Legal PPE

Some of these are the same Republicans strutting around the Capitol without masks on this week.  If they don't have anything to worry about, then why should any of these businesses?

Restaurants serving takeout and delivery orders in Louisiana during the coronavirus outbreak and businesses providing protective gear should be largely shielded from lawsuits for injuries, the state Senate decided Thursday.

Senators overwhelmingly supported the pair of bills, Senate Bills 491 and 508, from Republican Sens. Sharon Hewitt and Patrick McMath, which are similar to business-backed measures proposed in other states and in Washington amid the pandemic.

The bills aren't even directly COVID related. They just say if you have a job doing something like, delivering food, and you have been compelled back to work by a boss who has deliberately kicked you off of your unemployment benefits, then that employer is not responsible if you slip and fall on the job, for example.  Because any excuse to stick it to you..

Redistricting nightmare

Some mornings you are reminded that the new legislative and congressional districts drawn after the 2020 Census will be handled by the most right wing legislature in recent memory. 

Senate rules require the Senate Finance Committee to include at least one member from each congressional district. But Cortez also extended that to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee that will be overseeing the politically sensitive task of redistricting, the remapping of legislative and congressional political boundaries.

“I asked for requests from everyone, and I tried as much as I could to meet their requests by interest area,” Cortez told The Associated Press. “That played probably as big a part in it as anything.”

He noted, for example, that senators from coastal areas wanted to serve on the natural resources committee, while senators from rural farm areas sought seats on the agriculture committee.

Baton Rouge area Sen. Mack “Bodi” White will helm the Finance Committee that draws up the state’s annual operating budget. Sen. Bret Allain of Franklin will oversee the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee that handles tax policy. And Slidell Sen. Sharon Hewitt will take charge of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee that governs redistricting. All are in the GOP.

Hewitt very nearly ran for Governor last year but decided to come back to the legislature for another go at passing Medicaid work requirements maybe? Or maybe she can vote against equal pay for women again.   Anyway, she's in charge of drawing up the new districts.

See here for a full list of Senate committee members. 

The Ralph Abraham full employment plan

Well if you are a Republican political consultant or job seeker wondering where all the money will be next year, Ralph Abraham has provided some help there. 

U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La., will run against Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019, he said in a press release Thursday (Dec. 6). “I’m running for Governor, and I intend to win,” Abraham said in a written statement.

Word from Abraham comes three days after U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Kennedy would not run in the election. Many had assumed Kennedy would join the race and be the GOP frontrunner before he declared otherwise. Now the field is considered wide open, with a chance for lesser-known Republicans to gain traction.

Businessman Eddie Rispone, a Republican who has never held elected office, has already said he intends to qualify for the governor’s race.

Rispone is more or less a vanity candidate. And even though Lane Grigsby has been talking him up, I would expect he's probably not going to raise or spend a whole lot of money that isn't his own.  So Ralph is making an early bid to pile up the real stuff. Other Republican B-listers like Sharon Hewitt are thinking about getting in as well. But without Kennedy or Landry, it's likely these campaigns will be more about building resumes than they will be about winning the governorship.&nbsp

Of course, this is Louisiana and anything can happen.  We talked about this last week already. But, presently, the conventional wisdom indicates that John Bel is a relatively safe bet for reelection.  I say relatively safe, not so much because this is supposed to be a "red" state as we're told over and over, but because John Bel tends to play just about everything safe. A little too safe, maybe, which can cause problems

Take minimum wage for example. An extremely conservative estimate this year puts the minimum living wage on which a family of three could expect to barely scrape by at something like $23 an hour.  But Louisiana lawmakers are resistant to even $15. This has to do, in part, with the degree to which your typical state legislator is in the pocket of business interests. But it also has a lot to do with the Governor's failure to lead.

This year, voters in Missouri and Arkansas passed ballot measures that phase in raises to (still quite insufficient) $11 and $12 wages in a few years. Edwards, who himself has only ever asked for is a gradual raise to $8.50, took that as cover to meekly chime in, on the need for a "modest increase" in Louisiana. John Bel is a former high school quarterback and veteran of the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division so it wouldn't make any sense for us to call him a wimp.  Instead we're just not convinced he cares all that much that the minimum wage is a true living wage. If he did, he might take a harder line in negotiations.

Maybe the Governor needs to take a cue from LaToya Cantrell here.  This fall the mayor has been fighting publicly with the tourism Brahmins over the hotel/motel tax. New Orleanians have complained for years that revenue generated by the tourism economy which could be used for the greater benefit of the city is mostly funneled back into the hands of a few state boards controlled by the owners of that industry's profits.  In recent years, those complaints have finally reached the ears of politicians.  Some of us never would have dreamed we'd see the Mayor of New Orleans take this matter on with any degree of seriousness. But here we are.

Cantrell began by criticizing a Convention Center plan to subsidize a private hotel development. But even as the Governor stepped in to try and quiet her down, she upping her demand that a greater share of the hotel/motel tax revenue be dedicated to critical city infrastructure. Then, even as the tourism agencies themselves offered an alternative plan, Latoya made sure to let them know that wasn't going to be good enough.  

The announcement appeared to be an effort to mollify Cantrell as she seeks to convince state leaders to redirect some of the $200 million in tax money collected in New Orleans that now goes to the Convention Center, Superdome and tourism promotion groups including New Orleans & Co., the new name for the former Convention and Visitors Bureau.

But the announcement appeared to just provide more ammunition for Cantrell, who so far has been largely unsuccessful in convincing state officials to back her plan.

“We’re not asking anybody for a favor. Last year, our people generated more than $200 million in hospitality revenue — but less than 10 percent of that came to the city.  Seventy percent of that $200 million went to just four hospitality agencies,” the mayor said in a news release.

“I will continue to fight to get our people all that they deserve,” she said.

Now, I fully expect that, if LaToya does wring some money out of the tourism cabal, it's still not going to be "all that (we) deserve."  But at least she is on a path to get us more than the inadequate $6.7 million currently on offer. This is not only because what they're volunteering isn't good enough but also because it's less than they can afford to give.  Always reject the first offer, right?

All John Bel can say to the first offer is, thank you.

Thank you @OchsnerHealth! https://t.co/MHrGRUjkGB

— John Bel Edwards (@LouisianaGov) December 6, 2018

The Governor doesn't even have to be aggressive about it if that isn't his style. All he has to say to Ochsner is, "That's much better but, hey, why not $25?" Seems a modest enough ask of the state's largest employer. At least Ochsner holds that distinction during non-election years, anyway. Maybe if a few more Republican candidates jump in the race, the numbers might change.

Time to run for governor again

John Bel Edwards. Is he a "winna" or a "looza"?  The third and therefore specialest of this year's legislative special sessions ended last month. Unfortunately, for those of us always interested in reading the post-game box score, it seems as if the year's governance marathon left Clancy DuBos too tired to declare the results in his accustomed affected colloquial style. Last week's brief column half-heartedly takes us through the motions of declaring winners and losers without going into too much detail and, sadly, without even bothering to arrange them in a listicle under those adorable "winna" and "looza" headings. It wasn't like this when the regular session ended  back in May.  Clancy was so excited then that he proudly announced the "35th annual edition" of his breakdown on Twitter. I guess he's saying we're only supposed to get one of these per year.  But, really, aren't we also only supposed to have one session?  It's a dynamic political environment.  Our media should probably be more agile.

On the other hand, it's been a busy couple of weeks for Clancy's outfit. I had a few hiccups trying to even locate the winner/loser column after Gambit broke its website by merging it to the crap-pile of broken URLs and impenetrable archives the Advocate publishes. This is a new era where the "Alternative Weekly" lives as a division of the major local daily. We still aren't sure what the Georges Media Concern's plans are for the new brand they've acquired.

It was interesting, though, that days after State Senator (and possible gubernatorial candidate) Sharon Hewitt was given space in the Advocate to push out a pile of nonsense about "wasted, fraudulent or questionable" Medicaid spending, the Gambit side of the website published a refutation of that nonsense.  This is just one example and it's early in the merger but it's concerning to think that Georges Media is adopting a CNN Crossfire style format where we get a Gambit  "on the left" (but not too left) take on the same item The Advocate covers "from the right."

If this really is the strategy then, now doubt, they're hailing it in the office as a triumph of "balanced" reporting. But, in reality, the full effect of such a point-counterpoint where one side is purposefully lying and the other is not necessarily writing in good faith either is just to legitimize the lies.  Is anyone served by this? Who cares as long as we get the eyeballs of market segments on #bothsides. I wonder if this means we're in for a Dan Fagan version of "winnas and loozas" in the future.   We'll keep an eye on this as they "work out the kinks."

Anyway, if we're looking for a more fleshed out winners/losers recap of the special session, we are in luck.  T-P reporter Julia O'Donoghue put together her own assessment  for that other bad news website.  It's more thorough than Clancy's effort and she got just enough things wrong to fill in perfectly for him so let's take a look at that first.

Don't misunderstand me. The reporting here is good. I just don't get where she's coming from with these scores. The most baffling contradiction comes where she manages to name the Governor a "winner" even though the comprehensive tax reform agenda his supporters have been pushing for three years is a "loser." About that, O'Donoghue writes, 

Edwards and Louisiana lawmakers have been promising since 2016 to create a more diverse and comprehensive tax base -- one that wouldn't rely so heavily on sales taxes that are harder on poor people.

Several legislators also promised to look carefully at the business tax breaks Louisiana gives to see if any were worth eliminating.

In the end, Edwards and the Legislature didn't end up making any major changes to the tax system. They simply resolved the state's financial instability by passing a slightly lower sales tax rate on a temporary basis again.

Business tax breaks are also still in place, though some are slightly less generous than they used to be. 

In other words, John Bel Edwards failed. After three years of contentious legislative brinksmanship, a task force report that came to basically nothing, an out-of-left-field Commercial Activity Tax proposal, and countless backroom negotiations with "stakeholders," we've ended up exactly where we started; inadequately funding government services on the backs of the state's poorest residents.

So, what did the Governor win, exactly? "Compromise," presumably for its own sake.

The Democratic governor was able to strike a deal with the Republican-controlled Legislature that hopefully pulls the state out of the financial turmoil it has experienced for several years.

"The encouraging things is we have demonstrated it can be done. That we are not Washington, D.C., where they are still paralyzed by dysfunction on every major decision they have to make," Edwards said Sunday.

So John Bel wins because the "financial turmoil" is swept under the rug?  Just taking the fiscal cliff off the agenda for a few more year, while averting a total disaster, doesn't deliver results for the poor and working class constituents we ostensibly elect Democrats to represent. Maybe the Governor doesn't care about that. (He doesn't.)  He still doesn't really win any political advantage. Does the Governor think the budget deal takes tax policy off the table for next year's elections? Try telling that to Sharon Hewitt.

Regardless of his failure to win a fairer, more progressive tax system for Louisiana, conservatives are going to continue to hammer away at the Governor as though he had confiscated 90 percent of Tom Benson's estate and used the money to buy every man, woman and child in the state a shiny new jetpack. That would be great, of course. But it's not happening. And the fact that nothing even remotely like it is happening is a sure sign that radical right activists should be counted among the "winners" here.  Naturally, that isn't what O'Donoghue's column says.

LOSER: Anti-tax advocates Anti-tax advocates -- particularly the local branch of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity -- have been bombarding legislators with direct mail and advertising campaigns, encouraging them to not vote for taxes at all. They even had volunteers knock on doors in some legislators' districts.

In the end, the Republican-controlled Legislature voted not to cut government programs despite these campaigns. Instead, they renewed a portion of the sales tax  in order to keep programs such as the TOPS college scholarship whole.

But, again, all that's happened is a continuance of the status quo. AFP, and right wing policy groups like it, successfully defended corporate and upper income privileges while ensuring the budget gap is filled by taxing poor people. 

Similarly, O'Donaghue names as "losers" Lance Harris, Cameron Henry, and Alan Seabaugh. But this score relies on a distortive analysis of these conservatives' goals. For example she asks us to take at face value Harris's own 4.33 percent sales tax proposal rather than the 4.45 that eventually passed. But the actual rate was never the point of the exercise.  It was always about loudly arguing and voting against whatever the Governor asked for.  Harris didn't give a shit if a tax bill got passed at all.  He said so himself. O'Donaghue reported it here.

Harris said he is attempting to compromise. He doesn't like taxes and he never thought he would sponsor legislation to retain a higher sales tax rate. Neither did his spouse. "My wife told me not to come home last night," said Harris.

Harris said he would be unwilling to increase the amount of money that his sales tax bill would raise, even from $369 million to $400 million. House Democrats said that means Harris is not willing to work with them or with the Senate, whose members are likely to want more tax revenue.

"It's a compromise that I'm even bringing this bill," Harris said.

Harris got what he wanted. Henry also got what he wanted. His war chest/slush fund isn't going to suffer one bit as a result of his actions this year.  And Seabaugh is well on his way to becoming a federal judge. All's well that ends well for these guys.



So is the Governor a Winna or a Looza? He can try to parse an essentially stalemated legislative year any way he likes. But as Mark Ballard correctly points out, so can his opponents.

John N. Kennedy, the U.S. senator and putative GOP gubernatorial candidate next year, tweeted: “Heck I don’t think even good ol’ Abe Lincoln could get reelected if he raised billions in new taxes like Gov. Edwards has done.”

Putting aside that President Lincoln is father of the income tax, yet was reelected, Louisiana legislators of both parties voted overwhelmingly in March 2016 to raise $1 billion in taxes for two years to give them time to repair a fiscal system that annually fails to raise enough money to pay the bills. Roughly two years later, legislators had made no fixes and had suggested no meaningful funding cuts to state services.

Since no one's material circumstances are demonstrably changed by any of this, voters can believe whatever they like. And in a state where confirmation bias strongly favors the Republican narrative, the burden of proof in these matters continues to rest on the Governor. All of which is to say that with a year to go before the reelection campaign kicks into high gear, John Bel is well on the road to being ousted by a clown.   Whether that clown ends up being Hewitt, John Kennedy, Jeff Landry or Ralph Abraham remains to be determined. But, leaving aside the improbable surfacing of any "serious sins" we're currently unaware of, any of those loozas looks like more of a winna than John Bel at the moment.

How the politics works now

This paragraph is quite the mouthful.

Yesterday, she repeated her assertions in an article published by Watchdog.org, a well-known propaganda arm of the Franklin Center for Government Integrity, a far-right, anti-science organization funded by the petrochemical industry and loosely affiliated with the Koch brothers’ group Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council (better known as ALEC).

Lamar is writing there about Slidell Republican State Senator Sharon Hewitt's crusade against "Medicaid fraud" which, no, that is totally not a thing.  But please read Lamar's explication. It shouts out our old pal Bruce Greenstein who is currently working in the Trump Administration and somehow I did not know about that.  (WAIT. I did know. Apparently I forgot.  Dammit, the whole reason I write stuff down on this blog is so that is less likely to happen. What are we even doing here?)

Anyway, the little bullshit pipeline Lamar describes in that paragraph is worth noticing.  It's well organized, well funded, national in scope, and it is how right wing activists get their message out. And while some tools (doctored video distributed via Facebook, for example) are more common now than they once were, the basic form of the Republican Puke Funnel has been with us for some time. It's only gotten further institutionalized at the state and local level recently and Hewitt's little exercise here is a good example of that.

I guess it's also worth pointing out to what end this is all aimed. The budget passed recently in the Louisiana House of Representatives represents an effective $1.8 billion cut to health care services (state and federal matching funds combined.) This week, the Health Department is notifying 37,000 Medicaid recipients that their benefits are in jeopardy.  The Republicans continue to not take this seriously saying at various times the deficit is not real, or that there is money to find somewhere, or that the feds will step in and fix the problem, or just kind of mumbling nonsense until their voices trail off.  Oh also, as we've seen, some of them are falsely claiming there is widespread "fraud" happening so billions of dollars in cuts is probably justified anyway.

The long term play here is the same as it was at the outset of the year.  Republicans are betting that those among their constituents who are harmed by the horror budget are likely to blame the Governor next year anyway. Which is why, even at this late hour, they're not in any hurry to fix this.

Gov. John Bel Edwards' staff also told The Associated Press he is looking at officially calling the special session to start May 22, a Tuesday, though that timeline could change. 

But Edwards and Alario have always expressed an eagerness to move on to a special session as quickly as possible. It's Barras and the House leadership that have been fuzzy on when -- and sometimes if -- they want a special session to take place.

That fuzziness continued into Tuesday. While Alario may have been certain about what the target for ending the regular session was -- and what would happen if that deadline wasn't met -- Barras was far less resolute in his statements.

"I guess you could call it the aim, but I can't guarantee anything at this point," said Barras of the May 18 date for ending the (regular) session.

 What are y'all's plans for the shutdown?