Posts Tagged ‘louisiana politics’

Report from Louisiana: The Circus has Left Town and taken the Legislature with it.

Posted: June 14, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Louisiana’s legislative session has ended and as The Advocate puts it, “the circus has left Baton Rouge.” There is never a dull moment in Louisiana politics. Here’s a quick look.

While legislators did not legalize recreational marijuana, they did legalize sports betting. The medical marijuana program was expanded, and jail time for small amounts of marijuana has been eliminated. Mandatory kindergarten passed muster, but tougher teacher retirement rules did not. Governor John Bel Edwards agreed to terminate federally enhanced unemployment benefits in exchange for raising the weekly unemployment benefit by $28.  An attempt to enact closed party primaries failed.

In other pressing issues, women will no longer pay state sales tax on feminine hygiene products or diapers.

At the last minute, legislators passed “a bill that would prohibit government agencies from refusing to issue licenses, permits, and degrees or barring access to public facilities to someone who hasn’t received a covid-19 vaccine until any of the vaccines have been officially approved by the FDA.” Meanwhile, Louisiana State University plans to have a mask mandate this fall when students return to college classes.

The session was not without tension and drama. Louisiana House member Alan Seabaugh came in conflict with Representative Malinda White over terminology in a domestic violence bill. White became contentious over Seabaugh’s proposed changes and reportedly said either “let me get my gun and finish this or I’m going to get my gun and we can finish this.” Seabaugh took that as a threat and has requested the Louisiana State Police follow up on the matter.

I am frankly shocked that Edwards is agreeing to end the subsidized unemployment benefit, however there is no question that he needs to. Businesses all over town are advertising for help, begging for help, and some are having trouble staying open because they can’t get anyone to work.  

It remains to be seen which bills will get the governor’s signature and which will meet the veto. Legislators passed one bill that is certain to receive an Edwards veto: residents would no longer have to have a permit or training to conceal carry.

That’s going to be a big no from Edwards.

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. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: Senate 2020

Posted: October 19, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Early voting is underway in Louisiana and in Shreveport the lines are blocks long waiting to get in. As large a city as Shreveport is, there is only one place to early vote.  What these long lines mean is anyone’s guess.

Last month I wrote in this space about the senatorial race in Louisiana between incumbent Bill Cassidy and newcomer Adrian Perkins; Perkins is currently the mayor of Shreveport, elected in 2018.

Word on the street, and in the polls, is that Perkins doesn’t stand a chance in this election, but what is clear is that his eye is on a bigger prize and Shreveport was never anything but a stepping stone to the next rung on the political ladder.

In my post last month, I outline some of the missteps by Adrian Perkins as mayor of Shreveport; this weekend, Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Tyler Bridges covers much the same ground, outlining his background and political rise. Bridges compares Perkins quick rise to that of former Governor Bobby Jindal. This is not necessarily a good thing. Once full of great promise, Jindal left Louisiana in a fiscal mess.

The Advocate article is interesting to me in who it cites as advocates for Perkins; Mary Landrieu, for one. That’s enough to shut me down right there. His personal narrative is compelling:

As a boy, Perkins said, his mother often worked three jobs to put food on the table for her three sons. Perkins’ father left when he was three but returned when his son was in high school. Perkins said the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks inspired him to join the military. West Point recruited him, Perkins said, because he had top grades, had served as class president every year and was an all-state athlete in the 800 meters. At the military academy, Perkins said he was president of his class all four years, was a conference champion 10 times in track and field races and majored in economics. About 18 months after graduation, he was deployed to Iraq, where he was a platoon leader. During two tours of Afghanistan, he was a company commander with over 200 soldiers. After seven years in the military, Perkins, a captain, left at 28 to enter Harvard Law School. “I had already jumped out of planes and rappelled out of helicopters,” he said. “I wanted to do something intellectually stimulating.”

All well and good but his success in Shreveport during his brief tenure as mayor has been nonexistent. Bridges touches on some of the same scandals I mentioned last month but also points out that Perkins has lost a lot of support. Republican leaders who were willing to work with him have turned their backs on him:

A group of Republican businessmen who helped elect him in 2018 turned against Perkins after he awarded an insurance contract to the first cousin of his campaign manager. The man had no experience in that area of insurance. The businessmen said Perkins had broken his promise not to engage in politics as usual. A city internal audit said the new contract appeared to provide less coverage for more money. Perkins said it was a good deal for the city and added, “We introduced minorities into insurance coverage for the first time in the city’s history. Minorities should have an opportunity, outside of the well connected class.”

From my personal perspective, as a resident of Shreveport, I could in no way support Perkins for any higher office because I don’t believe he has fulfilled his promise for this office. He ran for mayor as someone who wanted to do new, fresh things to better this city, and he has failed miserably. Shreveport is not a large city by many standards – in 2018 we had a population of about 188,000. We are demographically 57% black, 38% white. We have shootings every single day and our murder rate is way up. There is no manufacturing in Shreveport and jobs are primarily service industry jobs. The largest employer in Shreveport is the school system, followed by Willis Knighten hospital system. There is little for families to do here unless you like going to casinos or bars.

All that negativity to say that Perkins has a lot of room in which to improve this city, but has not done so. Given that, I don’t think he will do much better for the state, should he somehow be elected senator. I truly believe this is only an exercise in building name recognition and that Perkins wants to take that same meteoric rise as Barack Obama. Presidential aspirations? Maybe. Higher office than mayor of a dying city? Certainly.

Even after Perkins loses this election, it won’t be the last you hear of him.

Mark my words.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: Cassidy v. Perkins, Senate 2020

Posted: September 28, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – One of the races people in Louisiana will be watching this fall will be the Senate race; incumbent Bill Cassidy will be challenged by Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins. I will tell you, a lot of people in Shreveport were not surprised when Perkins announced his candidacy; not many people really believe he has true dedication for the betterment of Shreveport.

When Perkins ran for mayor of Shreveport in 2018, he won in a runoff against incumbent Mayor Ollie Tyler. On paper, Perkins looks like a wunderkid: Harvard Law School, Army veteran, recipient of the Bronze Star, young, black, upwardly mobile…it all looks swell.

Looks are deceiving.

From the start Perkins drew controversy and criticism because he really did not live in Shreveport, and people could not figure out why he wanted to be mayor here.  Perkins was raised in Shreveport, graduated high school in Shreveport, but then left Louisiana to serve in the U.S. Army, and then was selected by the Pat Tillman Foundation to be a Tillman scholar; he went to Harvard.  Perkins was absent from Shreveport for fourteen years before he came back in 2017 to prime the pump for his mayoral run.

Perkins never voted in any election until he voted for himself at age 32 for mayor.

Local political pundit Elliot Stonecipher asked a lot of questions about the mysterious Adrian Perkins back in 2018 after Perkins won the election.

Stonecipher was not wrong.  There have been a lot of questions about Perkins and his behavior in the past two years.

For example, one of the first acts as mayor was to change insurance companies for the City. The new plan cost far more for far less coverage. As it turned out, the new plan was awarded to a man named Roddrelle Sykes of Frost Bank Insurance; Sykes is the first cousin of Perkins’s campaign manager.  Perkins did not get City Council authorization for this change which was required, nor did he go through the bid process.

The whole affair was very sketchy and prompted an Internal Audit. Scandal number one.

There was also a scandal, or controversy, about his car allowance; Perkins took both the car assigned to him AND the car allowance, rather than one or the other.

And then there were the rumors of potential drunk driving stops, which the mayor explained away and was never cited.

There have been a series of these unfortunate events that have caused many in Shreveport to question the mayor’s dedication to the city; does he really care about improving life in Shreveport or is this just a stepping stone to higher aspirations?

To that end, Barack Obama endorsed Perkins last week for his Senate bid, apparently only because Perkins is a Democrat rather than for any actual accomplishment he has done for the city.

One of his pet projects is Universal Basic Income which is obviously highly controversial.

In fact, Perkins cares so much for Shreveport, the first thing he did when Hurricane Laura blew threw earlier in the month, leaving thousands without power in Shreveport, Perkins decamped for Lake Charles to volunteer there for photo ops.

Under his tenure, crime in Shreveport has been epidemic with nearly daily shootings. We had this problem before, certainly, but it has gotten no better under Perkins. It seems to have gotten worse. Police officer pay is so low we are some forty officers short; the streets are drag strips and infrastructure is literally crumbling.

It would not be fair to attribute all of the Shreveport woes (and there are many) to Perkins, but as a man who vowed to improve life in Shreveport as part of his campaign, what has he done? Not much. Not much at all.  

I don’t think anyone really expects Perkins to win against Cassidy, but stranger things have happened. Perhaps this is more for exposure, paving the way later on for another bid at something else. He appears to have some fairly savvy handlers.

Suffice to say that many in town thought it was a joke when Perkins announced this run; I thought it was a Babylon Bee article at first, seriously.

But, time will tell.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: Governor Edwards breaks promise to teachers

Posted: February 17, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Really, who is shocked by this?

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is giving pay raises to his staff appointees but not to teachers. During his recent campaign, Edwards promised teachers he would bring their pay up to the Southern regional average; he even gave teachers a $1,000 per year raise, the first in over a decade, to show good faith. But when his new budget proposal came out, nada. Nothing. Except for his political appointees.

From The Advocate:

The Democratic governor’s chief financial adviser, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, mentioned the raises in his presentation of Edwards’ budget recommendations for the upcoming 2020-21 year, describing it to lawmakers as a “small increase.” The AP received the list after asking Dardenne’s office for specific details.

Dardenne said the “unclassified employees” across Louisiana state government hadn’t received pay raises over the governor’s first term, even as other rank-and-file civil service workers did. He said most of the increases are 4%.

So, for example, Edwards’ attorney’s salary will bump from $180,000 to $187,200 and his deputy chief of progams and planning goes from $125,000 to $150,000. 

If I, as a teacher, got a 25K pay raise, I’d be pretty satisfied.

Edwards spokeswoman Christina Stephens said the pay hikes represent a “tiny fraction of the overall state budget.” She said they “were included as part of the governor’s budget proposal only after two years of budget stability and an improved economic outlook for the state.”

Teachers across Louisiana are livid. 

Teachers turned out for Edwards across the state, well, some of them did. Not all of us were fooled.

Instead, Governor Edwards is sending more money to local districts and telling them to fund their own pay raises from that, however, the amount for local districts is not nearly enough to fund pay raises.

The Advocate:

 A Louisiana teacher makes an average is $50,359 per year compared with $52,178 in the 16-state region, according to 2017-18 tabulations, the latest available. That’s about what a manager at McDonald’s makes. But managers also get cash bonuses, profit-sharing and stock options. Plus, teachers need a college degree. And the average college student graduates with a debt of $29,800.

Relying on public school math, it cost Louisiana taxpayers about $101 million for last year’s raise, meaning another $200 million is needed to bring this state’s teachers up to the regional average of 2018. But that’s a moving target. Texas boosted salaries by up to $9,000. Teacher pay rose by $3,000 in Georgia and $2,000 in Florida, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

Louisiana radio host Moon Griffon pointed out last week that teachers are 10-month employees, and that a family of two teachers makes 100k a year, if they both make the average 50k. “That’s not bad,” Griffon said.  In Caddo Parish, one of the larger parishes in Louisiana, beginning teachers make $44k and don’t approach that $50k figure until about year ten. It isn’t that different in neighboring Bossier Parish, where a teacher with a BA degree with thirty years experience will max out at $59k.  In DeSoto parish, a beginning teacher makes $49k – zero years experience. By year ten, that teacher is up to $54k and by thirty, $61k.

None of these salaries are anywhere near what a staffer for John Bel Edwards is making, yet Edwards loves to point out how valuable teachers are.

Apparently only as long as he needs our votes. Then our value goes down.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

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