Posts Tagged ‘louisiana politics’

Report from Louisiana: All Politics are Local

Posted: November 14, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT –  I didn’t want to write about election results, BUT, since all politics are local, I will say that here in Louisiana, John Kennedy handily won re-election with 62% of the vote so, there’s that. And even more locally, our ridiculous mayor here in Shreveport was soundly defeated, coming in at a lame fourth place. There will be a runoff in December between an attorney and a career politician. Meh.

As for Kennedy, the state political world is on the edge of their seats waiting to see if he will announce a run for governor next year.

The Advocate speculates:

Kennedy is in the pole position after waltzing to reelection with nearly 62% of the vote in a 13-candidate field. A Republican in a GOP-dominated state, he has nearly $15 million in the bank, according to sources close to the campaign, that he could shift to an outside super PAC for the governor’s race… Kennedy is so formidable that political analysts believe U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, Treasurer John Schroder, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt and other Republicans are waiting for Kennedy to announce his plans before deciding whether to run themselves.

Louisiana State Attorney General Jeff Landry has already jumped in the race. No Democrats have declared. Speculation has it that as the Democrats now control the Senate, a gubernatorial bid may be more attractive to Kennedy. When asked his intentions, Kennedy refuses to comment at this time, opting instead to savor his current election win.

Here in Shreveport, back to our mayoral election, we are faced with a choice between Greg Tarver who is 74 years old and been in politics since 1984 or Tom Arceneaux who is an attorney and has served in local city politics. Tarver is in the funeral home business too, and a local radio station had a good time with Tarver’s revelation that on occasion he sleeps in a coffin at work. This one will clearly come down to party lines. The runoff is in December.

Stay vigilant folks.

Report from Louisiana: 2023 Gubernatorial Election Early Outlook

Posted: October 17, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – The Louisiana gubernatorial election is not until next year but there is already a good bit of buzz and a flurry of activity.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has officially thrown his hat into the ring. According to the Louisiana Hayride blog:

“Several members of the LAGOP Republican State Central Committee … have told us they’re being directly wooed by Landry’s campaign. The sense is that Landry probably already has better than half the RSCC willing to vote to endorse him, but he’s going for a vast consensus if not a unanimous vote as soon as possible… What we’ve heard is that Landry is offering himself as a disruptive change agent where state government is concerned, and that he wants to bring a more comprehensive reform agenda than anybody’s seen since perhaps Huey Long’s time.”

This move is designed to shut out any challenge by Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser who has yet to commit to the race. While everyone expects him to run, Nungesser says he won’t make it official until January. By that time, Jeff Landry will have solidified much of the support, and a lot of the money.

The Louisiana Illuminator seems to think Nungesser is the more electable of the two:

Nungesser might well be the closest thing the state GOP has to a unifying force. Louisiana’s Republican Party has suffered from its own fractures and mismanagement in recent years. Although Nungesser isn’t as conservative as some of its far-right members would like, he has the ability to appease the party’s deep-pocketed donors.

And we still have the John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy factor. Popular opinion says that Senator John Kennedy will run for governor if he loses his senatorial re-election campaign (which seems unlikely).

What does NOT appear to be strong is a lot of Democratic candidates. The Democratic party chairperson offers New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno as a strong candidate. Moreno “says she has been getting pushed to run in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic anti-abortion ruling but hasn’t committed to the race.”

Anyone coming out of NOLA government can’t be seen as a great choice now that NOLA is the Murder Capital of the United States.

It is still early and we still have mid-terms to plod through, but even at the early date I think it’s safe to color Louisiana a red state in 2023.

Report from Louisiana: On this Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina…

Posted: August 29, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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Photo by William Recinos on Unsplash

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana and Mississippi.

Here in Shreveport, we are usually unaffected by hurricanes but the reverberations from Katrina still linger throughout the state, and neighboring states. Many folks more knowledgeable than I about New Orleans would tell you that the city still is not the same; others would say that’s not a bad thing.

There’s no question that the city is changed but it’s not all Katrina’s fault. Heaped onto the damage by the hurricane, the people of New Orleans have done an astoundingly effective job at electing (and re-electing) leaders to further its ruin.

Going all the way back to Mayor Ray Nagin who was absolutely ineffective during the actual time of Katrina, taking refuge in the Hyatt hotel where he stayed cloistered on the several floors he commandeered. His errors were tenfold and errors on top of those landed him in prison until 2024.

Then came Mitch Landrieu who attempted to solve the city’s problems by removing statues and writing a book while the crime rate soared. Equity circles were supposed to solve everything.

And now we have LaToya “The Destroya” Cantrell who is surpassed both Nagin and Landrieu in decimating the city and ensuring it will never be the grand lady it used to be.

Crime has reached epic levels in New Orleans and it is no wonder; last week the mayor popped into Juvenile Court in support of a carjacker while the victims sat by dumbfounded:

Cantrell surprised juvenile court officials and the district attorney’s office with her unannounced court appearance Thursday in which she sat with the young perpetrator’s family as he was sentenced to probation for three first-degree robbery convictions, committed when the defendant was only 13.

The kid participated in multiple carjackings using a toy gun that fooled his victims. Meanwhile, the city’s police force is at a 50-year low in manpower, a fact which earlier in the month prompted Cantrell to threaten to cancel Mardi Gras which as we all know is the city’s major tourism revenue source. She has since walked that back but imagine!

Oddly enough she was overwhelmingly re-elected in November 2021.

As a lifelong Louisiana resident, it is sad to see what is happening there. Not all of the decline is the fault of elected officials. Covid didn’t help any nor did the city’s response to it.

Incidentally, I just finished re-reading James Lee Burke’s Katrina novel, Tin Roof Blowdown. I read that one again every couple of years because it is a beautiful piece of work; tragic, of course. But Burke is entertaining, and poetic and it has always interested me that the complexity of his work slips by so many. This novel grew out of a short story, “Jesus Out to Sea,” and it has all of the hallmarks we expect from Burke. Can New Orleans ever regain its grandeur? Of course it can. Part of the charm of the city is its oddities and its ability to morph into something else yet never change.  Despite the destruction of decades of Democratic mayors, New Orleans still stands. And people still flock to it because there is no other place like it, for good or bad.

Report from Louisiana: All Politics is Local

Posted: December 13, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT — They say all politics is local so let’s take a moment to consider the bond election held last week in Shreveport. I know you don’t live in Shreveport but consider this a model for what is likely happening in Democrat run cities all over the country, for the most part.

Our Democrat mayor, Adrian Perkins, is wallowing in the sub-basement of low approval ratings as our homicide rate has already tied the record for the most homicides in the city per year, as our police force diminishes to over 100 officers below expected levels, and as our fire department shuffles equipment from one station to another just to keep trucks and EMS operational. Our roads are literally crumbling, and the last major manufacturing business, Libbey Glass, shut the doors and pulled out. We are a dying city.

December 11 was election day for a bond proposal to address a few of these issues. Among the issues on the ballot, the only one to pass was Prop 1:

Proposition 1 was the sole passing proposal, being supported by 59 percent of the 15,581 voters. The proposition’s most costly projects are a $27.5 million renovation of the police department’s central headquarters, $13.5 million for new fire department trucks and vehicles, and more than $15 million for fire station renovations and relocations. Proposition 1 will cost the city $70 million.

The other proposals failed:

Propositions 3 and 4 both lost in tight races. 54 percent of voters selected no on both. Proposition 4 would have been for fixing roads. Proposition 3 would have been for replacing the city’s 80-year-old lead pipe water system with a more modern plastic pipe system less likely to leech dangerous chemicals into the water supply and built to sustain extreme temperatures. Proposition 3 also would have addressed sewage and flooding issues.

Propositions 3 and 4 each would have cost more than $60 million.

Proposition 2 was for improving access to broadband internet in Shreveport and would have cost more than $20 million. 60 percent of voters said no to it. Proposition 5 was for improving parks and recreation centers and would have also cost more than $20 million. 61 percent of voters said no to it.

Voter turnout was a miserable 12.7%, and this was the second time (at least) that Perkins has put up this bond issue for vote.

The bottom line is this: nobody trusts this administration. I voted no down the line because my feeling is that if these city administrators think that approving a $10 million contract for curbside recycling to a woman with a Lexus, no staff, no training, and no where to take the material is a good idea….well, I don’t want to give them one bloody dime.

Even more, none of the proposed propositions addressed the abysmal police pay rate which is a huge problem and a large part of the reason we can’t keep officers.

Our priorities are wrong.

Our administration is wrong.

And I see this same pattern is a whole lot of cities run by Democrats.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium. She is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation (LSU Press).

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