Can't get out of their own way

The state Democratic Party would have us believe that one relatively unknown first time candidate is single handedly holding them all hostage.

Handwerk said several other Democrats were interested in running for treasurer but that it is difficult for a Democrat to get into a runoff if more than one member of the party is on the primary ballot; the Democratic candidates split the party vote. Edwards made it clear that he intended to stay in race, regardless of who else entered it.

"Leading up to qualifying for the Louisiana treasurer race we had several interested folks, but we all knew it wasn't viable to have more than one Democrat in the race and Derrick Edwards was already running and one of the first to qualify," Handwerk said.

That is ludicrous. Either run a bigger name candidate or back the one you have. If the reason there's only one Democrat is because there can be only one then, for chrissakes, you need get behind the one. These were your rules to begin with. Live by them. 

That isn't what they're doing, though. Instead they're out working to elect a Republican.

At least a handful of high-profile New Orleans Democrats appear to have decided that (State Senator Neil) Riser is an option, possibly because Schroder has made clear he will probably attack John Bel Edwards' budget and tax proposals if elected. Schroder also withdrew his support last year for state Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, in the House speaker's race, rubbing many New Orleans Democratic legislators the wrong way.

Thus state Sens. Troy Carter, Wesley Bishop and JP Morrell, all Democrats from New Orleans, organized a free-lunch meet-and-greet for Riser at Dooky Chase's restaurant Tuesday. Bishop's involvement is particularly noteworthy, as he is vice chair of the state Democratic Party.

They say they're doing this because they think Riser "is honestly running just to be Treasurer," instead of turning the office into a trolling platform the way John Kennedy did for 17 years. Riser hasn't actually said this is his plan, though.  As we explained yesterday, there's really not much of a point to just being Treasurer. People run for this office because it leads to things.  That the Democrats can't get out their way in time to seize an opportunity like that and build their own party's strength is no reason to pretend otherwise.   

Why are the Democrats ceding the State Treasurer's race?

What does the Louisiana State Treasurer do all day?

When Louisiana voters choose a new state treasurer this fall, it's likely they won't have much information about what the person will actually be doing. Of all the elected positions in state government, the treasurer's duties might be the most opaque.

The treasurer can't do much without the permission of the Legislature, governor or other Bond Commission members. The position doesn't call for much direct interaction with voters, either.

Yet the treasurer handles billions of dollars in public money. And John Kennedy was one of the state's most popular elected officials during almost two decades in the job, before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016. Both Kennedy and Mary Landrieu moved on to the Senate from the treasurer's perch.

That article goes on to helpfully describe the Treasurer's duties which basically amount to coming into the office every few weeks to sign some checks. Ironically, it's the relative lack of importance that makes this such an attractive office to ambitious Louisiana pols. The responsibilities are few and thus accountability is negligible. But it's a statewide office so just the process of getting elected to it is a significant networking and base building exercise.  The successful candidate establishes contacts and name recognition in every corner of the state. He or she then has access to a big public platform from which to advocate for, well, whatever gets more attention, ideally.  It's basically politics for politics' sake and a pretty nifty stepping stone to higher office.

So it's a discouraging measure of the state Democratic Party's impotence that it hasn't jumped at the bench strengthening opportunity provided by this year's vacancy.  Rather than promoting an up and comer from its own ranks or, failing that, at least supporting the Democrat who did qualify to run, the party leadership is playing defense.

Quick roll call on that host committee. Bishop is the 4th District State Senator and a Vice Chair of the State Democratic Party.  Morrell is the 3rd District State Senator and for a time was said to be considering a run for mayor. Carter is the 7th District State Senator and has been a mayoral candidate and city councilman in the past. There's a Democrat running but these guys don't care about that. They're promoting Republican and fellow State Senator Riser because they see State Rep. John Schroder as a more significant threat.  Most of us, though, would see little difference in Schroder or Riser getting a term as the state's official concern troll.  Here is what a Riser complaint agenda would look like.

If elected, Riser said he would continue to fight for gun rights, restrictions on undocumented immigrants and for divesting from countries that might support terrorism. The treasurer has nothing to do with gun laws or immigration, which Riser admits, but he said he would use the position as a platform to advocate for causes that he supports.

"I'll be outside the treasurer's course and scope as an individual defending the 2nd Amendment rights," he said.

Probably as election day gets closer we'll hear more about how smart and strategic all of this is.  But really it's just another missed opportunity for a state party continuing to suffer from a lack of depth and purpose. 

Neil Riser doesn't want to give working poor even a one dollar raise

Edwards is only asking for $8.25.  Obviously nowhere near enough but, as LaToya Cantrell might say, "something is better than nothing." The chair of the Senate labor committee, though, thinks nothing is better than something.

Any bill that would raise Louisiana's minimum wage above the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour would likely have to come through Riser's Labor Committee. Although the committee chairman can't kill a bill on his or her own, the chairman's support of a bill is often considered critical.

But much will be determined by the makeup of other members of the committee. If Labor is stacked with those who would support an increase to minimum wage, Riser likely couldn't foil it.

Riser said he believes raising the state's minimum wage above federal law could harm a fragile economy and job creation.

"The Louisiana economy is struggling," Riser said. "I've not talked to any business owner who believes raising the minimum wage wouldn't harm their business. Right now the federal law is in place. It should stand."

Edwards, who has targeted an increase to $8.25 an hour, also supports legislation that would require equal pay for women, which would also likely come through Labor. Riser said he isn't sure whether or not he could support such a bill. "It depends on how it's presented," Riser said.

How would he like it "presented?"  Powerpoint? A wax-sealed envelope?  Maybe Jay Dardenne can bring it over in some sort of singing telegram format.

Jarvis DeBerry's column today is about the Governor's acknowledgement in his innaugural address that the state needs to do something about poverty. 

When John Bel Edwards gave his first speech as governor of Louisiana Monday morning (Jan. 11), he rightly focused on the poor people of this state. "We talk a lot about our abundant natural resources, but we need to talk more about the most precious natural resource God has entrusted to us — our children. In Louisiana, one in four school-aged children live in poverty," he said. "That's unacceptable, and it MUST change."

Edwards linked that poverty to the struggle women in this state have getting a decent pay check. And he linked that poverty to the struggle that young people have paying the cost of skyrocketing tuition at our public universities. And, indirectly, he linked poverty in the state to his predecessor's refusal to accept the Medicaid expansion made possible by the passage of the Affordable Care Act. He vowed to accept the expansion immediately so our residents won't be going without while our taxes help pay for Medicaid expansion in 30 other states.

Republican legislators, meanwhile, are starting things off bucking the Governor's priorities and thumbing their noses at the poor. 

I'm so old I remember when the drilling moratorium was "Obama's Katrina"

How'd that go?

As for the rigs running off to less regulated waters: In the 15 months after the moratorium began, only eight of 30 deepwater Gulf rigs actually departed from the region.
Local blogger Clay, who authors the Noladishu site, inspected the circumstances of the eight drillships that left. He found that:

3 were new, 5 were more than 24 years old, and some were more than 30 years old. 20 years is generally a good lifetime for a rig; 30 is sometimes done if prices are favorable and there’s been good maintenance and 10-year overhauls. The new rigs will hurt (the 3 that left were among the best in their respective fleets), but the others were so long in the tooth, you’d almost say good riddance.

So, contrary to the hysteria, most of the deepwater rigs stayed throughout the moratorium. And of those that left for foreign waters, most were well on their way to becoming unsafe rust buckets that would not pass the new safety standards anyway. Instead, they will spend their final years in places like Angola and Egypt, where worker and environmental safety are not quite at the top of the priority list.
Meanwhile, the local offshore rig count has soared past pre-oil spill levels and the Gulf is ”on the verge of its biggest supply surge ever.” Ever! The upswing will continue full-throttle, too, as analysts expect the number of rigs to double by 2017.

As usual with Moseley's columns, there's much much more.  Go read. 

Meanwhile, Bobby Jindal put on his increasingly well worn political pundit hat again to write yet another op-ed in Politico.  This one, like his several before it, is all about the 2016 Presidential race, who might run, and how whoever runs can win.  He begins his chattering on these topics by marveling at all the chatter there is out there.

Who’s running for president in 2016? Who’s up? Who’s down? Those are the questions that have the chattering class in Washington all atwitter, and all over Twitter, these days. All potential candidates have their own lines they use to deflect reporter’s questions about whether or not they will run for president in 2016. The one I like at present is “I don’t know.” I settled on this one because it is the truth, which is not a bad fallback position when all else fails.

Everyone's talking about who might run for President, Jindal observes. Many people ask Bobby Jindal if he will run, according to Bobby Jindal. Bobby Jindal allows that he might!  Also the "atwitter/Twitter" thing may be the sort of wordplay the voters are looking for, in Bobby Jindal's estimation.

But Jindal cautions us against "getting ahead of ourselves." The potential Presidential candidate asserts that "the whole thing is ridiculous," and then goes on to write some more about it. Specifically, he tells us where to look to find the brightest ideas that will spur the conservative renaissance.

In any case, next year’s elections are the ones that matter. I believe the most important election is the next one, not the one after the next one. It’s been my honor over the past year to chair the Republican Governors Association. And for my money, the real action is out in the states, where we have 36 gubernatorial races in 2014.

It’s not that I’m disinterested in the House and Senate elections, but the truth is that the real conservative reform happening today is in the states. And with many strong Republican governors running for re-election, the outlook for four more years of conservative reform is plenty bright. The forecast in the nation’s capital, meanwhile, is a wintery mix—cloudy with a 100 percent chance of debt and taxation, and a sprinkling of incompetence.

Those Republican Governors sure are a bright ray of sunshine cutting through the "wintery mix!" And don't forget, Bobby Jindal is honored to be their king.  He's not sure he's a candidate for President, though. Let's not "get ahead of ourselves."

The first thing candidates (whoever they might be!) will have to think about is their agenda.  You see, because governments are supposed enact policies and it's a good idea to know what those things are going to be before you forge off  all atwitter into the wintery mix with only your chatter to keep you warm.  Jindal suggests the following.

If Obamacare is still the law of the land, there will be the monumental task of repealing the law and replacing it with a conservative, market-based model that works—while undoing the damage it has done to our economy in meantime. The next president will be faced with unweaving the Obama administration’s massive web of unnecessary environmental regulations that are stifling our energy sector and hindering our ability to be energy independent. Passing a balanced-budget amendment, lowering tax rates, fixing future government spending as a percentage of GDP, restoring America’s global reputation—the list goes on and on.

So, according to (possible... It's currently ridiculous to speculate) candidate Jindal, priority one is Repeal Obamacare, priority two is Drill Baby Drill and priority three is Cut Social Security.  Those sure do sound like winning ideas. Just ask any of Jindal's recently advised client candidates. Neil Riser, for example.

Riser focused exclusively on repeal and sided with Gov. Bobby Jindal in rejecting a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would expand Medicaid, largely at federal rather than state expense.

McAllister opposes Obamacare too, but he proposed trying to make the law work; he also called for the state to expand Medicaid, an issue that may well have appealed not only to Democrats but to those who believe that expansion could help a lot of their neighbors in a district where 25 percent of residents live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The result suggested that simply bashing the Affordable Care Act, as Riser did, is not enough to win elections, even among voters who may agree, and that advocating its improvement is not a path to certain defeat.

Okay well maybe not Neil Riser, for example. Surely any of the other recent Jindal-approved success stories will lend these prescriptions all the credibility they need. 

Surely the part about the "massive web of unnecessary environmental regulations that are stifling our energy sector" really connects with people.  At least voters would not mistake Jindal's commitment to that idea anyway.

A new member appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East will ask the authority to suspend its controversial lawsuit demanding that 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies either restore wetlands damaged during their operations or pay for the damages. A competing resolution, submitted by proponents of the lawsuit, asks the authority to reaffirm its original vote approving the contract to hire the Jones, Swanson, Huddell & Garrison law firm and to authorize continued prosecution of the suit.

Lambert "Joe" Hassinger Jr. was appointed by Jindal last month to replace John Barry, after the governor made clear he would not reappoint the historian who had spearheaded the filing of the lawsuit. Jindal contends that the levee agency overstepped its authority in filing the suit and that the action conflicts with the state's coastal restoration and protection master plan.

Hassinger is the sponsor of two lawsuit-related resolutions that are set for debate at the authority's meeting on Thursday.

We simply can't allow our fixation with Louisiana's coastal marshland to endanger our fragile oil and gas industry the way we allowed our brief concern about an ongoing oil spill disaster to kill all those jobs that the moratorium certainly killed.   This is (not yet) candidate Jindal's proposition to the voters.  Will they respond positively?  Find out next month when Politico publishes his follow-up column, "Do you think I will be a good President? If you think so, please check this box. By, Bobby."