Recent editorials from Louisiana newspapers:
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May 21
Houma Courier on Louisiana’s state budget:
Louisiana’s Legislature is in the final weeks of its 2017 regular session.
And it is becoming increasingly likely that our lawmakers will once again fail to take decisive action on the persistent fiscal problems affecting our state and the critical services people expect it to provide.
Gov. John Bel Edwards proposed a budget and a host of tax proposals aimed at fixing the shortfalls that continue to plague state government. Though the Legislature is under no obligation to sign off on Edwards’ measures - in fact, it should be leery of further raising taxes - it does have an obligation to balance the books and look after the long-term health of Louisiana’s finances.
It seems to have failed once again to do that.
Without deep cuts in spending, sharp increases in tax revenue or some combination of the two, we will continue to see fiscal uncertainty that has led time and again to midyear budget cuts that can cause havoc for the people who use public services such as hospitals and colleges.
For most of the past decade, Louisiana has lurched from crisis to crisis, each time merely averting the problem with one-time infusions of money or budget gimmicks that made the budget look balanced when it wasn’t.
And out lawmakers have been well aware for all of that time that they were continuing to use short-term fixes instead of long-term solutions.
It appears we’re about to see the same thing happen once again - a scenario that could mean a $1.3 billion budget shortfall in the middle of next year, when a slate of temporary taxes expire.
Edwards’ plan raise taxes to make ends meet might not be the long-term solution, and it likely isn’t. But lawmakers have to finally treat the situation with the sense of urgency it requires.
Our colleges and hospitals have endured cut after cut. They have reduced their services, and what should be public priorities are shouldering most of the burden.
Most troubling is that it looks like more chaos is on the horizon.
“Time is closing out on us, and quite frankly, I’m disappointed with how far behind the Legislature is,” Edwards said last week. “Every day it looks more and more likely that we’ll have to have a special session.”
The Legislature must work with the governor and come to a consensus on how best to solve our state’s fiscal problem. It likely will involve a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, and it will not be a plan that pleases everyone.
But if the individuals involved in the process start out with that understanding and a determination that seems lacking so far, they should be able to implement a plan that avoids further disruptions in the near future.
Let’s get to work.
Online: https://www.houmatoday.com/
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May 18
The Times-Picayune on legislative involvement in Confederate monument decisions:
Despite emotional pleas from House Black Caucus members for their colleagues to stand with them, only eight white lawmakers voted against a bill aimed at protecting Confederate monuments Monday.
Shreveport Republican Rep. Thomas Carmody’s House Bill 71, which would make it more complicated for communities to remove monuments, passed 65-31.
“My disgust for this bill goes deeper than I want to talk about because it hurts,” said state Rep. John Bagneris, a New Orleans Democrat and Black Caucus member. “It hurts to know you don’t feel the pain I feel,” he said before the vote. Four white Democrats and four white Republicans joined the Black Caucus in opposing the bill. That small number is discouraging.
New Orleans Rep. Joseph Bouie, who is chairman of the House Black Caucus, said many lawmakers admitted they were “holding their nose” to vote for the bill. So, they knew it was bad legislation.
Interestingly, no member spoke in favor of the bill except for Rep. Carmody. As he put it: If people “feel like they’re being hated upon by a monument, they have the right to put it up for a vote and let the public decide.” That is a callous response.
City or parish officials might decide to put the question of removing a monument up to a public vote. There is nothing to stop them from doing that.
But what Rep. Carmody wants to do is require local officials to hold a referendum whether or not they think it is necessary. The state shouldn’t dictate what a city or parish does with its own property. Lawmakers voting for this bill are being obstructionists.
New Orleans is almost done taking down four Confederate monuments the City Council voted in December 2015 to remove. The city has moved statues to Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard and the Liberty Place monument to white supremacists who attacked the city’s Reconstruction-era integrated police force. The statue of Robert E. Lee will come down soon.
In Rep. Carmody’s home base of Shreveport, the first of four public hearings has been held to discuss the fate of a monument called the Last Confederate Flag. The city appointed a committee of residents to look at what, if anything, should be done with the monument at the Caddo Parish Courthouse.
Rep. Carmody appears committed to saving symbols of the Old South. He sponsored legislation last year that would have set up a state panel with the power to overrule local officials’ decisions on relocating monuments. That bill died.
This one should die, too. Fortunately, Senate President John Alario assigned the bill to an unfriendly committee, so odds are it will die there.
New Orleans went through a six-month public process leading up to the City Council vote on the monuments, including hearings before the Historic District Landmarks Commission and Human Relations Commission. There have been several court rulings upholding the city’s right to move the monuments. “The Democratic process was exercised,” Rep. Bouie said.
Lawmakers also should consider the sentiments behind the monuments.
When the Jefferson Davis statue was dedicated in February 1911, The Daily Picayune wrote a lengthy editorial praising him and defending slavery. “Property in slaves was distinctly recognized in the Constitution, and the protection of that property by the National Government was guaranteed,” the editorial said.
Not only did the monuments honor men who fought for slavery, they have been symbols of the institutional oppression of black residents since the Civil War. New Orleans and Shreveport are majority black cities, and the monuments are painful to many people. Members of the Black Caucus expressed those emotions but were ignored.
Trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard went to City Park Tuesday night to watch the removal of the statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at the entrance to City Park. He attended high school nearby at John F. Kennedy Senior High School.
“This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime,” he said. “It’s a sign that the world is changing.”
The Confederate monuments have “always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us,” he said.
The statues are not reflective of the diversity and tolerance that are essential to New Orleans’ future. Mayor Landrieu and the City Council showed leadership in removing them from prominent locations in the city.
The process of moving the monuments in New Orleans is too far along for Rep. Carmody’s legislation to stop it. But leaders in Shreveport and other Louisiana cities may want to do away with old monuments.
They should be able to do that in their own way - not have the process forced on them by the state.
Online: https://www.nola.com/
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May 21
The Advocate on cuts to coastal funding:
With a decision of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a lawsuit brought by a New Orleans-area levee board appears to be at an end, but the legal issues involving the coast don’t end there.
That is because, despite the failure of the New Orleans suit, a few coastal parishes have also filed against oil companies on other legal issues related to long-term damages to the coast. Those lawsuits have a champion of sorts in Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has appointed former state Rep. Taylor Townsend of Natchitoches as the state’s legal quarterback on these issues.
However one parses the language, though, the 5th Circuit decision is not encouraging to those who believe that the courts will one day be a genie found on our diminishing shorelines, granting the state’s wish for billions of dollars for coastal protection projects. The 2013 lawsuit by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East was rejected in U.S. District Court because the board lacked legal standing to bring its damage claims, which could have cost the oil companies billions of dollars. That doesn’t mean there will never be a successful lawsuit, but the board enjoyed some public support because it argued that damage to the coast done by decades of drilling and canal dredging by energy companies contributed to the loss of coastal wetlands.
“Our position remains validated by yet another court decision, further proving these allegations are baseless and without merit,” Chris John, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, said after the court ruling.
The industry is not home free, perhaps, in legal terms. But in another case, the settlement against BP and other oil and drilling operators, did bring billions to Louisiana over the next decade or so for coastal work. But as the new coastal master plan shows, billions more will be needed.
The BP settlement funds and a relatively few federal grants every year, considerable dollars in matching funds and sweat equity from state planners and engineers, are the bulk of the funding formula so far. We probably won’t get to $50 billion, even over the coming decades, without some additional support from the U.S. government, along the lines of Everglades and Chesapeake Bay rescue efforts, or even greater.
If the legal questions may be murky, the moral question is much less so. Over decades, the U.S. government channelized the Mississippi River to prevent floods and promote commerce, all good ideas. The levees had the unintended consequence of eliminating the good floods, the traditional means that the Almighty created to spread sediments from the river into the marshes.
Today’s engineering challenges are in large part to seek diversions to mimic the old impact of river sediments. Those are expensive projects, resulting in such a big price tag. The mid-Barataria diversion project, part of the new master plan, clocks in at $1.4 billion alone.
But the money to build diversions and other coastal improvements will probably require another substantial revenue source, rather than waiting on a lawsuit. Despite the 5th Circuit ruling, there may be a successful lawsuit one day, but the coast really cannot count on that.
Online: https://www.theadvocate.com/
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