The Dread Index

A little over a week ago, in keeping with the (obviously very well thought out, very safe and successful) "Phase 2" reopening process, the First and Second City Courts of New Orleans once again began accepting evictions filings from landlords. The response was...  impressive.

Last week, some courts and justices of the peace accepted eviction requests, but didn’t begin assigning them court dates. Badon waited until Tuesday, the first full day after Edwards’ order lifted.

Badon said his clerks on Tuesday received 63 requests for evictions, compared to about 25 on a normal day.

And that's after having turned away an apparently sizeable number of landlords who are still constrained by the federal rules that pause evictions on certain properties until August 25.  The city courts had been urged to push back their moratorium to match the federal guidelines but they decided to move ahead anyway.

It's hard to know what the reasoning is there. But there has obviously been pressure from property owners. We know they've been talking to the mayor, at least. In this interview back in April she was already talking about the coming eviction crisis in terms of having to "find a balance" with the needs of "our landlords."

She must have still been thinking about "our landlords" this week when she extended the deadlines for short term rental license applications and permit extensions. This extension even applies to STR licenses that were set to expire anyway due to a recent change in city regulations. It's basically using COVID as an excuse to keep STRs operating even while we are allowing people to evicted from their homes. That's one hell of a way to strike a "balance."

Anyway thanks to these policy decisions our leadership has made on purpose, a wave of evictions is coming soon.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As the coronavirus pandemic persists it is feared that many low-income families in Louisiana and around the country could face eviction soon and as a result homelessness.

The Center for Planning Excellence of Baton Rouge and Urban Footprint released their analysis of the housing crisis amid the pandemic.

Camille Manning-Broome is President of the Center for Planning Excellence.

“In Louisiana, our development patterns are increasing the likelihood of this, of homelessness and high-risk burden because many areas your combined housing and transportation costs had up to more than 50 percent of your income,” Manning-Broome said.

The analysis found that Louisiana ranks 3rd in the nation for having a high risk for evictions due to job losses. Further it says 130,000 households across Louisiana are at risk of evictions and it shows the parishes most in need of rental assistance beyond July 31 when federal protections and assistance expire are in order of need, Orleans, Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, Caddo, Lafayette, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Calcasieu, Ouachita, and Bossier.

For further context, here is a cheering analysis of the Census Bureau's "Household Pulse" survey which finds:

Based on the Household Pulse Survey results released on June 17, which examined responses between June 4 and June 9, almost one-third of all households expect to experience a loss of employment income over the coming four weeks. Fully 10 percent of American families—that’s 25 million, half of which have children at home—did not have enough food to eat in the prior week. Even more disturbing, one in five households—over 50 million in total—are doubtful that they will be able to afford sufficient food in the coming month. And of the nation’s 65,000,0000 renters, almost 20 percent were unable to pay their rent last month and an even higher percentage—close to 30 percent—doubt that they will be able to pay their rent in the coming month. 

This week, another one million plus new unemployment claims were filed.  So it's staggering to think how many households are currently trying to calculate, according to their savings if they have any, how much time they might have between the day they are laid off and the day they are evicted. Call it the Dread Index.  And it's a frighteningly short number now that the courts are ready to hear evictions again.

The first of the month comes around every month

July 1 is coming. The first day of the rest of the year.  Get ready to process some evictions.

New Orleans’ First and Second City Courts, which handle the majority of the city’s evictions, won’t start proceedings for newly filed eviction cases until July 6, according to courts spokesman Walt Pierce.

The courts will, however, start eviction proceedings on Monday for the backlog of evictions filed before the court suspended them on March 13. That order put 106 eviction cases on hold that were already scheduled between March 13 and March 30.

The state moratorium ended on June 15.  There is also a federal date of August 25 dictated by the CARES Act which applies only to properties where federal assistance is involved (Section 8, FHA, etc.)  Earlier the City Council had asked the courts to wait until then for everything in order to avoid confusion.  But apparently the City Courts are moving forward anyway. 

The catch there is most tenants (and possibly even a few landlords) may not be aware of the federal moratorium or if it applies to them.  From the looks of things a number of landlords have already shown up to court unprepared to answer that question.  (Or maybe to lie about it.)

Instead of putting off all evictions, First and Second City Courts are requiring all landlords to submit affidavits swearing that they don’t participate in any federal programs that would prevent them from evicting tenants prior to August 25.

“I support the affidavit,” Adams said. “I think it’s a way to notify all parties that a detailed inquiry will be done to ensure that the CARES Act doesn’t apply and the eviction isn’t done in violation of federal law.”

Badon said that he’s seen many people turned away from filing an eviction after finding out they would need to submit the affidavit prior to the court hearing.

“I was at the front door personally myself having to explain it to them,” Badon said. “I had to spend some significant time with certain individuals to explain it to them. They thought they could come here and be done with it but they didn’t know about the affidavit.”

Of course they'll be back soon enough... unless congress is ready to fire up the money gun... or, even less likely, everyone is back to work and making tons of money by August somehow.  There's a first of the month every month, you know. 

Burn after reading

I would very much like to pitch this Clerk of Court story to the Coen Brothers. It's probably not violent enough (yet?) But the farce element is certainly there. 

Days after our first story aired, Flores wrote a letter to the court’s judicial administrator saying he was “contracted to do a job, but before the work could be completed the officeholders transitioned." He also stated he would send a reimbursement check for nearly $3,200.

Badon said last week a person showed up at the courthouse with a check for $3,000 and $1,767 in cash -- one dollar more than the check he was written for the estimates for the clerk’s office.

“For me -- that’s a red flag, because why isn’t it all in the form of a check?,” Badon said. “I don’t know why they did it. I don’t know who the person was that did it. I know it was a Caucasian female who came into office and dropped it off. But nobody knows who that individual is.”

Badon said the court is holding the money in a safe and won’t deposit it since the report is now in the hands of law enforcement.

 And then they drop off an envelope full of cash to Austin Badon, the script reads.  That's good stuff.

Print shop politics

Someday we're going to walk into Office Max and find Timothy David Ray there behind the counter. He seems to have a handle on the supplies and furnishings business.

Timothy David Ray lost his bid to serve as the permanent clerk of 1st City Court in November, but that didn’t stop him from cutting a number of suspicious checks from an obscure government bank account just before he left office, according to a recent audit.

Ray gave $4,766 to a Plaquemines Parish pastor for shelving that was never completed, $5,150 to an Apple store employee for questionable moving expenses, and $360 to a printing company for “business cards” that might have been unnecessary, forensic auditors said.

In total, the auditors said that Ray spent more than $10,000 in public funds on suspicious expenses during his last two weeks in office — findings that prompted New Orleans judges to refer him to the FBI and local law enforcement officials on Wednesday.

What a strange case.  Ray finished slightly out of the running in a city council primary a few years ago before landing the interim clerk gig.  Still, Ray seemed like an up and comer.  It seems like a waste to throw that away on something like this.  He couldn't get himself elected there outright because he ran up against Austin Badon's many years of experience having bought office supplies for the right people himself.

In other words, don't expect much improvement in efficiency or ethical operations at the Clerk's office just because Ray is on the way out.  Which was basically Dangerblond's point the other day when I brought this up on Twitter.  She also took exception to the Advocate's characterization of the office as "under the radar," which we have to agree is sort of condescending toward the readership.

I love how he calls it an “under the radar” clerk’s office. Why is it “under the radar?” YOU are the radar, dumbass. You could do a major story once a month if you aimed your radar at the courts and  clerks of court in Orleans. The place is run like a banana republic circa 1972.

— 〰🏚〰 (@dangerblond) March 15, 2019

People person

Does he mean people hound?  Because it seems like he's very good at finding them.  Actually, maybe it's more like he's a cadaver dog. Anyway, it's weird mailer.

This postcard for Austin Badon for clerk of court takes a really dark turn in paragraphs 3 and 4 ... pic.twitter.com/Kp22oa0Xmq

— Tim Ruppert 🌻 (@tmruppert) September 15, 2018

QOTD

Usually Austin Badon is saying something annoying.  This is actually pretty good.

"Well, here we are today. Term limits suck." - Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, opening his farewell speech..

— Emily Lane (@emilymlane) June 10, 2015

The last week of the session has been frequently interrupted by little goodbye speeches and congratulatory back slapping for and from departing members.  Which is all kind of strange to watch in the middle of a budget crisis.  Most of these would be unnecessary if everyone could have run for reelection. 

Why are we cutting higher ed?

Here's a typically territorial clash of the tiny titans between Pat Connick and Austin Badon.

Resurrecting tolls on the Crescent City Connection could return to the Legislature's agenda this spring if a measure to merge Southern University at New Orleans with the University of New Orleans also is revived, a legislator said.

Calling it a "shot across the bow,'' state Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, warned that he may push to reinstate the tolls, if Rep. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, pushes to combine the schools. Connick opposed the tolls renewal in 2012.

Yeah, it's petty. No, it's not going to amount to anything. Still it's worth noting why Pat Connick thinks we're currently gutting higher education in the state of Louisiana.

He pointed to the decision by Southern University's governing board to combine the jobs of system president and main campus chancellor to streamline the organization. Southern is facing a $15 million deficit next year.

"This issue has never been addressed by the Legislature. It's been pushed under the rug and ignored,'' Connick said, adding Louisiana has too many public universities. "That's why we are precisely where we are today, cutting higher ed, cutting health care.''

No. We're cutting higher ed and health care because Bobby Jindal has wrecked the budget in pursuit of a career in national politics.  But thanks for your concern. 

Robert Adley likes the giggles

Senator Adley is co-sponsoring a bill in the Louisiana Legislature introduced by J.P.Morrell that would decriminalize marijuana possession.

Sponsored by state Sen. J.P. Morrell, the bill would make possession of marijuana a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison. Under current law, first-time marijuana possession is a misdemeanor; subsequent charges are felonies. The maximum sentence for the third offense is 20 years in prison.

A few weeks ago a less good bill in the House which would have kept the felony charge but reduced the proscribed sentence was deferred, supposedly because Austin Badon forgot to call the Sheriffs Association ahead of time to ask them if it was ok.

The Sheriffs don't like this bill either, of course. But it's worth noting that several conservatives like Senator Adley do.

Referring to Morrell’s bill and the state’s budget problems, Adley said, “We can’t fill up the jails on simple possession charges. We don’t have the money to keep them.”

Adley said that smoking marijuana as a Marine courier in Vietnam during the 1960s has led him to conclude that the dangers of the drug are overhyped. “People were better off smoking it than drinking alcohol,” he said. “They just got the giggles. The more whiskey they drank, the meaner they got.”

The Senate bill goes before committee on Tuesday.  Who knows, maybe it will do better than the Bible bill did today.

If it somehow manages to become law, though, it will be interesting to see how Chief Serpas's statistics-focused NOPD handles it.  Serpas and DA Cannizzaro have previously announced their intention to arrest fewer people on simple possession charges. But, as long as the criminal penalties still exist in statute, those charges can and have been pressed.

Recently Serpas told WGNO he was most worried about encountering marijuana users in the context of.. what else.. one of his renowned traffic checkpoints.

NOPD Police Chief Ronal Serpas says whatever lawmakers decide it’ll be up to law enforcement officers to enforce the changes.

“Marijuana, alcohol, any kind of synthetic drugs, they affect the way people drive and that’s one of the things we’re most concerned about is impaired driving.”

Serpas says he's concerned about impaired driving and I guess we'll take his word for that.  Last year the Times-Picayune reported that, while DWI arrests are way up under Serpas, the rate of traffic accidents due to driver impairment is unchanged. But whether the chekcpoints actually make the roads safe isn't important.  The pretext they provide officers to conduct arbitrary stop-and-searches, on the other hand, sure is a neat bonus. 

Here's a recent Democracy Now! interview with Matt Taibbi. His new book is about contrasts between the way the US justice system treats the superwealthy as opposed to.. pretty much everyone else. In the interview here he's talking specifically about how the drug laws can be used to intimidate people in absurd ways. 

MATT TAIBBI: So, HSBC, again, this is one of the world’s largest banks. It’s Europe’s largest bank. And a few years ago, they got caught, swept up for a variety of offenses, money-laundering offenses. But one of them involved admitting that they had laundered $850 million for a pair—for two drug cartels, one in Mexico and one in South America, and including the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico that is suspected in thousands of murders.

And in that case, they paid a fine; they paid a $1.9 billion fine. And some of the executives had to defer their bonuses for a period of five years—not give them up, defer them. But there were no individual consequences for any of the executives. Nobody had to pull money out of their own pockets for permanently. And nobody did a single day in jail in that case.

And that, to me, was an incredibly striking case. I ran that very day to the courthouse here in New York, and I asked around to the public defenders, you know, "What’s the dumbest drug case you had today?" And I found somebody who had been thrown in Rikers for 47 days for having a joint in his pocket. So—

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s—is that even illegal?

MATT TAIBBI: No, in New York City, actually, it’s not illegal to carry a joint around in your pocket. It was decriminalized way back in the late '70s. But with part of the now past stop-and-frisk, what they do is they would stop you, and then they would search you and force you to empty your pockets. When you empty your pockets, now it's no longer concealed, and now it’s illegal again. So they had—in that year, they had 50,000 marijuana arrests, even though marijuana—having marijuana was technically decriminalized at the time.

So, my point was: Here’s somebody at the bottom, he’s a consumer of the illegal narcotics business, and he’s going to jail, and then you have these people who are at the very top of the illegal narcotics business, and they’re getting a complete walk. And that’s just totally unacceptable.

Serpas's sobriety checkpoints aren't NOPD's only answer to stop-and-frisk.  Sometimes, they randomly stop bicyclists too.  Which is what happened to the subject of the lede to the Lens article we began this post with. 

Bernard Noble was visiting his father in New Orleans three and a half years ago when two cops spotted him riding a bicycle. They stopped Noble, frisked him and found a small amount of marijuana — the equivalent of two joints.

Noble, a 47-year-old truck driver and father of three, is now serving a 13-year prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of marijuana possession. It was his seventh drug possession conviction in Orleans and Jefferson Parish.  He originally was sentenced to five years, but Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro Jr. appealed and got a longer sentence.

Since Serpas' policy response to the bills in the legislature appears to be a redoubling of his efforts at traffic enforcement, it isn't hard to imagine more scenarios like these even if marijuana possession is partially decriminalized in Louisiana.  It won't be, so we don't have to worry too much about that particular irony.  But between a DA holding out for longer sentences in possession cases despite his own stated policy and the impaired drivers who are actually  bicyclists, there's plenty of that to go around. Perhaps enough to inspire a giggle from Senator Adley when he's in the right state.

Everybody hates Badon's bill

State Rep. Austin Badon had to pull his bill to lessen penalties for marijuana possession from consideration today.  The bill was opposed by speakers from the ACLU as well as from the libertarian leaning conservative Pelican Institute on the grounds that it did not go far enough in the direction of full decriminalization.

This afternoon in a chat with the The Lens, Sen. JP Morrell also characterized Badon's bill as being a bit lukewarm for his liking. 

I think Rep. Badon's bill is well intended but it doesn't go far enough. The problem it poses, during this legislative session, is that it is a "compromise" that, if successful could lead people who are considering my bill to reconsider their support 

Morrell is supporting a Senate version that would reduce possession charges to misdemeanors. Under Badon's bill, marijuana possession would remain a felony.

But what really got to Badon was the opposition of the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association whose support he had counted on. One supposes, in fact, the bill was as moderate as it was specifically to court the Sheriffs.  They said no anyway. 

But, Badon deferred discussion on his bill Thursday -- and said he doubted he would bring it back up for discussion -- after Sheriffs' Association head Mike Ranatza testified against the bill in front of committee.

Badon said the LSA had indicated to him that they would remain neutral on the bill, as the Louisiana District Attorneys Association did Thursday; Ranatza would not comment on the blow up, but was overheard telling state Rep. Steve Pylant, R-Winnsboro, "I never spoke to him since last year" on the bill.

It's kind of weird that Badon would have been caught this flat-footed by the Sheriffs, even stranger that he would not have been in contact with them, even.  In any case, he made a point of  demonstrating frustration afterwards.

When asked to comment on Ranatza's statement that there had been no discussion, Badon told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, "B---s---...His leadership has to be called into question...You don't do that in this body."

Badon was seen avoiding Ranatza after the vote was taken, slipping out the back as he called, "Austin! Austin!" behind him. Badon said, "I'm not in a good frame of mind, Mike."

If only there were a safe, legal way available to help him calm down....

Oh well.  Morrell's Senate bill is still forthcoming. And the House will undoubtedly take this up again.  Part of me wonders if Badon might have decided to stall his own bill on purpose just to see if the Senate version offers some room to hammer out something better.  He clearly wasn't happy with this version.

Badon agreed with Esman and said he wished the bill went further, but he was forced to compromise: "It's a good bill. I wish it would do more but it is a consensus bill."

Badon was reluctant to postpone debate on his bill to lessen these penalties, however, and noted afterward he hadn't decided to bring it back up for another vote later: "I'm pretty livid. I don't want to make any rash decisions right now."

In other words, pulling it in the first place might not have been a "rash decision" either? Just speculating.

"Unspoken" Rules Of NOLA Political Coverage or Why We aren't "In"

At first glance, it's a relief. It's a relief to see that despite the rain, the tall ships, and the general not giving a fuck around town, turnout at least managed to bump up a bit from the dismal 18% of the primary.

With all 366 precincts reporting, unofficial returns showed Head with 27,787 votes to 27,506 for Willard-Lewis. About 23.5 percent of the city's 235,553 registered voters went to the polls, significantly more than in the primary, although there were no other items on the ballot.

And yet 55,293 people is a pretty lame crowd. If the Saints are ever drawing that, Tom Benson might up and move them to San Antonio... or run off and buy a basketball team or something. So maybe we're not exactly In when it comes to our most preferred spectator sport of local politics these days.

The problem could be that the storyline isn't all that compelling. Or maybe it's just that the T-P keeps trying to write the same boring script.

She appeared to have survived a racially charged contest against former Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis by the narrowest of margins.

Was this really a "racially charged" election? Just the assertion that it was, in fact, "charged" with anything at all strains credulity. But leaving that aside, let's look at the evidence supplied in Sunday's re-cap.

The two Democrats waged a spirited runoff battle focused in part on the so-called "unspoken rule" that for three decades kept the two at-large council seats divided between white and African-American politicians.

The tradition of racial balance in the seats ended in 2007, when Jackie Clarkson, who is white, was elected after Oliver Thomas, who like Willard-Lewis is black, resigned after admitting he took a bribe. Fielkow, the other incumbent at the time, also is white.

For an "unspoken rule" the T-P's political reporters sure do an awful lot of speaking about it. In fact, they haven't been able to shut up about it ever since the unspoken rule was tossed away after Oliver Thomas' departure. Two election cycles later, we're still reading about it as if it's the law of the land.

One side note here. A proposed reform would divide candidates in future At-Large elections into two separate races for either seat. If this comes to pass will future candidates conform to the "unspoken" rule by self-segregating themselves into white and black At-Large races? If not maybe then we can stop un-speaking about this business.

But whatever you think of the "unspoken rule" it alone doesn't mean that this election was "racially charged"... at least not any more or less than any citywide election might be. Race is obviously a factor in local politics. But it isn't so neatly divided from context the way the T-P's handling of it would indicate. Let's look again at Michelle Krupa and Frank Donze's Sunday re-cap article.

During the campaign Willard-Lewis kept the issue of racial balance in the forefront, saying it is important that all segments of the community feel "they have access and that their voices will be welcome, respected and heard."

Head countered that voters are more concerned about which candidate is "going to work hard for their neighborhood, who's going to make sure that the delivery of governmental services is as good as it possibly can be. That's far more important than race."

What a fascinating way to frame those quotes. Here we have each candidate saying equally bland things. Cynthia says it's important for everyone to "have access" and "be heard." Head "counters" this by saying "delivery of governmental services" is "far more important than race." It's a mild exchange that obliquely touches on a debate about whether the question of for whom government services are working is as important as how well they are working. Does that question have a racial element to it? Certainly. Does the article attempt to explain this at all? Nope.

Instead the reporters keep the focus on how "racially charged" all of this is. In their version of the story, Willard-Lewis' having "kept the issue of racial balance in the forefront" was a troublesome matter necessitating a "counter" from Head. Even if we are to accept the dubious premise that this election was any more "racially charged" than is typically seen in New Orleans politics, we are given no means of understanding why race might be a relevant matter. It's lightly implied that the alleged racial charge is probably a bad thing... and that it's mostly Cynthia's fault... but that's all we get.

Willard-Lewis targeted black voters with a pair of radio ads, including one featuring New Orleans native Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and civil-rights leader. He told listeners: "If you don't have somebody representing you in public office, you really don't get your share."

The other ad, which suggested Head was trying to buy the election, urged voters to send her a message that "the vote that our parents and grandparents fought and died for is not for sale, nor will it ever be."

In her TV ads, Head featured a range of residents -- black and white, male and female -- with each supporter praising her ability to get things done.

See, Cynthia "targeted black voters" by having Andrew Young say something pretty elemental about representative government. Meanwhile Head "featured a range of residents" who talked about how she can "get things done." What things are getting done? Head's supporters typically cite her office's responsiveness  regarding things like individual permitting and zoning hang-ups. If you own a business or a (well maintained) piece of property in District B, Stacy Head is probably your pal. She gets things done. For you, anyway. Just don't ever say she's "targeting" your vote, though. 

Recently, Head voted with her targeted constituency against an ordinance that helps ensure contractors the city is doing business with are in compliance with state and federal labor standards.The law was put forward by interim At-Large Councilman Eric Granderson as a response to widespread complaints of wage theft in New Orleans; a cause taken up by Arnie Fielkow who Granderson replaced on the council.  As a result of the special election, Head will now fill that seat.

In Willard-Lewis' ads, when Ambassador Young says, "If you don't have somebody representing you in public office, you really don't get your share,"  he's talking to people like the exploited day laborers Head voted against. When Willard-Lewis says "it is important that all segments of the community feel 'they have access and that their voices will be welcome, respected and heard,'" this is what she's talking about.  But when Times-Picayune  reporters reduce these points to mere racial dog whistling they divorce the campaign from any sense of its actual impact on people's lives.

Whenever we talk about issues of economic status and political power, of course race is going to factor into that discussion.  But it's going to do that in complicated ways our political reporters don't usually want to unpack. Instead they make a perverse parlor game of  isolating race from any meaningful context and then making that de-contextualized extraction the sole focus of their election coverage.

And this is, of course, topped off by tut-tutting at one or both of the candidates for allowing this completely manufactured bullshit to "racially charge" the campaign in the first place. In this election, the brunt of the blame for having "kept the issue of racial balance in the forefront" as Krupa and Donze put it, fell on Willard-Lewis.

Just look at this lede from Donze's report on a WVUE debate between Head and CWL. The debate ranged on a number of topics but Donze picked this.

It seemed like a good bet that, as the African-American candidate in the April 21 runoff for an at-large New Orleans City Council seat, former state Sen. Cynthia Willard-Lewis would be the first to broach the subject of the council's white majority. But in the contest's first face-to-face, post-primary meeting, it was her challenger, Stacy Head, one of the council's four white members, who tackled the thorny issue, albeit indirectly.

Translation: "It seemed like a good bet" that nasty Cynthia would  titillate us offend our sensitive hearts with the race baiting no-no we all came to shake our fingers at but that didn't work out and we were starting to get bored so here's what our rabbit ears picked up "indirectly."

Oh by the way, here's the tackling of "the thorny issue" Donze is referring to.  Prepare to have your mind blown.

The discussion of race during their appearance Monday on WVUE-TV was triggered when Willard-Lewis asked Head whether she was supporting President Barack Obama's re-election in light of the "significant Republican support" she has in the race.

Ok quick fact check time.  Does Stacy Head enjoy "significant Republican support"?  Why indeed she does! It's maybe a little cheap but still understandable that CWL might want to see if she can exploit that given the President's overwhelming popularity in Orleans Parish. It's unclear, however, exactly why this is a "thorny" or even "indirectly" racial issue as Donze suggests.  Anyway here's Head's response.

"So, I think that President Obama has been one of the greatest leaders for the country because he's a man who doesn't look like me," Head said. "But he represents my interests."

And, you know, she's right. The President who is bringing us legalized stock fraud under the Orwellian guise of "Job creation" does indeed represent the interests of people like Ms. Head. But that digression aside, does the side-issue of either candidate's opinion of the President really merit front-and-center attention in an article about a municipal election?  If it's kind of "indirectly" related to race a little bit, it apparently does. Even so, how does such a silly, weak bank shot bring us to describe the entire debate with this headline?

New Orleans City Council candidates touch on race

Probably the same way we got

New Orleans council primary plays out along racial lines

 or

New Orleans City Council runoff may be test of trends in the city's racial politics

 or

New Orleans City Council endorsement appears to have racial component 

There were a lot of these throughout the campaign often with an "appears to" or a "may be" or a "touch on" forced in to connect "City Council" and "race" one way or another. If this election was "racially charged" at all, it acquired this charge as a result of the static generated by the T-P (usually Donze) constantly rubbing those words together.

And more often than not, the recipient of the T-P's racial static was Cynthia Willard-Lewis. Even as she was receiving her "crossover" endorsement from the Mayor, Donze managed to describe it as a sly and underhanded "racially charged" move.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu never made direct reference to the touchy subject of the New Orleans City Council's white majority Thursday as he endorsed former Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis in the April 21 runoff to fill an at-large seat on the city's legislative panel. But it was clear by what he did say that the thorny issue of race was a key factor in his decision to choose Willard-Lewis, who is black, over her white opponent, Councilwoman Stacy Head.

Oh good another "indirect" reference to "the thorny issue." Want to read it?

"I need someone who's going to be a partner with me to represent all of the people of the city of New Orleans," Landrieu said to a cheering crowd of more than 100 gathered at the New Orleans Healing Center on St. Claude Avenue.

Did you miss it? Well you see Mitch says he's looking for someone to "represent all the people of the city of New Orleans" which, in Donze's interpretation, must "indirectly" mean something racial. Evidently there's something about the word "all" that Donze takes as exclusionary. Recall that when Donze and Krupa compared these two statements,

During the campaign Willard-Lewis kept the issue of racial balance in the forefront, saying it is important that all segments of the community feel "they have access and that their voices will be welcome, respected and heard." Head countered that voters are more concerned about which candidate is "going to work hard for their neighborhood, who's going to make sure that the delivery of governmental services is as good as it possibly can be. That's far more important than race."

They judged Head's to be the more racially inclusive for some reason. Without Donze and Krupa around to read the tea leaves for us, we would have guessed that Mitch was endorsing Cynthia partially as repayment for her having "crossed racial lines" to back his 2006 campaign against Ray Nagin* and also probably as a slap at Head who has bucked his administration from time to time since he has become Mayor. But apparently there's this "racially charged" thing the Mayor and Ms. Willard-Lewis keep trying to force on us. And we might have missed that without the benefit of the Times-Picayune's political team.

Similarly, we would have thought that Austin Badon's subsequent endorsement of Head was an act of political payback. Badon had the backing of the Morrell family during the primary in part because the Morrells have been enemies of Ms. Willard-Lewis as of late. It's also possible that Badon (like President Obama) simply shares Head's interests since we know Badon to be an outspoken supporter of Governor Jindal's scheme to privatize elementary and secondary education in Louisiana.

But when the endorsement actually happened, Krupa included none of this in her account.  Instead we got a handicapping of the racial subtext she had read into it for us.

New Orleans voters split along racial lines in the March 24 primary, with Head, who is white, claiming 96 percent of votes cast by whites and Willard-Lewis and Badon, who are black, taking 95 percent of the votes cast by blacks, an analysis by University of New Orleans political scientist Ed Chervenak shows.
Whether Badon's supporters again will vote along racial lines or cast a vote against Willard-Lewis or stay home altogether will be a critical factor for Saturday's victor.

Later, when Badon actually spoke, he didn't mention race at all.

"I want someone who speaks with quality and not quantity," Badon told a roomful of Head supporters.
"I don't want a 'yes' woman on the City Council. New Orleans doesn't need someone who is just going to put their stamp of approval on issues without proper evaluation. I want someone who is analytical. I want someone who is going to bring all of the department heads to the table and ask the tough questions."

We would have expected Donze to delve into this statement and pull out the "indirect" means by which Badon was actually beating around the "thorny issue" of race.  But for some reason, that never happened.  Maybe it's because we're already supposed to assume it always "seems like a good bet" that only Willard-Lewis' camp engages in the racial subterfuge.

When the T-P excludes all context other than race, their framing lines up this way. Either the voters will "vote along racial lines" and support Cynthia, or overcome this presumed flaw in their character to support Head. Meanwhile Head gets to go right on pretending that her choice of management over labor, or of property owners over renters is really a forward-thinking focus on "service" and Willard-Lewis' rhetoric about "all segments of the community" getting their "voices heard" amounts to some sort of nefarious racial code talk.

Maybe in another 30 years when Head finally grows up to be Jackie Clarkson, our gentle reporters will have to change gears and start covering for her in more of an aw-shucks-that's-our-good-old-buffoon fashion but, man, that is a long time to wait.

Anyway, it should come as no surprise that the political team at the T-P would apply their powers of induction to conclude from the results that they were right all along.

Willard-Lewis, who is black, picked up only about 5 percent of the non-African-American votes on a day when white turnout nearly doubled black participation, according to the analysis.
"Turnout and crossover vote were the keys for Head's victory," Chervenak said Sunday.
In his review, Chervenak found that turnout in precincts where 90 percent or more of the registered voters are white was 30.3 percent, compared with 16.8 percent in precincts containing 90 percent or more black voters.
While those heavily African-American precincts contain 32,000 more voters, Chervenak said there were less than 300 more votes cast in those areas than in the heavily white precincts.
Bridging the racial divide was seen as the likeliest path to success for either candidate in what quickly developed into a racially charged battle.

See? This election really was "racially charged" but somehow  the forces of ... um... light prevailed due to the "bridging of the divide" or something.

This analysis, including its "Stacy Head's New Orleans City Council victory credited to turnout, black vote" headline is terribly misleading. Technically, the headline is true. But it's only true if we read it as "Stacy Head's victory credited to (low) turnout and (somewhat divided but mostly disengaged) black vote" As written, however, it might imply to the casual headline glancer that Ms. Head benefited from a heavy black turnout.

That isn't very likely, of course. But even the argument Donze is trying to make; that Head won by virtue of picking up a small but decisive percentage of a dismal black turnout; is masked by his attempt to characterize this as some noble "bridge the racial divide" moment. Had a mere 282 more Cynthia voters (less than one per precinct, as Clancy DuBos told us repeatedly) decided to slog through the rain that day, would we be reading today about the "bridging of the divide"? Or would Donze tell us, instead, that those 282 voters had rushed upon us in a loathsome "racial charge"?

Is there a way to explain these results without talking about the racial component? No, of course not. But if you're going to say, on the one hand, that the election was strictly about race, it's unfair to interpret one candidate's victory as a rejection of racial politics. Especially if the numbers don't bear that out.

Among the joys of post-election handicapping these days are Brian Denzer's Pac-Man maps. This one (PDF) shows us the precinct-level vote share along with the intensity of the turnout. It was picked up by The Lens this week along with the following analysis from Denzer.

“Stacy Head received an average 26 percent turnout in precincts that she won, compared to 17 percent turnout in precincts that Cynthia Willard-Lewis won,” Denzer said.
He also said that based on his analysis, Head won only eight precincts that were majority black, compared to Willard-Lewis, who won 215 majority-black precincts.
“In a city that is 60 percent African-American…and in a contest which heavily favored Cynthia Willard-Lewis by voters’ racial preferences, the deciding factor was the overwhelming turnout for Stacy Head compared to Cynthia Willard-Lewis — and even then, the vote returns coming in all night showed a very close contest that was ultimately won by only 281 votes,” Denzer said.

Overall turnout was around 24%. Clancy (see above) thinks that's pretty good. Maybe he means it's "indirectly" good since it's higher than it was in the primary but I think it sucks.  This was a war of attrition where Head benefited from strong turnout in her base precincts, particularly in Lakeview and along the Carrollton and St. Charles Avenue corridors Uptown. Turnout among Willard-Lewis' base precincts in the East was OK but tepid compared to what Head was able to muster. 

Stacy Head eked out a slim slim victory from among less than a quarter of all registered voters because her supporters, though small in number, were more enthusiastic than her opponent's. We could speculate as to whether or not Head's supporters were more racially charged up than Cynthia's but, unlike the T-P, I don't really buy that race is what defined this election.  It's far more correct to say that apathy did.

And that's hardly surprising given all the bullshit about race taking precedence in the narrative. When voters are given little if any opportunity to learn what either an election might actually be about.  Is it any wonder so few of them find it worth their time to be "In" for it?


 *The 2006 Mayoral election was, in fact, quite "racially charged."

Jindal's "vouchers to nowhere" plan passes the LA House

Earlier this week the Baton Rouge Advocate opined against the Governor's scheme to de-fund public education in Louisiana, calling it a "vouchers to nowhere" plan.

The reality is that there are at most a few thousand spaces in private schools. Many of those schools might not choose to take the vouchers at all, particularly the elite institutions. The idea that even 10,000 new places might become available through new construction is so financially difficult to accomplish for private education that we doubt they will be available any time soon.

So for all the rhetoric about taking children out of failing schools, the voucher plan simply doesn’t. And in the state’s small-scale version of a voucher program in New Orleans, it is evident that even some of the private schools — for a few, test scores are available — can fail children educationally.

The voucher plan appears to be a political statement aimed at matching those Republican governors in other states who have achieved some form of a statewide voucher program.

Moments ago, the House version of Jindal's horribly flawed political statement passed by a vote of 61 to 42. Voting in favor of the vouchers to nowhere Republican political statement was State Rep Austin Badon. Badon is a candidate for City Council At Large in this weekend's election. Voters might like to know that he prioritizes the Governor's fantastical political statements above the the interests of the city's school aged children. Or maybe they don't care.

Update: Here's the T-P's Bill Barrow's report on Jindal's education agenda as of 11:00 this evening (the House is currently still debating the tenure reform). Barrow writes.

Together, the charter, voucher and tenure changes -- all reflective of policy orthodoxy among Republican governors across the country -- would put Jindal alongside other past and current GOP state executives such as Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jeb Bush of Florida and Chris Christie of New Jersey who successfully remade the traditional model for public education into a partly privatized system championed by religious conservatives, many business lobbies and libertarian-oriented think tanks.

Council candidate Badon is supporting Jindal's privatization agenda.

Upperdate: Daily Kingfish names the Democrats in the LA House who voted in favor of Governor Jindal's program to gut public education. Note the New Orleans area names on the list.

Department of Garbage

The Mayor's Cousin Gary this morning during a Council At Large debate on WBOK:

"When I say we're going to get rid of those traffic cameras, those traffic cameras are going to be removed," he said. "I am going to personally remove them if I have to personally go get a garbage truck from the department of garbage and go run them over with a garbage truck."

And, you know, I'm sure we all appreciate the sentiment. But it's not a sentiment we can reasonably expect Cousin Gary to convert into any useful action should he, through some unforseen series of deaths, find himself the winner of this election. Much like his proposal to sell the airport or Austin Badon's proposed commuter payroll tax (also discussed during this debate) we can safely assume it will be filed directly into the "Department of Garbage" upon arrival on the Council agenda.

Meanwhile, as we noted this morning, candidates Head and Badon both signed on to an agenda set forth by something called "Forward New Orleans" which is basically a business lobbying mechanism pushing several backward ideas such as,

"Protecting economic opportunity" for local, small and disadvantaged businesses, such as by opposing efforts to require companies seeking public contracts to recognize labor unions.

It matters that candidates Badon and Head support Forward New Orleans' backward proclamation that protecting unions is somehow different from "protecting economic opportunity" because, as we have seen, each has applied this sentiment to their actions in office. Doubtless the item was added to Forward's agenda in response to Council's passage by a 4-3 vote this week of an ordinance designed to ensure that city contractors are in good standing with regard to federal and state labor laws. Stacy Head was one of those no votes. The ordinance was denounced by the contractors who showed up that day as redundant to existing law but also because it would "stymie economic growth" in some way that those existing laws apparently don't.

Freddy Yoder, the CEO of Durr Construction Co., called the ordinance "bad law'' that would stymie economic growth in New Orleans. Yoder said laws that address the issues are already in place.

If that doesn't make sense to you, you must not be thinking Forwardly enough, I guess.

Badon, meanwhile has been a major proponent of Governor Jindal's ALEC-driven anti-union and anti-teacher school privatization agenda. (Badon has been listed as an attendee at ALEC conferences.)

And so among the three candidates with major name recognition, two of them have cheerfully signed a backward "economic opportunity" agenda put Forward by a coalition of entrenched New Orleans business interests and have demonstrated through their voting record a willingness to back such an agenda. And, as if matters weren't bad enough already, the recognizable candidate who just so happened to not sign on to the backward agenda is... Cynthia Willard Lewis.

The At-large election is this Saturday. Let's hope we're lucky enough to get hit by a Department of Garbage truck before we have to go and vote.

Business lobby group presents anti-union pledge to Council At-Large candidates

Austin Badon and Stacy Head happily sign on.

Mitchmentum?

Although we've spent the first half of Mitch Landrieu's term as Mayor getting to understand the ways he's really not so different from Ray Nagin, there's at least one aspect of the job in which he's been Nagin's polar opposite.

While Nagin's endorsement of candidates in other races was almost always a kiss of death, Landrieu has an "unblemished" record of "picking the ponies" as the headline to this NOLA.com item read before it was altered.

Since taking office in May 2010, Landrieu has an unblemished record in backing candidates for political office: Every candidate he has endorsed has won.

Although no decision has been made, a source close to Landrieu said the mayor is leaning toward (Cynthia) Willard-Lewis, who crossed racial lines in 2006 to back Landrieu in his failed bid to oust incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin.

The endorsement could be a big boost for Willard-Lewis who as of just a few days ago hardly had enough money in the war chest to boot up even one TV ad.

The move also would make sense for Landrieu. Even if it does put his perfect record at risk, it gives him an opportunity to pay back a favor to Willard-Lewis, thumb his nose a bit at sometime adversary Head, and slap Austin Badon for proposing to send the National Guard to New Orleans during spikes in the crime rate.

Mitch's cousin, Gary Landrieu, also a candidate, is running a commercial focusing on the city's much-maligned traffic cameras in which he says "I will guarantee you that these predatory cameras will be removed from our streets." Based on that alone, we know Mitch can't support his cousin's candidacy.

Backing Cynthia also helps Landrieu reinforce his reputation for "reaching across" the city's racial divide at a time when his police department continues to stir up tensions.

So it's a can't lose political proposition for Mitch, although we probably can't say the same for CWL. At the latest reporting, it appeared that Head basically had all the money as well as the backing of much of the city's business establishment up to and including this year's King of Carnival. So far, though, the only visible evidence of this, apart from the one TV spot is a proliferation of Head signs up and down Freret Street near her campaign headquarters as well as a massive ad buy at Uptwownmessenger.com. If you read Uptown Messenger via RSS feed, you get the ads mixed in with the stories. Last week, the Head items became so frequent that I began to think of it as the Stacy Daily.

Anyway, this Tuesday the 13th, the League of Women Voters is hosting a forum for the At-Large candidates at the First Universalist Church on the corner of Jefferson and Claiborne. Might be kicks if you're not doing anything.

How many doors should they be kicking down per day?

Badon calls again for martial law.

Rep. Austin Badon, a Democrat who is running for a New Orleans city council seat, is proposing to let the governor declare a state of emergency to activate the National Guard when the murder rate in a city of 200,000 people or more is 45 homicides per 100,000 residents or higher. New Orleans exceeded that rate in 2010 and 2011.

Most depressing council race ever

Well... most depressing since the last one... or until the next one... anyway.

In one corner we have State Representative Austin Badon.

Badon, who was briefly a candidate for Mayor during the last election, is known for the following.

1) Last year Badon recommended we have the National Guard occupy New Orleans until the murder rate gets under control.

2) Similarly, during his short Mayoral campaign, Badon promised an audience they could expect to see NOPD "kicking in at least four doors a day" should he be elected.

3) Badon also signed onto this neo-prohibitionist manifesto.

4) Last, but not least, Badon apparently has some sort of problem with my well-honed ability to tweet while driving.

Standing with Mr. Badon in his corner are the following fine entities.

1) The so-called "Alliance for Good Government" whatever that may mean.

The Alliance is one of countless groups that gets involved in local races, but polls show that its stamp of approval impresses voters, who consider it something of a political "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

2) The organization known as the Greater New Orleans Republicans. You might remember GNOR from such famously "strategic" maneuvers such as having worked very hard to re-elect Ray Nagin in 2006.

3) Political consultant Cheron Brylski, who, we are given to understand is partially behind an astroturfy effort to shut down a lot of live music in New Orleans. Jan Ramsey discusses this problem in a recent Offbeat editorial but makes such a mess of it that it needs further clarification.

In the other corner we have District B Councilwoman Stacy Head.

Stacy is famous for all sorts of awful things I don't even feel like going into.

Most recently we learned she has been pushing to have lower Magazine Street converted to two-way traffic which can't be good for anyone except real estate speculators. Here she is telling us that litterers are murderers or something like that. Here she is telling us how much she would like to have your car towed. In this article she tells us that poor people don't pay enough in taxes. There's more but you get the idea.

Anyway here's a list of Ms. Head's illustrious backers, in case you're looking for something to throw on one of our still-burning marsh fires this weekend.

The notable donors listed on the invitation included lawyers Herschel Abbott and Joe Bruno; businesswoman and education reform leader Leslie Jacobs; businessmen Coleman Adler, Tommy Coleman and John Georges, Bill Goldring and Boatner Reily; shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger, restaurateur Ralph Brennan;, developers Brian Gibbs and Elie Khoury; and venture capitalists David Voelker and Gary Solomon.

So this will be fun. Here's how fun it will be. I can, at the bottom of this post, type the phrase, Cynthia Willard-Lewis is also running, and not have it be the worst thing you read.

"Civil liberties and all that"

The other day I meant to add this to the "Other Austin Badon facts" but couldn't find the quote anywhere. Today, I was helpfully reminded of this WCBF post from 2009 where we learned that then-mayoral candidate Badon wants to have your door kicked in.

We are officially living in a war zone.
Eastern New Orleans mayoral hopeful Rep. Austin Badon raised eyebrows last night with a call for a new Stazi-style approach to crime fighting, telling a roomful of District B voters that if he is elected mayor they will see “the NOPD kicking in at least four doors a day.”

The line appeared to stun many in the audience of uptown neighborhood leaders who had come to hear Badon, many of them for the first time. Upon reading furrowed brows, Badon quickly added that he would not lose track of “civil liberties and all that” and pointed out in a style reminiscent of police chief Warren Riley that most of the violence in the city was between “thugs and drug dealers killing each other off.”

This should go well

Noted neo-prohibitionist, red light camera proponent and cell phone Nazi, Austin Badon is considering running for City Council.

Other Badon facts: Dislikes rap music but does enjoy Hannah Montana especially when free tickets are available.