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? 

All the leverage

Amazing what you can get away with when you don't actually care if things get funded.

Louisiana House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, wants the Senate to approve a state budget bill and other legislation -- though he was vague about what those other bills might be -- before he agrees to end the Legislature's regular session early.

"It will depend on how fast we get out House bills back from the Senate," Barras said in interview with reporters Monday evening (April 30).

The budget, such as it is, is unacceptable and already wreaking havoc.  Barras doesn't actually care if that happens. It just feeds the Republican "We're trying to end Huey Long style government"  rhetoric.  Meanwhile the resulting chaos can only hurt the Governor's reelection effort. So, sure, why not keep putting the squeeze on?  They can't lose.

Countdown to shutdown

Can't get the budget out of the presumed special session on time if you can't get the special session to start.  Barras is already dragging his feet. 

House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, wouldn't commit to ending the Louisiana Legislature's regular session early so lawmakers can move into a special session in which they might try to renew or pass new taxes and deal with some of Louisiana's projected budget shortfall that would cut health care services all over the state.

Imagine that. 

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.

Republican legislators love the fiscal cliff

They don't really care if the state is solvent or not. They do care about making sure their wealthiest patrons don't have to pay taxes.  And they love using any resulting crisis as an excuse to slash Medicaid benefits.

It is going to be another fun special session.

What are they up to?

The Governor has been busy meeting with various business groups and, here, with Republican lawmakers to discuss tax policy ahead of next year's "fiscal cliff" disaster. All parties to these meetings seem like they're pretty optimistic.  But nobody will say exactly what's on the table.  Keep an eye on this.

Asymmetric Cliff-fare

John Bel is changing tactics. 

Gov. John Bel Edwards told House Speaker Taylor Barras Thursday (July 20) that the governor won't call a special lawmaking session to address a looming billion-dollar hole in Louisiana's finances unless he is confident that a plan to replace expiring taxes would pass the House.

"I am hesitant to convene another special session without meaningful input from, and a concerted effort by, House leadership to identify a viable path forward. Specifically, I need a good faith commitment to remove the partisan barriers and solve this problem," wrote Edwards, a Democrat, in a letter to Barras, a Republican from New Iberia.

"Accordingly, at this point, I do not intend to call the legislature back for a special session prior to next year's regular session," the governor wrote to Barras.

Rather than threaten House Republicans with more special sessions, he's now threatening no special session ahead of next year's "fiscal cliff" manufactured emergency unless he gets...  *sigh*... "a good faith commitment to remove the partisan barriers."  Yeah, that's not happening for a whole host of reasons.

But most importantly right now if you're going to play chicken with the radical right over a "fiscal cliff" you're going to lose every time.  They don't actually care about solving the problem as you perceive it. To them, the problem is rich people pay too much in taxes. The only way to "remove the partisan barrier" is to just give them that. Otherwise, it's off the cliff everybody goes.

This is why Grace, I think, makes an error when she compares this cliff with the "replace later" strategy Senate Republicans are considering with health care right now. As far as McConnell is concerned, "replace later" can mean "replace never" so long as the big tax cut passes.  That's all they're really after anyway. So it doesn't do any good to seek "bi-partisan solutions" in hopes of avoiding a cliff.  Not when your opponent is indifferent to the cliff either way.

Em-Barras-ment

We're almost to the end of the legislative session which means it's getting more difficult to ignore the massive amount of nothing that's been done to address the coming budget shortfall or the looming "fiscal cliff" due to hit when a package of stop gap temporary taxes expire.  Legislators entered the session with an array of options suggested by a special task force on tax reform and by the Governor that might have helped pull the state back from the brink.  The session itself has been a long slog of watching each of those proposals fail to get off the ground.

The Republicans in the House have been the main impediment to progress in most cases. This has been plain to see all along. It remains doubtful, however, whether anyone will hold them accountable in any meaningful way.  Here, Tyler Bridges notes some of the blowback this week absorbed by Speaker Taylor Barras including a call from his hometown newspaper for Barras to resign his speakership.

Barras is a good man but a bad speaker. A new speaker and new committee chairmen would deal the House and Capitol a needed new hand.

Answers to Louisiana’s pressing problems will not come from this House as it is presently constituted. That much is proven.

Our tax system will stay broken. Our higher education system will remain imperiled. TOPS will stay on risky fiscal footing. Our roads will remain among the nation’s worst. The fiscal cliff lies straight ahead, and there are no brakes on this legislative bus.

Local lawmakers said before session’s start that voters should be able to vote for a gas tax. They won’t. Our lawmakers said the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students must change to survive. It won’t.

Bridges also highlights an epitaph for the gas tax by Louisiana Association of General Contractor chair Ken Naquin. 

“You must appreciate the toxic mix that is the House of Representatives as it exists today and the total lack of leadership in the House,” Naquin wrote Wednesday in an email to his members.

Naquin added that while Barras holds the speaker’s gavel, two other Republicans, state Rep. Lance Harris of Alexandria and state Rep. Cameron Henry of Metairie, wield so much power that “there are in reality 3 speakers.” Harris heads the Republican caucus while Henry chairs the Appropriations Committee.

“The power in the House is Rep. Harris,” Naquin wrote.

 You know what they say about quarterbacks. If you've got three, you really don't have any.  And if the "power in the House" is with one of the backups, then you've got a real problem. 

On the other hand, none of those maxims apply to the Republicans in this case. Despite the seeming discord, there probably aren't political consequences for any of them and that includes Barras.  After the session ends... and after John Bel finally lets them all out of detention... they can go back to their districts and boast that they fought hard to keep from raising taxes.

This won't be exactly true.  In fact, the full effect of the Governor's preferred reforms this year would have been an overall tax cut for 90 percent of Louisiana residents.  Republicans did manage to prevent tax increases on the wealthiest residents and businesses who are their actual constituency anyway. They did this at the great expense of everyone else and left a lingering disaster in their wake. Not that it matters. The Republicans know full well that voters will hold the Governor accountable for the mess in 2019 which only adds to the incentive to stay the course. Everything is right on schedule.  Why would they dump their leadership now? 

How did we get here?

Bobby gave all the money away to his friends and now there isn't any money. 

For 30 years, Louisiana had enough money in its various accounts to shift around dollars temporarily and cover the bills without resorting to a short-term loan. But the money available to do that was spent when Gov. Bobby Jindal was in office, as he and lawmakers tried to avoid new taxes and spending cuts.

Doesn't look like anyone has a plan to find any more money any time soon. Certainly the Republicans in the House are happy to sit back and force the Governor to keep cutting stuff every year until that inevitably causes him to lose the next election.

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.

Who is getting whacked?

Tyler Bridges writes that it may be time for the governor to mete out some punishment.

Several legislators said privately that Edwards needs to make an example of at least one prominent opponent.

One veteran legislator remembered how Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Speaker Joe Salter punished state Rep. Troy Hebert in 2004 by sacking him as a committee chairman after he voted against a key tax measure sought by Blanco.

“It’s like what you have to do sometimes with a mule that won’t go into the barn,” the legislator said. “You have to whack him in the head to get his attention.”

Candidates for wracking in Bridges' article include both House Speaker Taylor Barras and, of course, our friend Neil.

The governor also could whack an $11 million request in state construction money from another high-profile nemesis, state Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, who chairs the House tax committee that killed several of the governor’s revenue-raising measures. The $11 million would go for an Audubon Zoo exhibit to be held in 2020.

Although in both cases, this may be precisely what each of them wants. Particularly so for Abramson who has made it a point this year to demonstrate his independence from the governor and will certainly argue that his constituents are being unfairly punished.

But then none of this may happen. During his late night press conference the governor snapped at reporters (including Bridges) as they asked questions about the political fallout from the session. "How is that helpful?" Edwards snarled at one such question.

So it remains to be seen whether Edwards has the temperament for exacting punishment when legislators behave badly. session ended Stephanie Grace compared the governor's face to that of an ineffectual "disappointed dad."  If he plans to continue giving the reactionary children in the house free rein, we'll probably see more of that in the future,

The tweets say we might have a budget deal

It's happening in the legislature as I type this so I have no idea what they've actually agreed to.  The good news is, it looks like they've rejected this bizarre idea.

The siphoning plan initially was part of the House budget proposal, but it was removed by the Senate amid concerns about whether it was constitutional.

Barras, a banker, said he’s studied the state laws related to the plan, as well as the funds that would take about a 3.3 percent hit, and said he believes the state should have been taking a cut of the money that flows through the debt fund all along.

“It’s just pretty eye-opening the benefit to our budget,” he said.

Louisiana’s unique Bond Security and Redemption Fund is used to bolster the state’s credit rating and reassure bondholders. Nearly all money that flows into the treasury goes through that fund.

Under state law, certain funds normally protected under statutory and constitutional dedications for certain services can be skimmed to help pay down the debt. For the past 18 years, the state has relied largely on general fund dollars to make debt payments, though.

“We’ve been taking out of the wrong account,” Barras said. “It’s just too strong for me to let it go by.”

They were trying to use a mechanism for debt service and use it as a back door to impose departmental cuts they couldn't pass through the ordinary process.  It's probably not legal despite Barras's assertions and Fake Governor Kennedy's approval. Anyway it's certainly dishonest. Like I said, it now looks like we don't have to worry about it now. But I wanted to flag it before the session ended. 

Much more work to do starting this week. Special Session Part Deux is coming Monday. 

How high's the water?

About $70 million and possibly rising.

Louisiana's current-year budget gap is back, forcing larger cuts than lawmakers thought would be necessary when they ended a special session a week ago.

Legislators thought they were about $30 million short of closing a $950 million deficit in the budget cycle that ends June 30. But information released Wednesday (March 16) shows the deficit is more than double that number, around $70 million.

Last-minute changes to tax bills and the lawmakers' failure to pass at least one piece of legislation caused the gap to widen. Gov. John Bel Edwards also vetoed at least $4.4 million worth of cuts that the Legislature had counted on.

It's "around $70 million" meaning we don't actually know how deep the deficit is.  If you see it in the road, you are advised not to try and drive through it.  Unfortunately the governor has little choice but to plow right right on in.

While Edwards was hoping to raise taxes enough to avoid more midyear cuts to higher education and health care services, the current hole will make that unlikely. The governor's budget chief Jay Dardenne said additional reductions to public universities and health services will probably be unavoidable.

"Unfortunately, there were some members of the Legislature who blocked our progress and refused to offer any alternatives to my plan," Edwards said in a written statement released Wednesday. "Refusing to vote for solutions of any kind is not 'tackling the deficit.'"

The Legislature has given Edwards the final say over where the additional cuts are made over the next three months. Dardenne said he hopes to release a list of the new reductions Monday.

So we're looking at somewhere around $70 million in cuts mostly to health care and higher ed which, thanks to the stubbornness of the Republicans in the house, the governor will have to make himself. At the conclusion of the special session, Edwards delivered an especially cranky press conference about this.  It's not hard to see why.

In this week's Gambit we were treated to an historic edition of Clancy DuBos's habitual "Winnahzzz and Da Looozahz and Da Vics N Da Natlys and Yer Mom en' ems and Such" legislative scorecard.  It turns out (and this is a rather stunning fact if you really sit and think about it) for the first time ever, all involved were deemed among Da Loooozaaahzzzzz.

Clancy is wrong about some of this. LABI, for instance, is really more of a winner in that it successfully defended a large portion of its members tax privileges even under heavy pressure to "share the burden." In fact, they were so successful that they defied even the imperative to balance the budget in order to get their way. John Kennedy is probably a "winner" as well since he doesn't care about anything other than getting attention for his Senate candidacy. Mission accomplished there. Similar can be said of the House Republicans who took the opportunity to assert their political independence regardless of the consequences.

In fact there may not be any consequences for them.  Politically speaking, the forthcoming list of cuts will "belong" more to the governor than to the legislature.  Accomplishing that was more important to the House leadership during the special session than resolving the shortfall. Here's why. A UNO opinion survey released this week shows that voters tend to blame the crisis on the legislature (and former governor Jindal) rather than on the new governor.



That's natural for a  newly elected governor still on his ostensible honeymoon with voters.  It's also just as natural for the opposition party to focus on knocking him down a peg as quickly as possible. Taylor Barras and friends are hoping that when Edwards announces the next round of cuts this week, they will have moved the needle against him a bit. And having gotten this task out of the way, they can afford to be more reasonable during the next special session.

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana House Speaker Taylor Barras said Tuesday he believes more taxes will be needed during an inevitable second special session to address the state's gaping budget hole, but he was less specific about targets for new revenue he would support.

"Another $800 million in cuts seems a little steep for me," Barras, R-New Iberia, told Gannett Louisiana, referring to the estimated shortfall for next year.

Barras could have made this admission much earlier and saved us all a lot of headaches.  But that would have been beside the point. Quite the contrary, the objective this first time out was to create headaches for the governor. By this measure, can we not say the Republicans have snatched a small victory from the jaws of Looozahhness? Maybe we should ask Clancy to reconsider.

Pennies aren't gonna clean themselves

The LABI legislators are almost taking this idea seriously. But somehow they can't just quite bring themselves around.  

The bill Barras supports but Henry doesn't think is needed, would cause business taxes to rise. It failed to get out of the House on Sunday night by just four votes.

House Bill 61 would remove several exceptions from a quarter of the existing sales tax. If passed, the business community would have to pay sales taxes on major equipment purchases and business utilities that they don't currently pay. Sales tax holidays -- such as the ones that happen before the school year as well as hurricane and hunting seasons -- wouldn't be as generous.

The legislation would produce $20 million to help with the $900 million deficit in the current budget year, which must by resolved by June 30. It would also produce $116 million for the projected $2 billion shortfall in the next fiscal cycle, which starts July 1.

Barras, House GOP Caucus leader Lance Harris, several other Republican representatives,  and almost every Democrat voted for the legislation Sunday night. But Henry was absent during the vote. Since the bill failed by just four votes, his support might have made a difference.

The update from this afternoon is, they still can't move this penny-cleaning bill. They're trying. It's just that they really hate taxes that aren't paid mostly by poor people. Which is why they're still pushing their idea to raise another penny or half penny regardless of what happens here.

An additional 0.6-cent increase in the sales tax would raise enough to fill what Edwards says is a $147 million gap based on the tax and spending measures that the House and Senate appear likely to approve before the special session ends. (The full penny already approved by each chamber would raise $210 million this year.)

But Edwards told reporters Sunday night that he doesn’t favor going beyond the 1-cent sales tax increase because it hits the poor the hardest. He signaled, however, that he might support it if lawmakers approve higher taxes on businesses that business lobbyists have been opposing.

“I am not open to it until there is due consideration of all measures,” he said. “It has to be shared sacrifice.”

Not sure that's how I would have put it but the Governor is being diplomatic. The fact of the matter is the LABI crowd doesn't want to sacrifice anything at all. 

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.

House mischief

Congratulations on your little win, there 

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards lost his first trick in a Republican-dominated Louisiana Legislature when his personal choice for Speaker of the Louisiana House was defeated in an unusually contested election.

A last minute candidate, New Iberia Rep. Taylor Barras, a former Democrat who turned Republican in 2011, sneaked through the two partisan candidates who had battled for the top legislative job since the election.

Will it matter? It might. Typically, in Louisiana, the Governor is king so it's worth noting when the Legislature defies him, especially so when the Governor is fresh off a landslide election.  On the other hand, it looks like they tried real hard to make this happen so let's hope, for their sakes, they haven't exhausted themselves. 

Some Republicans want to work with the incoming Edwards administration, particularly as the new Legislature will almost immediately be plunged into trying to fix a state budget that chronically is too short. Others in the GOP are more adamant about Republicans taking the top spots.

It was a divisive race in which Republican-leaning groups, such as the Louisiana Family Forum, emailed its members, and various PACS bought advertising and organized recalls to press Republicans who may have been wavering towards Leger to back a GOP candidate.

I've got a feeling, also, this is far from the last and hardly the ugliest fight we'll see during the course of this administration.  Remember the boom times are over and Bobby Jindal broke the budget so the coming years will see lots of bitter tugs-of-war over the remnants.  Still, I'm cautiously optimistic about this governor's ability to handle it.. as much as anyone can be expected to, anyway.