Louisiana Politics: Political pace in capital will soon pick up speed

Every step closer that’s taken toward Monday’s convening of the Legislature’s regular session will bring with it more details about complicated policy proposals and a greater sense of political urgency.
Lawmakers have been charged with closing a $440 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Gov. John Bel Edwards is also asking the House and Senate to address $1.2 billion in temporary taxes that are scheduled to expire in 2018.
That means rapid action and intense debate.
For starters, it appears as if the main budget bill may move more quickly throughout the process as compared to last year.
The House leadership and members of the Appropriations Committee say they’re committed to moving the budget bill to the Senate at or around the midpoint of the session to give the upper chamber more time with the document.
During a session that spans just 60 days, that will give the House roughly one month, or four weeks, to act on what the governor calls a $440 million budget hole.
Conservatives, who hold a majority in the House, believe the shortfall can be solved through cuts only, whereas the governor and what is probably the lion’s share of the Senate are open to increasing taxes.
While the larger planks in the governor’s session platform have been released — changes to sales taxes, income taxes and more — there are still a few loose threads that will be revealed in the coming days and weeks.
For example, missing from the governor’s plan debut last week was any mention of giving local governments more flexibility to raise revenue. But that doesn’t mean the issue won’t surface.
The governor will likewise be putting his support behind proposals to increase the gas tax and to modify the movie tax credit program. But Edwards did not include either in his official session plan.

Maness in mix for treasurer
There has been a name missing from the recent lists of potential Republican candidates for treasurer: retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness.
“It’s definitely on my radar but I haven’t made a final decision yet,” Maness said in an interview last week.
If Maness, who has run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate twice, gets in, it would further subdivide the GOP vote in a developing field that is dominated by Republicans with no marquee Democratic candidate.
Maness would be doing very few favors for Rep. John Schroder, who needs to keep St. Tammany whole and behind him.
Others who could qualify for the race include state Sen. Neil Riser; state Rep. Julie Stokes; Angele Davis, president of the Davis Kelley Group; and New Orleans attorney Derrick Edwards, the lone Democrat in the field who is new to politics.

Sheriff Miguez?
There’s chatter coming out of Iberia Parish about Rep. Blake Miguez, a Republican, considering a run for sheriff.
The first-term lawmaker said in an interview that he was surprised by how quickly word had spread. He also refused to rule it out.
Miguez appeared on the History Channel’s “Top Shot” and has qualified for the 2017 International Practical Shooting Confederation Handgun World Shoot, which will be held in August in Paris. He previously won a gold medal in 2011 when the competition was held in Greece.

Political history:
Roemer revolution
Last month marked the 29th anniversary (March 14, 1988) of the birth of the so-called Roemer Revolution — or, more specifically, the swearing in of Charles Elson “Buddy” Roemer III, Louisiana’s 52nd governor.
What certainly set Roemer apart from his counterparts was his decision in 1991 to switch from Democrat to Republican — making him the only governor in Louisiana history to swap out party labels while in office.
Roemer’s missteps in office, primarily his failure to convince the Legislature and voters to embrace his aggressive fiscal agenda, resulted in a third place finish in the 1991 governor’s race. As such, Roemer’s re-election campaign was forced to the sidelines for the “Race From Hell,” which pitted former klansman David Duke against Edwin Edwards.
Despite the defeat, Roemer went on to become a successful businessman in the private sector. He ran for governor unsuccessfully again in 1995 and flirted with a U.S. Senate bid before launching a presidential run in 2012 that focused on campaign finance reform.
Today, former Gov. Roemer is said to be working on a book about his life growing up on Scopena, his family’s plantation near Bossier City.

They said it
“I’m certainly not making many friends and am potentially losing a lot of donors.”
—Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, on his plan to attack exemptions and incentives, in The Advocate
“If the Legislature thought it could daydream its way through the session, it just got a wake up call.”
—Public Affairs Research Council President Robert Travis Scott, commenting on the governor’s session plan, in the USA Today Network of Louisiana
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Jeremy Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.
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