Archie Bunker episode guide

The People Say Project breaks out the Hulu in order to elaborate on Marlin Gusman's analogy.

Pretty obvious one here: Bunker as meathead equals Landrieu as racist. In other words, the very force the protagonist most despises is the one he actually is.  Just as the New Orleans political family is built on an integrationist legacy, the sitcom family rests on the war between father and son-in-law. The meathead/racist label stings.

When they go to the polls, Archie and Edith find Louise Jefferson in the role of registrar. Archie asks if she’s making a few bucks–some deep racist rhetoric there. Worse, Archie’s name isn’t on the roll and he can’t vote. He begs Edith not to tell the kids of his failure, and demands she vote against Packard.

Two interesting things in this scene: highly bizarre that the Jeffersons control the polls. After all, the evaporation of that condition in Central City has seriously disrupted local politics. Second, is there some notion that Landrieu won’t enjoy the expected dominance at the polls in 2014? Could Archie’s exclusion represent a jab from (people whispered, at least pre-OPP video) potential mayoral candidate Marlin Gusman? The study of Archie Bunker rhetoric reveals no certainties, only deepens the mysteries.

Much more like this. Go check it out. 

The Mitch and Marlin show is very much like any other typical New Orleans political feud between crooks and phonies. The exaggerated rhetoric tends to obscure the finer points. But the symbolism is true enough that it becomes irresistible... and fun too, of course.

The hazard comes in assuming the intellectual argument justifies the actual positions of either of the combatants. Neither of them is making a particularly coherent argument although it is possible to hope each gets some of what he's asking for.

Gusman wasn't wrong to sign on to the consent decree.  A sweeping OPSO reform absolutely has to happen.  But its mainly Gusman's own administrative practices that need to be overhauled. But rather than acknowledge this Gusman has made some rather bizarre arguments.

The question before Judge Lance Africk this week is whether conditions at the jail violate the United States Constitution, as the Southern Poverty Law Center (representing a proposed class of current and future inmates) and the U.S. Department of Justice has argued.

“Are you telling the court that conditions at Orleans Parish Prison, sometimes known as OPP, constitute violations of federal rights for the inmates there?” Rosenberg asked.

"I'm not admitting that," Gusman replied. He would allow that conditions were sometimes "not reasonable" due to inadequate staffing. But he said that the plaintiffs' 30 page findings of fact — the legal basis for adoption of the consent decree that Africk will rule on — was based on "lies and misrepresentations."

"What's the advantage to the sheriff's office of entering into the consent decree?" Africk asked.

“We certainly felt a lot of pressure. After the city had already entered into their consent decree with the police department. I also believed this would be a good opportunity to improve public confidence in what we’re doing," Gusman said. (Note "public confidence" in an agreement based on "lies and misrepresentations.) “I also believed that this would provide the funding we needed to do our job.”

For the Mayor's part, he appears to be making an equally absurd yet opposite argument from Gusman's.  Mitch is dead set against the consent decree reform of OPP yet his argument against it involves a lot of complaining about how badly OPP needs to be reformed.

And yet when we get into specifics, the Mayor actually defends the more egregious practices at the jail.  A major point of controversy has been the "per diem" system which determines the jail's finances. 

Since 1990, the city, under a federal consent judgment, has paid the sheriff's office a set amount each day for every city prisoner. It's been $22.39 a day since 2003. Gusman said last year he needs as much from the city as he gets from the state, $26.39 a day.

However, the per diem system has come under criticism from nationally known corrections expert James Austin and city Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux.

In a report this month, Quatrevaux's office said that even though "the evidence suggests that this per diem amount is inadequate to sustain the operation of the jail," the arrangement "provides a disincentive for the sheriff to correct inefficient information systems that delay the release of some detainees."

Everyone has, at one time or another, gone on record as being mildly in favor of dropping the per diem system yet nobody ever does anything about it.

“I’m surprised that the administration has had a year to do this and we still don’t have a fixed budget,” (Councilwoman Susan) Guidry said. “This is a perverse incentive to keep people in jail. It’s wrong, it’s not a healthy thing to do and we have had a whole year since the last budget. I don’t want another year to go by without us dealing with this.”

Guidry’s criticism prompted Landrieu’s budget director, Cary Grant, to say that a fixed payment system for Gusman is still “a goal of the Landrieu administration.”

So, Guidry asked him, how many people did he have working on the issue today?

“Today we probably have fewer people working on that than we should,” Grant admitted.

That exchange between Guidry and Grant was from a late 2011 hearing in regard to the 2012 budget.  Many months later, the situation is no different.

The Landrieu administration's disregard for the residents incarcerated at OPP is evident in the fact that for years they haven't done anything to improve the conditions at the jail while continuing to fund it. In his testimony at District Court, Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin admitted that the Landrieu administration was well aware of the problems going on at the jail. Now that the Justice Department is insisting that the city share responsibility with the sheriff for the unconstitutional conditions there, Mayor Landrieu would like us to believe that his hands have been tied since he has no control over Gusman or OPP. But the Landrieu administration has dragged its feet on changing the funding of the jail from a per diem structure that incentivizes filling beds at the jail to one that would increase transparency and accountability. When Laura Coon of the Department of Justice asked Kopplin if the city had done anything to increase the city's oversight over the jail, for example, ordering a forensic audit,  Kopplin admitted that although this was something within the city's power, they hadn't ever looked into it.

During the Mayor's "emergency meeting" address to City Council, complained that the OPSO consent decree amounted to another "blank check" from the city to the Sheriff. 

“During this fiscal year, the sheriff, DOJ, federal judges are all riding up to tell us and the taxpayers of the city to write a blank check and hand it over,” Landrieu said. “We will not voluntarily write an ambiguous, unjustified sum of money to the Orleans Parish sheriff’s office.”

But under the current budgeting process, this is basically what happens every year. If we can reasonably presume the reforms will mean structural budgeting changes the Mayor and the Sheriff have been unable to make on their own, why not just consider this the "blank check" to end all "blank checks"?

Worse, yet, during the fairness hearing, Mitch's attorneys argued that a questionable state law might actually excuse the unconstitutional conditions at the prison anyway. 

One wonders after a while what the Mayor's aim is in all this. If he's hoping the feds will offer better better financial terms, maybe we can see this behavior as a histrionic negotiating ploy.  In which case, we hope he's successful but that seems unlikely. 

Instead, most of this comes down to regular old turf politics. And that always comes with the attendant rich but hyperbolic metaphors. Thanks again to People Say for delving into those mysteries for us.



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