70 votes is an absurd threshold

It isn't the sole reason for the "extreme deadlock" but a 2/3 majority is a ridiculous hurdle just to pass a bill.

Morrell and Alario's resolution might have an advantage over tax bills that have stalled in the House. The senators think it only takes a majority of lawmakers -- at most 53 members of the House -- to approve. Tax bills need two-thirds majorities, which come to 70 votes in the House. But it's unclear whether the House will agree with the Senate that the vote threshold is lower for this measure.

Alario and Morrell think they might have a workaround for that.  See the rest of that article for that.  Anything they can think of is worth a try.

But the problem here is systemic. The 2/3 rule is a deliberately anti-democratic impediment to progress. The fact that it is a primary obstacle to averting the fiscal crisis in Louisiana is no accident.  Even the House has demonstrated that votes to raise the necessary revenue exist if such a measure required a simple majority. But the 2/3 rule allows a minority of Republican hardliners to obstruct those efforts.

It's also important to note the anti-democracy reflex in American politics is deeply rooted in the tradition of elite white supremacy. We've talked about James Buchanan a few times this year. He plays a pivotal role in maintaining that tradition.

Over time, Buchanan and his allies tacitly admitted that they had no popular constituency; that the voting public — even those who had supported Reagan and cheered the congressional “Contract with America” — hesitated “when they learned that freed markets would leave them with sole responsibility for their fates.” The solution, first floated in the early debates over Social Security privatization and starkly evident in tortuous repeal of the Affordable Care Act, is to “crab-walk” around the issues, to claim that frontal assaults on popular social insurance programs are efforts to “shore them up” rather than destroy them.

The second, and more chilling, solution is to junk the rules entirely; to tilt an already unlevel playing field decisively and irrevocably against the popular will.

The American political system is already strewn with veto points and eagerly attentive to the demands and resources of the wealthy. But, for the Right, holding sway in “the least responsive of all the leading democracies to what the people want and need” is not enough; the goal is to make it “all but impossible for government to respond to the will of the majority unless the very wealthiest Americans agree full with every measure.” Calhoun would be proud.

Buchanan and his associates advised the framers of Pinochet's Chilean junta to design a “constitution of locks and bolts,” that required super-majorities for any action undertaken by a representative body.  Presently the Louisiana House finds itself bound by similar restraints.  If Alario and Morrell can figure a way to pick the lock, they ought to try to do that.

The tax plan rollout

Today was the day the Governor was supposed to detail his (somewhat) surprising proposal to replace the state tax on corporate income with a tax on gross receipts. They're pushing that back a few days now.  That's probably happening, at least in part, to get the legislators time to catch up.  You know there's a problem when even the literate ones are having trouble getting information.

Edwards' interest in gross receipts caught legislators and state budget experts off guard, particularly since it surfaced a couple of weeks ago, only a month before the legislative session is scheduled to start on April 10. By contrast, the income tax plan had been discussed in detail for about a year by the Edwards administration before it was scratched.

"I know very little about it," said Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, arguably the most influential member of the state legislature and one of the governor's strongest political allies, about gross receipts in an interview Friday afternoon.

"I haven't had a chance to review the ins and outs of it," said House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, who carried much of the governor's tax package last year in a separate interview Friday. "It seems there are a lot of questions."  

"Even the people talking about it contradict each other and don't understand it. They haven't had enough time to digest it yet," said Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, the chairman of the Senate committee that oversees tax bills. 

My thought when I first read about the gross receipts plan was that they were doing an end run around corporate tax exemptions by wiping them all out in one fell swoop. Theoretically this would give everybody a chance to spend the session doing favors to friends by writing them back in to the new code.  Hopefully the end result would also be slightly more revenue but there's no guarantee that it would be. 

Better bargains

Yes, of course, it's stupid that the Republicans in the House insist on hurting more people than necessary by refusing the Governor's request for all of the money specifically meant to help us keep from hurting more people than necessary. But, under the circumstances, I'd say $99 million is a pretty good bargain struck by John Bel, if he can keep it.

Several conservative House members don't want to use the rainy day fund -- money the state sets aside for financial emergencies -- at all. They would prefer more cuts to government services instead. Barras will have to convince more of those conservative Republicans to vote for the deal for it to work.

"We've been having meetings individually, meetings by group, meetings to review questions that they have," Barras said.  

The current budget deal calls for $99 million worth of rainy day money to be tapped, but both Barras and Alario indicated that wasn't necessarily a firm number for them. "Whether it's $99 million or $98 million, it will be something substantial," Alario said in an interview.

Barras said he was looking at more of a range -- somewhere between $90 million and $99 million of rainy day money -- to be part of the final budget plan. "I hate to quote a number," he said, when asked about much rainy day funding was included in the plan. "In that $90 [million] to $99 million range is the best way to say it."

Moving off the $99 million rainy day fund mark could cause a host of new problems for this budget arrangement. Right now, Barras mostly has to woo conservative Republicans to back his arrangement with Alario. If he budges from $99 million in rainy day funding, however, he might lose the House Democrats he'll need to get the budget plan implemented.

This is just a casual observation from me. I've been half-distracted by parades and stuff this week. But it seems like this year Edwards is doing a better job of playing hardball with these guys. He opened the session asking for as much Rainy Day money as was legally permissible. That isn't what he's getting. But he is getting more than he would have had he started out with a compromise offer.

Also, it's interesting to see the Republican leadership as the guys in the delicate position this time around.  It almost makes me suspicious. Anyway it's good to see the Governor keep the pressure up.  At least for now.

Edwards' office also said it didn't want to support a compromise that used less of the rainy day fund money. "The agreement is $99 million," said Richard Carbo, the governor's spokesman, on Monday night.

Best practices

Good to see the redevelopment of Charity has such a fine example to follow.

Former Gov. Bobby Jindal sought proposals to redevelop the million-square-foot building late in his administration. Five groups submitted ideas for the site.

But when Gov. John Bel Edwards took office early this year, he restarted the process, with administration officials saying they were hoping to cast a wider net and get additional ideas.

There’s no specific timeline in place for seeking new proposals, Alario said, though getting the buildings cleaned out could help entice developers who might have worried about the cost of such an effort.

“I don’t think there’s any particular rush,” Alario, R-Westwego, said. “I think we’re looking for the best prospect both for the city of New Orleans and for the state of Louisiana.”

He pointed to the process New Orleans used to find a company to redevelop the World Trade Center, which yielded a plan to put a Four Seasons hotel in the building, as a model the state could use as it seeks proposals.

Seeing as how we're a couple of do-overs and a year long lawsuit into WTC still not getting done, that seems like a great model to work with.  Also, does Charity get done first or does Six Flags? 

There's no crying in budgetball

On the final day of the 2016 Special Session To Save The World Or At Least The Budget, the Louisiana Legislature tried to play beat the clock. The clock won.

Frazzled and tearing up, Alario publicly apologized on the Senate floor for trying to jam through too many pieces of legislation in the final minutes of a 25-day session.

"I want to apologize to you for what happened here tonight," Alario said into the microphone as the Legislature's 6 p.m. adjournment deadline passed. "That's not the way to conduct the people's business."

Alario isn't just any legislator. He is the longest-serving member of the statehouse and widely considered the most effective. He's in his second term as Senate president after serving two terms as House speaker.

And it wasn't just a last-day emotional release; he appeared frustrated for much of the session. In earlier interviews, he said he had never encountered such difficulty trying to negotiate a deal as he had with House Republicans this year.

"It's starting to look almost like a bit of Washington style, where people are taking sides and not willing to compromise," Alario said Wednesday. "That's not what Democracy ought to be about." 

Actually, "beat the clock" is wrong. They weren't playing against the clock. They were playing against each other.  Who won that is a little more difficult to say given how limited the boundaries were. The immediacy of the current year shortfall combined with the recalcitrance of the Republicans in the House limited revenue raising options to the most regressive of means. Only sales taxes were up for discussion.  The fight, then, really came down to a matter of who pays them.

Exemptions were a key issue of conflict in negotiations between legislators because businesses and industry in particular benefit from not having to pay sales taxes on a variety of materials and manufacturing and construction equipment.

Business lobbyists, with considerable political sway, fought to keep these exemptions in place, which is why the final hours of the session came down to a debate between hiking the sales tax beyond just a penny increase or wiping clean more exemptions to raise more money.

This argument between the LABI faction and what I guess we can call the Governor's side became so stupid and petty that the summary of the bill  as reported out of conference appeared to indicate that an additional .25 of a penny had been added at the last minute.

It was Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, who first raised the issue as time ticked down. Many legislators harbor a deep dislike of conference reports, especially those passed in the waning minutes of a session, because the reports are the perfect vehicle for sneaking in items of dubious value.

Because of this, and perhaps due to a growing distrust between the House and the Senate that unfolded over the special session, some senators were wondering whether they had been hoodwinked.

"There's a conference report that has an increase of 1.25, not 1 -- are you sure?" Peterson said.

"Double check that," said state Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans.

"I have two texts from people. We trusted what was said and what was presented," Peterson said. "If that's not what was in the bill, I'm hoping -- I pray to God -- this place will be blown up. If the House is listening, don't pass House Bill 62. Vote no on House Bill 62."

There was a pause as Morrell and others double-checked the bill. Upon finding the 1.25 percent increase as listed in the digest, Morrell moved to reconsider the vote on the sales tax bill -- a legislative maneuver that had the potential to erase the vote of the Senate on the bill.

Everyone is calling that a "typo." But it's entirely possible someone was just trolling at that point. It's not like the LABI Republicans were taking their charge to plug the budget hole all that seriously in the first place. Otherwise they probably wouldn't have, you know,  failed at that..

Tax bills were rushed through in such frenzy in the final minutes of the special legislative session that the governor, lawmakers and their financial advisers were still trying Thursday to sift through the implications.

This year’s budget could be out of balance anywhere from $30 million to more than $50 million. But that figure remained unclear as the Legislature’s fiscal analysts tallied up estimates of how much the sales tax increases passed in the session’s closing minutes would raise.

“It’s hard for us to get a real fix on what the shortfall will be,” Senate Finance Chairman Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, said even as he asked lawmakers to support the final budget rebalancing bill Wednesday evening

In the wake of this fiasco, there are lists being passed around of the Republican legislators who voted NO to everything.  Here's one I made myself because I think it gets to the heart of the problem.  This is everybody who voted yes to raising the one penny sales tax but then no to the bill that struck out the various special privileges and exemptions.  Think of this as the Maximum Regressivity Caucus. Or, if you like, The Dirty Penny Club.



With these guys running around loose, maybe the session was doomed to fail no matter what.  But we did try to warn people that the strategy employed by the Governor's faction could get problematic.

Believe it or not, the seeming chaos on the last day of the session wasn't an accident.  It was the end both sides not only saw coming but were playing for the entire time. The thinking on the Governor's part was he could just sit back and let the Republicans spend the whole session complaining until, in the final hours, whatever half finished work there was would go to some back room where Wise Old Man John Alario would fix everything. Clancy DuBos called it "Come to Papa."

As the clock ticks down to the final hours, all eyes will be on Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, the dean of the Legislature. Alario knows this process better than anyone. He is the master of the conference committee and a deft hand at forging compromise.

As the House anguishes over every detail of every tax measure and every spending bill, Alario sits patiently in the Senate, knowing he may be called upon to sort things out. I can almost hear him whispering to his House counterparts, “Come to Papa.”

As we said at the time, though, this was a risky way to play things given that the Republicans (with help from New Orleans Democrat Neil Abramson) had prevented the Governor from installing a friendly Speaker of the House back in January. This should have signaled then and there that the LABI faction might not go quietly to Papa when the time came.  As it happened, the scene ended up with Papa in tears.

Hopefully next time the strategy will be more aggressive. There will, of course, be a next time. Thanks to the failure, there will certainly have to be second special session to finish this fiscal work in June. But for now, as the regular session begins, Alario is ready to hug it all out. 

Lawmakers have to contend with such a large shortfall because they couldn't agree on a strategy for closing the budget gap before the special session ended. The protracted standoff in the Legislature over the spending cuts and taxes during the special session frayed some relationships. Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, even accused House leaders of "playing games," though he said he is ready to put the disagreements behind him.

"Let's give each other a hug and move on," he said.

Maybe if they squeeze each other hard enough, a few more clean pennies will fall out before the year ends.

House creeps at this petty pace

If they want John Alario to fix the budget for them, they'd better get him something to fix soon.

Still, almost all of the bills Edwards listed as priorities in his meeting with reporters failed to get out of the House. The state Senate waited around on Sunday night to receive tax bills from the House, but only one -- an alcohol tax increase -- ever ended up getting out of the lower chamber.

Eventually, Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, sent his colleagues home. He said the House must get the Senate the tax bills by Monday for them to get fully through the process by the time the session ends.

"We haven't been able to consider anything," Alario said Sunday night. "Tomorrow is the last day. Tomorrow."

The Alario Budget

In the latest Gambit, Clancy DuBos lays out a likely strategy for the legislative special session endgame next week. 

If gridlock should set in, the whole package of cuts and taxes could end up being rewritten at the eleventh hour by a six-member conference committee. Important bills often wind up in conference, where conferees (three from each chamber) can literally rewrite a bill entirely. When a bill emerges from conference, it goes directly to both chambers for a straight up-or-down vote. No amendments. All or nothing. A final showdown.

As the clock ticks down to the final hours, all eyes will be on Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, the dean of the Legislature. Alario knows this process better than anyone. He is the master of the conference committee and a deft hand at forging compromise.

As the House anguishes over every detail of every tax measure and every spending bill, Alario sits patiently in the Senate, knowing he may be called upon to sort things out. I can almost hear him whispering to his House counterparts, “Come to Papa.”

In fact, something like this played out at the end of the last regular session as the House raced through a flurry of bills freshly reported out of committee in the final hours. 

Thursday votes closed a $1.6 billion projected budget deficit — at least on paper — and ended the state’s biggest budget crisis since the late 1980s. But it will take at least a day of sorting through Thursday’s final budget and tax votes to determine exactly to what extent legislators solved the problem.

House members rushed through a series of bills during the final hour of session, with little explanation, even as members hugged and said their goodbyes. Lawmakers voted to approve the budget – 80-19 in the House and 37-2 in the Senate – without a detailed explanation of what it contained.

Guiding this runaway herd of bills through at that time was then Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger holding the gavel instead of then Speaker Chuck Kleckey because... well.. competence, mostly.  If you're the sort of person who watches the Legislature's video feeds, this was about the best TV you'll see there.

So the scenario Clancy describes wherein John Alario and a few pals write the whole budget at the last minute is probably what has informed Governor Edwards's strategy throughout the special session.  All the governor really as to do, then, is sit and wait.

He's already let the Republicans in the House have their little fit. Meanwhile he's calmly dinged them in the press calling special attention to how unreasonable they are being.  In the end, it works out fine as long as Alario really can fix everything. It could work. But without clear control of the House it's also risky. Edwards wanted Leger to be Speaker for a reason.  As it happens, he does not have that luxury.  So he's still counting on cooperation from Taylor Barras and Cameron Henry if he wants to get this budget fix through in time. Things are looking a bit better on that front today. But there's still a lot of work to do.