – see article for list*Churches following Dr. Oscar Dowling, President of the State Board of Health's order – the few churches still doing side door sermons last wk have now stopped*More figures on cases/deaths and food delivered from Emerg Motor Hosp and Elks', St. Vincent's (where help still much needed) *Governor Ruffin G. Pleasant instructs Dowling to continue fighting flu, assumes Legislature will grant the $20,000 Dowling requested* Dowling warns people about cold weather*Continued protest about Dowling's cotton gin closure order (eg. Shreveport) ; Newspaper article ; 1, 2
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The switch in a couple of years to closed primary elections in Louisiana for all federal offices and select plenary bodies stands little chance of expanding any time soon.
After all sorts of machinations, the recent special session of the Legislature added partially closed primaries for election to all federal offices, save presidential preference primaries that remain fully closed – meaning voters only may participate in the party primary matching the label under which they registered, although parties have the option of allowing unaffiliated voters to participate as well – and for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Public Service Commission, and Supreme Court. These partially closed primaries are like full closed primaries except parties cannot prevent unaffiliated voters from participating in their particular primary if so chosen by a such a voter when accessing a ballot.
This will have zero immediate effect, since provisions don't kick in until 2026, so that means the Supreme Court District 2, Public Service Commission District 2, and House of Representatives seat elections scheduled for this year, plus any special elections that may occur for these or the rest of the Supreme Court or PSC or BESE or either Senate seat from now until the end of 2025 will occur under the existing blanket primary rules. After that, partially closed primaries will kick in for all of these, held on the March municipal primary date.
The law also provides for runoff election if a primary doesn't produce a majority winner. That would occur on the April municipal general date. Months then would pass before the general election, which for BESE and special elections for any of the others would be on the October state primary date, and for all others and BESE special elections on the November primary date. If no candidate receives a majority in these contests, then the runoff for BESE and special elections for any of the others would be on the November federal primary election date, and for all others and BESE special elections on the December federal general election date.
Obviously, this will create some weirdness. Say you are an unaffiliated voter living in Shreveport and 2026 rolls around. In March, you'll face a ballot with party nominees for PSC and Congress and may have to go back to vote on these in April; for these, if you vote you pick one party's ballot, which could be different from March to April. Then, in November you vote for PSC and Congress as well as things like mayor, district attorney, and school board – and then again in December if runoffs present themselves. Theoretically, you could end up for Congress or PSC voting for four candidates all with different affiliations – a major party candidate in the primary, one from the other major party in a runoff, then a minor party candidate in the general election, and then maybe a no party candidate in a runoff. In fact, you could end up, for example, voting for somebody for Congress in the spring who doesn't win the nomination, then voting for him in the fall because he runs for mayor.
Worse, it can create confusion for voters. Say you are an unaffiliated voter living in Kenner and 2026 rolls around. In March, you'll vote in city elections where all candidate regardless of affiliation run together, but also may have to pick a Senate and House candidate in a primary. So, you have to choose a primary ballot for those office then mash it together with a city ballot, while understanding on election day your choices for city offices is wide open but for Congress it's restricted to a party that you have to choose. And if you prefer a Republican for the House or Senate and a Democrat for the other, you can't. (Not that this can't work; Monrovians long have gotten used to closed presidential preference primaries on their March ballots coexisting with blanket primaries for mayor and city councilors.)
And if you think this is bad, consider what the Jefferson Parish Registrar of Voters and the Secretary of State's office will have to do for Kennerites. For voters signed up for mail ballots for any of the newly affected offices, they will have to mail out to registered Republicans two separate ballots, one confined to party; similar with Democrats but obviously with a different party ballot; to unaffiliated voters both party ballots and the blanket primary ballot, and to minor party registrants just the blanket primary ballot. In the case of unaffiliated voters, what happens if they return both party ballots filled out (nothing in state law during the session was changed to deal with situations like this)?
All of this will be used by opponents to portray the changes in a negative light. Now that the minor alterations made it into law, legislators lukewarm to hostile about closed primaries will declare at least a few years should pass before making any further changes, and then they'll point out the increased voter confusion, bureaucracy, and costs associated that will add to resistance to expansion of closed primaries to other offices (while selectively omitting that most of the greater bureaucracy and higher cost will come from having a schizoid system, compared to the uniformity of all elections having fully closed primaries). And the start two years from now effectively adds two years before any further changes can come about.
This means that it will be years, and perhaps over a decade before any more progress occurs with closed primary adoption, which is the most fundamental systemic change Louisiana could make to stem its history of policy failure. A lot can happen between now and then that not only creates optics that can sour policy-makers and the public on the idea, but also even could spur reversal. It's unfortunate that policy-makers couldn't strike comprehensively while the iron was hot, because it may be a long time before they get another chance.
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Louisiana's new congressional districts are on the books. What happens next is a period of instability that may not clear up until the next census.
January's special session jettisoned prior district boundaries that contained only one majority-minority district in favor of two, as a response to an adverse court decision based upon the outcome of the Allen v. Milligan U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The ensuing plan radically altered principally parts of the Fourth and Sixth Congressional Districts, with the latter giving up its reach from Baton Rouge to the coast by running up the Red River to take bites out of Lafayette, Alexandira and Shreveport, pushing a dagger into the Fourth and becoming M/M.
This almost assuredly will put Republican Rep. Garret Graves out of office later this year, with Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields already having announced his candidacy for the slot; Graves is white while Fields is black. A congressman only has to live in the state in which he runs, not in a particular district, but Graves has little chance winning in any other district currently held by a Republican since his base still is in the Baton Rouge area.
Which won't last long. While several maps were considered, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP majority in the Legislature placed emphasis on protecting Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise – the top two jobs among congressional Republicans and therefore in Congress as the GOP is the majority party. Had the Legislature not reapportioned in the special session, the district court dealing with the case could have imposed any of these that would have been less protective of the pair. One option in particular might have made Johnson's Fourth District less secure.
Timing is everything in these matters, and had the state stuck to its guns with the recent single M/M district the shifting legal processes might have locked it in for 2024, because of the judicial (Purcell) principle that courts won't order changes to maps too close to an election. But had unpredictable legal processes worked out on a different timeline, possibly a court-drawn map instead would have been set in stone for this fall. Thus, Landry and GOP legislative leaders decided to pass the map most protective of the important Republican leaders (who represent the first time in American history one state has had the top two leadership positions in the House), even if it meant losing the possibility that perfectly defensible maps would remain in pace, to avoid having a court willing to rush a preferred map into place as quickly as possible.
The problem that resulted is the map constitutionally is questionable. Three decades ago, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out as racially gerrymandered a similar map, with the only real difference being it was drawn for seven districts. Chances are pretty good this will happen again; even now, the state is being scoured for citizens in the Sixth District willing to challenge the new map.
Even if that case were filed tomorrow, the principle would prevent 2024 from using anything but the new boundaries. But by 2026, it's at least even money that some case somewhere will have been heard by the Supreme Court and have considered as part of it the Assoc. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurrence in Allen v. Milligan that would end the preferred place race has in reapportionment decisions, and produce a decision ending that preference. It might even be part of a challenge to the new map, or perhaps part of the Nairne v. Ardoin case brought against Louisiana's legislative plans.
That means, if Fields were to win, he could spend a second short stint in Washington, three decades after his first (the district declared unconstitutional like the present one actually was a second try after the district in which Fields was elected was declared unconstitutional – eventually, a far more race-neutral court-drawn plan after the two rejections ensured Fields would not return). But then the state could revert back to something similar as to what it just chucked in time for 2026, or 2028 if things move slowly.
However, although much less likely, the Court could go ahead and declare the new map invalid but disregard the Kavanaugh concurrence, which would mean another go at reapportionment in 2026 or later. This is realistic only if a significant shift in Court membership occurred among the five conservative associate justices.
Of course, eventually all of this could be disrupted if population trends don't work in the state's favor. By 2032, Louisiana may lose another House seat, and then it all become a moot point; absent some unanticipated resurrection of the notion of retrogression – paring of M/M seats – that largely has fallen into disfavor since the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Court decision, the state's population distribution simply couldn't support two of five M/M districts.
To make a long story short, nothing is settled. Almost certainly the state will operate a two M/M map for this fall's election, but there's a good chance that things will reset in 2026 to something like they were in 2022. Whoever wins the Sixth this year should be prepared to expect a short stay in D.C.