Every time you think you've seen the worst Louisiana Legislature of all time...

.... along comes the worst Louisiana Legislature of all time. 

And whooo boy this has been a bad one.

On Monday night this past week, some of us tuned in to observe the latest reverberation of the session's loudest (but also emptiest) controversy thus far. Rep. Valarie Hodges brought a bill before the House that would introduce a specific requirement to the state's high school curriculum. 

Fallout from the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus’ fight with Rep. Ray Garofalo (R-Chalmette) is to blame for the tense debate on the Louisiana House floor Monday over a bill requiring that high schoolers learn about World War II and the Holocaust, Rep. Tammy Phelps (D-Shreveport) said Monday evening.

Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Denham Springs) got HB 416 through the House to the dismay of Black lawmakers who couldn’t win support for their attempts to simply have the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education consider adjustments to the curriculum.

Hodges told the chamber that “the sacrifice our country and our forefathers made in the part of a worldwide attempt at domination of the Third Reich” are worthy of being taught in every high school.

“The Holocaust is a study in how much the future of our nation depends on its citizens to stand up to the forces that divide us and stand up to hate among us,” she said. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

It's been a while since the leges have had this much interest in writing curriculum directives directly into state law.  That article references "fallout" over an earlier bill this session introduced by Ray Garofalo that would have barred the teaching of "divisive concepts" such as, for example, the idea that capitalism produces racist or sexist outcomes, or even that racism can be a central theme in the description of US history. 

In other words, it was a pretty bad bill and bringing it to the legislature at all is clearly a deliberate provocation on Garofalo's part.  Interestingly, though, media coverage of the "controversy" has too often elided the nature of the bill as an issue and focused instead on some words spoken by Garofalo while debating it. Take a look at how this Advocate story is framed.

Garofalo first ignited controversy last month when, during a discussion of his bill on how racism is taught in colleges, he referred to how a hypothetical case of a classroom discussion on slavery could include "the good, the bad, the ugly."

He quickly walked back his comment about the "good" in slavery, and allies contend he has been ridiculously portrayed as somehow sympathetic to slavery.

All of a sudden we're no longer talking about the bill he introduced specifically to outlaw academic questioning of white supremacy and are concerned instead with whether or not he's being treated unfairly by critics.  Even now, after his somewhat dramatic removal from his committee chairmanship, Garofalo is presented almost as a sacrificial lamb to petty Democrats. 

At one point Garofalo said, even with his measure, college classrooms were free to air discussions on controversial topics, including “the good, the bad, the ugly” of slavery.

The lawmaker quickly corrected himself on any suggestion of “good” surrounding slavery. But the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and Gov. John Bel Edwards said he should be replaced as chairman for multiple reasons.

It's probably true that the Black Caucus did force Garofalo's demotion by threatening to hold up a key tax bill until he was punished. They should have killed the tax swap bill altogether anyway but that's for a different post, probably. Either way, the press coverage over the past few weeks has unhelpfully obscured the reason they acted in the first place.  Actually, instead of "the press" I should just say Tyler Bridges in particular because most examples of this are form his reporting.  In this passage, for example, we see that Clay Schexnayder has pretty good handle on a problem that Tyler is nonetheless intent on turning into something else.

But the alliance between the two ended after Garofalo insisted on presenting House Bill 546, which sought to address concerns of conservatives that left-wing educators are teaching “critical race theory” concepts centered on the notion that racism is systemic.

The night before, Schexnayder advised Garofalo that having his committee hear HB546 would be racially divisive.

Garofalo forged ahead. In explaining his bill, he made an offhand comment about the “good” of slavery but then immediately disavowed it.

The damage was done, however. The exchange went viral, and in the days that followed, the Black Caucus called on Schexnayder to remove him as the Education Committee chairman, while Garofalo said he didn’t think he had done anything wrong.

No doubt people will think I am picking at nits here. But the way that is written, the reader is expected to conclude that a racist bill that says you can't teach about racism might have been a fine thing to pass if not for the "good of slavery" gaffe that went viral. 

Still, it is probably safe to assume that Garofalo is being punished because his fumbling presentation endangered a tax bill and not because Republicans were all that set against his trolling foray into legislative pedagogy. If it were otherwise, there would have been far less enthusiasm for Hodges's bill on Monday. Mark Ballard puts in a pretty good explanation today of how her bill and Garofalo's are really aimed at the same purpose.  

The first thing caucus chair Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said was that tax policy, not culture wars, is the foremost interest of most House Republicans.

Still, they voted for transgender restrictions and school curricula impositions, such as requiring public schools to teach World War II and the Holocaust in greater detail as well as an emphasis on the nation’s important documents.

Not that such subjects are bad for Louisiana students to learn, but “patriotic education” is a strategy that crowds out conversations about race and its impact on American society. Louisiana educators oppose legislators dictating curriculum.

Another thing we have to point out about these "culture issue" troll bills is that they do not bubble up from the local constituents. They are dropped in from above by well funded national conservative agitators.  For example, Louisiana was one of thirty some odd states to advance bills cribbed from the national right wing grievance-cruelty template that bar transgendered kids from participating in high school sports.  Here is the House breaking out in applause over its passage.

Here it is. Over ten seconds of cruel, heartbreaking, inhumane celebration after passing a bill that would deny thousands of Louisiana children and youth the right to be part of a team, to play sports with their friends. #lalege #lagov #protecttranskids #letthemplay pic.twitter.com/zTHL6IOV4L

— Dylan Waguespack (@DylanMercury) May 28, 2021

What has made this session more frustrating than most, though, has been the ease at which bills like this have made it all the way through the process. During a session with the more weighty matters of hurricane recovery, coastal restoration, and the distribution of COVID relief funds on the agenda, why are we stopping to argue about any of this foolishness? 

The key observation is that this group of lawmakers doesn't play the game with the same um.. restraint.. that previous bodies might have exercised.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  Recall that 2019 was a wave election for reactionaries and we're seeing what happens when they get to run the whole show with little or no check aside from a Governor who is himself too hands off.  The other problem is this is yet another legislature seeing the effect of a term limits law that has weakened the overall competence of the body as members have less experience and independence and rely more on permanent $$ people to really run things. 

We've seen bills come out of committee this year with obvious problems one might have expected to get "fixed' on the full floor (or killed if they are altogether bad.) But now the customary brakes seem to be off. And, yes, of course the bar  for was very low already but my point is this bunch has managed to go even lower. 

A few examples of that: 

First, a couple weeks ago we saw the final failure to pass even a modest $28 boost to one of the country's cruelest unemployment insurance payments, in part, because House Republicans insisted (falsely) that the current $300 federal enhanced payment that expires this fall is "disincentivizing" work. 

Not willing to let facts flummox a good narrative, a murderers’ row of a half dozen self-described conservatives in the Louisiana House, one after another, pounced on Democratic Harvey Rep. Rodney Lyons’ proposal to increase Louisiana’s miserly unemployment benefit by $28 a week. The increase would move the state from the 49th lowest benefit to 48th by paying no more than $275 per week. Most would get less, and in any case the increase would start in January 2022, four months after the federal enhanced benefits expires.

When Lyons's bill was in committee, it was amended to also include a bizarre provision for one time $1,000 bonus payments to people who take a new job and end their UI benefit.  Accepting the bonus payment would then make the person ineligible for future unemployment benefits for a period after.  That amendment, questionable as it was on legal and moral grounds, was considered a political "poison pill" intended to tank the bill altogether.  However, it's also exactly the sort of thing that a previous House might have removed in time to pass a reasonable bill as clearer thinking heads prevailed.  That wasn't the case this time. 

The House failed again to listen to reason on Thursday when Barry Ivey (R- Central)  practically begged them not advance Rick Edmonds's (R- Baton Rouge)  blatant attempt to hide information about corporate tax breaks granted by the state from public view. 

House lawmakers on Thursday voted 59-38 for a bill that would change the public records law to allow the state economic development agency to hide certain corporate tax incentive records from the public. 

House Bill 456, sponsored by Rep. Rick Edmonds (R-Baton Rouge), proposes to make an exception to Louisiana’s public records law for certain records under the Louisiana Economic Development (LED) tax incentive programs, including the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, Louisiana Quality Jobs Program and Louisiana Enterprise Zone Program. 

“It is imperative, members, that we do not let this instrument go across to the other side (to the Senate),” Rep. Barry Ivey (R-Central) said during floor debate Thursday. He said HB 456 is one of the most problematic bills he has seen.

What the bill would do is make it impossible for anyone to gauge whether or not recipients of the various "incentive" are actually hitting their targets in terms of workers hired and wages paid instead of  just hoarding all the money in the form of executive compensation, for example. In years past, there would still be a good chance the Senate might "fix" this later on.  But maybe not this year. 

If anything, it looks like they're "fixing" things in the wrong direction. Take for example this teacher pay raise that seemed to shrink overnight without explanation. 

The Senate Finance Committee on Monday approved its version of the state's nearly $37 billion operating budget, including $800 pay raises for teachers and other certificated personnel and $400 pay boosts for support workers, including cafeteria employees and school bus drivers.

The action marked a turnaround from April 28, when Senate Education Committee Chairman Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said House and Senate leaders were getting behind raises of $1,000 per year, more than double Gov. John Bel Edwards proposal to boost pay by $400 annually.

Nobody says why the money was taken back out.  Louisiana Federation of Teachers' lobbyist Cynthia Posey does point out that the state spends over $9 billion a year on the kind of tax credits and exemptions that Edmonds's bill will shield from scrutiny.

Anyway it's not like there isn't enough money to go around.  This is the first "fiscal session" in quite a while that hasn't played out int he shadow of some massive budget shortfall or impending "fiscal cliff."  Between the federal COVID rescue plan and just better than expected revenues in general, lawmakers have plenty to play with while formulating a budget. 

The Senate Finance Committee on Monday released their mark-up of the state's multibillion-dollar spending plan for the budget year beginning July 1 with spending bumps for higher education, juvenile justice and dozens of other favored pets projects. 

Lawmakers in the upper chamber had the rare opportunity to divvy up hundreds of millions of dollars in better-than-expected tax revenues after the state last week forecasted $355 million in excess funds for the current fiscal year and $320 million in additional collections for the next fiscal year.

Too bad for the teachers, though.  Guess they had to wait in line behind -- this stuff. 

Senators also added dozens of earmarks for favored projects in their districts, including $12 million in road projects in Lafayette, the city where Cortez lives, and $2 million to the athletics foundation in White's hometown of Central. Other dollars would go to recreational facilities in Jefferson Parish, a skate park in Ruston, fire departments in Ascension Parish, the River Road African American Museum and the National World War II Museum

LOL, yes, there again is the big money pit of special tax credits, sweetheart bank deals, and public-private partnering we all know as the National World War II Museum.  According to the budget bill as currently written, they're getting $7.5 million in general funds for something called an "FP&C Management Plus Liberation Pavilion." Here is what will go on there. 

Following their immersive journey through the war, visitors to The National WWII Museum will enter the Liberation Pavilion. Three building levels will explore the closing months of the war and immediate postwar years, concluding with an explanation of links to our lives today. The first floor, Liberation, will provide visitors with opportunities to contemplate the joys, costs, and meaning of liberation and freedom. The second and third levels will focus on what the war means today, with exhibits developed through the lens of democracy and freedom.

The second floor of the Liberation Pavilion will present richly layered, interactive experiences that explore the postwar years: how the world—and America's place in it—changed after World War II. Dramatic and thought-provoking exhibits will explore selected themes from the postwar era, ranging from the readjustments faced by returning military service members to international tribunals seeking justice for war crimes. We will trace the war's lasting legacies at home and around the world, as America's elevated role as a world power and freedoms secured by Allied forces are continually tested—even to the present day.

One wonders if Valarie Hodges is aware of this appropriation.

See also:  Couldn't really fit it into the narrative here but go ahead and read this Bayou Brief feature on Hodges and the attendant controversies to her bill.  Among other things, it's a good reminder to check your spelling.

Countdown to Shutdown

A little over a day into it and it's not looking great for Special Session II The Enspecialing.

Wednesday (May 22) on how to go about fixing Louisiana's budget or what taxes have the support to be renewed or raised before June 4, when the special session ends. There is not even agreement on how much money needs to be raised overall between the governor and Republican-controlled House.

"I realize why Louisiana is shaped like a boot. Because we are the kick-the-can state," said Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central.

There is already discussion from both Democrats and Republicans that a third special session will be necessary because lawmakers are not confident they will be able to finish their business in the next 13 days, when the current special session ends.

Already a third installment?  You know typically the reason these franchises keep getting sequels is because they actually make money. But I think this particular cinematic universe is more narrative driven.  The audience is going to see this train go off the dang cliff and we're gonna make it happen, dammit. We don't care what it costs. 

Some budget must be in place by July 1 to avoid a state government shutdown. About $1.4 billion in temporary state taxes expire June 30, creating the fiscal crisis. 

I believe we here at the Yellow Blog were the first this year to call the shutdown a likely, if not inevitable outcome. So, you know, spoiler alert, I guess.  There's still some time for the showrunners to change things up on us but I don't think they're going to.  The Republicans don't care if the budget gets fixed at all. The Governor thinks they're going to help him fix it if he just gives them whatever they want. And the Black Caucus are the only people in the room smart enough to have seen through any of the bullshit at all.

The head of the House Black Caucus, state Rep. Randal Gaines, D-LaPlace, said his members would refuse to vote for a sales tax bill when it came up on the House floor, unless some other measures -- possibly those affecting income taxes -- came along with that proposal.

Gaines also said any sales tax legislation that passed must keep taxes higher for businesses as well as individuals. "It is a nonstarter without that," he said.

 Tell me how any of this changes before the shutdown happens.  I'd love to hear some fan theories. 

Kicking the Can-stitution

Last week in Baton Rouge, Jay Dardenne made a joke. 

This week, addressing state legislators’ recent failure to renew or replace an expiring “temporary” sales tax, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne said, “I hope the Legislature doesn’t morph into the Professional Can-Kickers Association.”

Remind me about this when we come to the government shut-down crawfish boil on the capitol grounds.  We need to organize a game of kick-the-can on the lawn.  We're definitely still headed that way. Radicals in the House have already determined to tank the next special session much the same way they did the previous one.  Their strategy for the regular session is to pass a comically unrealistic budget, if they pass any budget at all. Here they are arguing with Dardenne over current revenue projections.

“How comfortable are you with the $302-million we’re expected to gain as a result of the federal tax cuts?” asked Rep. Blake Miguez (R-Erath). “When are you going to start using the lower number instead of insisting it’s a $994-million shortfall?”

“The official number from the Revenue Estimating Conference is $994-million,” Dardenne replied. “The amount from the federal tax changes are speculation, until the REC says differently.”

“But that’s going to help this budget tremendously,” Miguez insisted. “Where would you allocate those moneys?”

“That’s your decision,” Dardenne fired back. “I’m not here today to talk about ‘hypothetically.’ That will be your decision.”

Oddly enough, the Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee don't think budget allocation falls under the mandate of their office.  As they have explained in their Facebook videos, they've already done their job making sure there isn't enough revenue.  Now they want to force the Governor to make the politically unpopular cuts ahead of next year's elections.

Prior to the start of the special session, the Governor issued a warning in the form of a budget proposal meant to demonstrate the consequences of inaction. The so-called Doomsday budget outlined, according to the Governor, "what falling off the cliff looks like."  This would mean $26 million cut from higher education, an 80 percent cut  to the TOPS scholarship program, as well as further cuts to local Sheriffs' departments and DA's offices.  Most severely it included a $656 million cut in state funding for health care services, which, when we factor in the federal matching funds that spending draws down, amounts to an effective $2.4 billion reduction.  

We are already seeing how such a disaster might play out.  Here we have the operator of the University Medical Center threatening thousands of layoffs if the Doomsday budget is enacted. In May, 60,000 Medicaid patients will be notified that their benefits are at risk.  The draft budget was meant to spur Republican legislators into action. Instead they are bucking at the canter.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said the notices will pose a problem, but he also implied that the Edwards administration didn't have to propose the cuts and could have prevented the notices from being sent in the first place.

"This administration, like other administrations, always go after the poor and vulnerable when they are trying to scare legislators into voting for taxes," Henry said.

One reason the radicals are comfortable playing chicken with the healthcare of tens of thousands of Louisianians is they don't actually care if such things are funded.  But, more importantly, they know the political repercussions of the failure are much more likely to redound upon the Governor than on them. Which is why they're just fine pretending the shortfall is hundreds of millions of dollars smaller than it is.  It forces the Governor to make all of the unpopular cuts himself.

Meanwhile, back in the House, legislators have found an even more fashionable scapegoat than the Governor.  They have also taken to blaming the Louisiana Constitution for their own inaction.   

House Bill 500, by Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, calls for a limited constitutional convention in 2020 if the idea is approved by a 27-member committee of non-legislators whose purpose is to decide by 2019 whether the convention is needed.

The convention would focus on local government; state funds, taxes and revenue; and K-12 and higher education. The convention in 1973 was more comprehensive and looked at the state's entire body of laws.

Supporters say a new convention could serve as a long-term fix for the state's budget crisis. Excluding federal aid, about $4 billion of Louisiana's annual spending is set aside by the Constitution or state laws for various programs, and about half of the remaining $6 billion is spent on health care and higher education, leaving those areas vulnerable when spending cuts are needed.

Neil brought this up during last year's budget fight. The objections we raised then are the same as they are now. A constitutional convention is a technical solution to a political problem.  Which is to say, it is an illusion.  It asks us to imagine that we can magically sidestep the political questions raised by the allocation of state resources rather than address them head-on.  Louisiana's tax code favors the rich and privileged. It relies on an insufficiently progressive income tax and the highest sales taxes in the country to fund billions of dollars in corporate giveaways and bogus "job creation incentives" that deprive local governments and school boards of essential services.  There is nothing stopping the legislators from addressing these issues apart from their own contempt for actually doing what they so smugly refer to as, "the people's business."

Instead they prefer to abdicate that responsibility in favor of the narrow interests who make their careers possible.  Imagine if those interests were allowed to re-write the rules.. at a constitutional convention, for example. The Bayou Brief's Sue Lincoln describes an exchange last week between Franklin Foil and Barry Ivey that gets to the circular logic in play. They both favor a convention but disagree about how the delegates might be selected.

But Rep. Barry Ivey (R-Central), who has his own bill calling for a constitutional convention, had some concerns about the delegate selection process.

“You said anyone can run to serve as a convention delegate, right? John Q. Public needs resources to run an election campaign. If we elect the delegates, we could end up with a constitutional convention that’s bought and paid for by special interests. Big money could decide who is going to ‘own’ the convention – and then nobody is looking out for John Q. Public and his small business. How can we protect from having special interests dominate the convention?”

“By doing it this way,” Foil replied. “It’s democratic. It gives everyone an opportunity to participate, and everyone will decide who they will elect.”

Ivey was shaking his head while Foil was responding, and Foil reluctantly conceded, “Okay, maybe there will be some influence exerted…”

“Not maybe. Will,” Ivey insisted. “If special interests own 60% of the convention, you’re set up for bias.”

Ivey wants the convention to be made up, mostly, of current legislators. Foil's idea is to have it comprised of.. well, let's face it... more lobbyists than anything.  Is this a distinction without a difference at this point?  Maybe. Foil would have us believe that it is more democratic to elect a slew of unaccountable one-timers whereas Ivey's formula assigns the same representatives currently seated to do a job they are currently proving themselves to be incapable of.  Or maybe this really isn't about the budget after all.  Whatever it is about, it does offer lawmakers an opportunity to put the fiscal issue off until after the next election. Or as, Lincoln put it the other day, it gives them another chance to play their favorite game.

That delegate election would take place in the fall of 2019, during the next statewide election, and the proposed constitutional convention would then occur during the first half of 2020. So while the idea is touted as the ultimate fix for Louisiana’s budget imbalance, it’s actually kicking the Con con can down the road.

The "adults" are running out of time to do any adulting

It's already March.  Carnival season is over and it's time for media outlets across South Louisiana to fire up their clickbaity... okay, useful but still clickbaity... crawfish price index thingies.  WGNO's is the first one to come up in my google search result so I guess they are winning right now. Let's see what they've found.

The average for live crawfish is $3.12 per pound, while boiled is running $4.46 per pound, as of Thursday, Feb. 22.

Yeah, I think that's high too. Still, it's not as bad as I thought it might be given the freeze last month.  But I'm no expert on aquaculture. I only know what I read in the papers.  And that says the freeze may delay production this year but it won't necessarily hurt it once things start rolling.  In any case, I'm hoping there's still enough available come early July. That is when we will need to have a big crawfish boil on the state capitol grounds. It will be fun way to pass the time during the shutdown.

With the special session just hours away, neither House Republicans nor Democrats had come to a clear agreement on whether it would successfully pass anything. Edwards has said that he doesn’t believe that the Legislature will pass a budget during the regular session that begins March 12, without an infusion of additional revenue because the cuts would be too drastic. That would force another special session after the regular session ends June 4. A budget must be approved by July 1 or there would be a state government shutdown.

The cycle should be familiar by now.  Thanks to a decade of gimmick budgets and costly tax giveaways to wealthy special interests, the state is broke.  Every year brings a new round of devastating cuts, primarily to health care and higher education.  Every year the legislative session ..and the accompanying special session(s).. features a mad scramble to plug a budget shortfall.  This is accomplished precariously through more gimmicks and cuts and temporary sales taxes nobody likes setting up another round of the same battles the following year. This is the year several of those compounded tricks and gimmicks come due as a number of revenue measures are set to sunset creating what has become commonly referred to as a "fiscal cliff."

While it's tempting to regard the absurd cycle with a fatalist sigh about political incompetence or pithy comments about our state's supposed backwardness, there's actually a more straightforward explanation. We have not arrived at the legislative impasse by accident. We are here as a result of deliberate strategy executed by the Republican leadership. If it continues to be successful, and there's little reason to believe it won't, we're more than likely headed for a shutdown in July. Which, again, is why it's a good idea to keep an eye on crawfish prices.

Less than a year into Barack Obama's first term as President, Mitch McConnell famously declared “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” McConnell may not have accomplished that goal. But there's a strong argument the Republican strategy for obstructing Obama's domestic agenda was largely a success. Most notably, Obama's signature achievement health care reform was watered down, delayed, and is now on the verge of unraveling thanks to Republican stubbornness. McConnell was even able to steal a Supreme Court nomination from Obama by sitting on his hands for months. There are numerous other examples but suffice to say the GOP #Resistance to Obama provides a model of how to effectively run an opposition party.  If the Democratic #Resistance movement manages to flip the Congress this year, it will be interesting to see if their party's leadership learns anything from it.

In the meantime, though, Louisiana Republicans understand the model quite well. It's been an open secret around Baton Rouge that their legislative strategy has prioritized limiting John Bel Edwards to one term as Governor above all other concerns. They've managed to resist progressive budgetary reforms for the past two years and are preparing to leverage the continuing crisis against Edwards during the next election.

Now that the next election is already beginning to take shape, the incentive to maintain the bugetary status quo has become even stronger. The current special session has been punctuated with cameo appearances by potential Republican gubernatorial candidates offering advice. On the day the session opened, Ralph Abraham gave a talk where he said he was against any "new taxes." This week, Steve Scalise said the problem has something to do with "the vestiges of Huey Long." John Kennedy said something stupid about art. Jeff Landry has been relatively quiet, but he's been dealing with a lot of things lately. Rest assured, he'll have something to say eventually.

For his part, the Governor has been doing some campaigning as well.  Last week he took some time during one of many extended House recesses to tell the St. Tammany Chamber he would be "as flexible as I can about how we fix the (fiscal) cliff." But added, "I will not be flexible about whether we fix it, because we have to." And that pretty much lays out the stakes of this session, politically.  The Governor needs to fix the cliff. The Republicans need him to fail. All of the breakdowns and antics we've seen during the session proceed from that conflict.

Republicans opened fiscal cliff negotiations (such as they have been) demanding a number of things that don't actually have anything to do with fixing the cliff. Mark Ballard describes some of them in this column. He also momentarily capitulates to the conceit that any of these is a "fiscal reform" but nevermind that for a sec.

A wrinkle is that Republicans have insisted that any tax bills that come out of their chamber include a rider that says the tax increase won’t go into effect unless one of their fiscal reform measures also passes.

These revamps — the so-called Ohio checkbook, a hard spending cap, and changes to Medicaid — provide political cover for those who were elected chanting “the state has spending problem, not a revenue problem.”

But the riders are kind of insulting to the age-old legislative process of people giving their word and keeping it, state Rep. Major Thibaut, D-New Roads, said when the first one was amended onto Dwight’s bill.

If the riders make it easier for House Republicans to vote for sales and income taxes, though, then James said he’s OK with them. “They’ll be stripped off when the adults get these bills in the Senate,” he added.

Some version of that "adults" comment shows up during every legislative session and it always makes me laugh.  It's true that the Senate can and often does undo some of the stupidest damage done in the House. But they've never been able to un-fuck the budget. And recently it seems their efforts are more and more likely to end in tears. This session, the "adults," haven't had an opportunity to do much of anything at all.  And time is running out so when or if they ever get around to fixing the House's mess, it might just prove too much to negotiate.

And make no mistake, wasting time is the primary purpose of the Republican bills.  The "Ohio Checkbook" Ballard refers to is just a website.

As president of LABI, Waguespack is paid to ensure that legislators prioritize tax cuts and exemptions for corporations above anything else, which is why, rather than confront the immediate crisis of a $1 billion shortfall, he is pitching a website that tracks government spending.

Never mind that Louisiana already has such a website; it’s too “clunky.” Ignore the fact that the non-partisan organization United States Public Interest Research Group ranks our state’s current website seventh in the entire country, praising “Louisiana as a ‘leading state’ in offering an easy-to-use website and providing data on an array of expenditures,” as Devon Sanders of LSU’s Manship News Service reported only two weeks ago in The Daily Advertiser.  And pay no attention to the fact that it will take years before it could even be operational. Louisiana Checkbook, we are told, will help us finally solve our budget woes by shining a brighter light on wasteful government spending.

As a "transparency" tool it is redundant.  As conservative propaganda it might serve some purpose... at the expense of Louisiana taxpayers, of course.  As for Medicaid reforms, there are two bills in play. One of them imposes more strict eligibility requirements. The other one... well, it turns out the other one doesn't actually do anything.

The Louisiana House voted 69-29 for legislation Friday (March 2) that was originally aimed at requiring some Medicaid recipients to work to receive their government health benefits, but that has been altered such that Medicaid recipients who refused to work couldn't actually lose their health care.

During committee debate Republicans continually insisted that their work requirement bill was not an attempt to deny health care to anyone. So Marcus Hunter (D-Monroe) called the bluff with an amendment that explicitly says no one can be separated from Medicaid for failing to meet the work requirements. The amendment passed and so here we are with a bill that doesn't do anything... besides cost money, of course. These "fiscal hawk" Republicans do seem to love their wasteful spending bills.

The reason we're still having to deal with any of this nonsense during a fiscal session is because the fate of those bills along with a measure to tighten the state spending cap were attached to the key revenue bills in committee by something Ted James (D-Baton Rouge) called the "Michael Jordan of amendments." 

But then came the “chain” amendment, shackling passage of Dwight’s bill to passage of seven others: HB 2, HB 3, HB 11, HB 12, HB 29, HCR 2, and HB 15. Those include work requirements for Medicaid, as well as co-pays and premium payments. In addition, the Speaker’s measures for lowering the state spending cap and for establishing the Louisiana checkbook must pass for Dwight’s bill to take effect: all or nothing.

Baton Rouge Representative Ted James began laughing, incredulously.

“This is amazing!” he said. “This is like the Michael Jordan of amendments! Dwight, are you okay with this amendment?”

Stephen Dwight's (R-Lake Charles) bill would "clean" four pennies of the existing sales tax which is to say it eliminates certain exclusions and exemptions. It also extends a quarter of the otherwise expiring fifth penny. The Democrats say they absolutely hate having to balance the budget with higher sales taxes because, as they correctly assert, the sales tax is the most regressive way the state can raise money. It overburdens the poor at the same time that the state tax code is full of special carve-outs and subsidies for global industrial corporations, movie production companies, and various other business"incentive" schemes of questionable benefit. Naturally, the House Republicans are fine with all of these giveaways.  It remains something of an open question whether they're even going to list them on their spending "transparency" website. In any case there's a lot of revenue potential left on the table while the legislators argue over pennies.

This is one reason the Black Caucus has drawn a line in the sand demanding at least some sort of income tax adjustment. 

The House Black Caucus, which holds most of the House Democratic votes, told Barras Monday morning that its members would only vote to keep a higher sales tax rate in place for three more years if a measure to raise income taxes passes as well.

The Republicans don't like voting for any taxes, but find a sales tax hike less offensive than other options. The Black Caucus said sales tax increases are harder on poor people, and its members would prefer an income tax increase. 

The only bill that does anything with income taxes was filed by Walt Leger.  House Bill 8 would reduce the amount in federal itemized deductions Louisiana taxpayers could take on their state returns. So it's technically not really an income tax increase. But it is a slightly more progressive means of raising revenue than the sales tax.  It's the closest anything will come to meeting the Black Caucus's demand, anyway.

But Leger's income tax bill also has a "Michael Jordan amendment" attached.  This is thanks to the efforts of Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) who has been doing his best to submarine both the sales tax and income tax bills and therefore the entire session.

Rep. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, said he also heard a deal had been struck, "but I'm not part of it."

"I'm going to object (to the income tax bill) and make people vote and note those who take a walk," Seabaugh said. "There's no way I'm letting that bill out without a vote, and anybody that does vote for it is likely to find themselves voted out in the next election."

Seabuagh also managed to irk Democrats by adding yet another sunset provision to the sales tax bill and by calling the Governor a "bald-faced liar" from the House floor.  Reporters were saying that Edwards asked to meet with Seabaugh in his office afterwards but that meeting never happened. Donald Trump is considering Seabaugh for a federal judgeship.

Given all of this, it's no surprise House members spent "Do or Die Friday" not doing a whole lot. They gaveled in late and almost immediately gaveled out for meetings.  The meetings were not very productive so they went to lunch. They tried to pass Leger's bill but that darn Michael Jordan amendment took to blocking some shots. They met with the Governor. They huddled. They mini-huddled.  They walked in and out of the room. Some of them even managed to vote from outside of the room. 

Members are only supposed to vote for themselves according to House rules, but Henry's vote on the income tax deduction changes was recorded, even though he was absent all day. Present or not, Henry has said he won't be voting for any tax bills this session so his vote wouldn't help get the vote passed.

Eventually they decided they weren't getting anything done so they will have to try again on Sunday.
They'd better get this mess over to the Senate by then. Otherwise the "Adults" might never get a chance to fix it.

Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, said the Senate won't be able to accept tax bills after Sunday night and get them legally through the full legislative process before the Legislature's session ends Wednesday.

There's very little reason to expect that they will make that deadline. As anyone who has been paying attention will tell you, fixing the mess isn't what any of this is all about. Barry Ivey has been paying attention.

Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central, said some of his colleagues have been driven by politics and the goal of preventing Edwards from being a successful governor. (An assertion that Harris later rejected.)

"We don’t want a Democrat to get re-elected, and we don’t want to give him a political win by doing tax reform – that was something that was told to me,” Ivey said. "We've placed politics ahead of our constituents. We should all be ashamed. Myself included.”

That's been the strategy since Day One of the Edwards Administration and there's little reason to  believe the Republican leadership is going to deviate from it now that the next election year is so near up on us.  In other words, we have every reason to believe we're headed for a big posturing government shutdown come July.  We're gonna need a lot of crawfish.