INSURANCE REFORM NEEDS MORE THAN DUMB TV ADS!

Thursday, October 28th, 2020 Baton Rouge, Louisiana INSURANCE REFORM NEEDS MORE THAN DUMB TV ADS! Like most of you, I’ve had my fill of political ads and trial lawyer solicitations that seem to be constantly appearing on TV. But you know what bothers me even more? I’m sick of seeing that goofy commercial of some dumb and disheveled looking guy talking to an ostrich. “You only pay for what you need,” so it goes. So just how much automobile insurance do you really need? Let’s say you’re driving down the road with your family in the car and are broadsided by an illegal immigrant with no insurance. There are many such unlicensed drivers in Louisiana today. The other driver is at fault. Your car is totaled, and both you and the other passengers in your vehicle are seriously injured. The medical bills alone could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And what about pain and suffering as well as loss of income. We’re now talking into the millions. Let’s ask the stupid guy with the mustache and his ostrich friend. How much do you need? Year in and year out, Louisiana drivers pay more for auto insurance than any other state in the nation. So the real question is not how much you need, but just how much you can afford? The cost to many policyholders is staggering. The Louisiana Legislature just completed a wide-ranging special session. Yet there was not one proposal or even a discussion about the outrageous cost of car insurance. Like the ostrich in the TV commercial, legislators stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the problem that is costing Louisiana drivers more than three billion dollars (not million but billion) in additional costs. And most of that additional premium is sent to insurance companies located outside the state. So local disposal income and spending is reduced by this three billion dollars. Drivers in Louisiana need major financial coverage for all the dangers of driving a vehicle in the Bayou State. But the failure of the legislature to see that current laws are enforced, and that penalties for dangerous driving ae increased, makes affordable insurance way out of reach for the average policyholder. Louisiana’s insurance mess is the result of numerous factors that include poor drivers, lax DUI enforcement, inferior highways, speeding, and substandard insurance regulation. So when you see the TV ads with the ostrich and the weird insurance salesman, remember that what you need in Louisiana is a heck of a lot more than most of us can afford. ******** I also wanted to let my readers know that we lost one of my favorite musical performers last week. Jerry Jeff Walker passed away at 78 years old. You don’t know this but I was the Louisiana president of the Jerry Jeff fan club. Jerry Jeff was a Texas country outlaw singer who spent a good bit of time and performed numerous concerts all over Louisiana. He teamed up with the likes of Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Billy Joe Shaver, and Kinky Friedman. His biggest hit was a Louisiana song called “Mr. Bojangles,” about an old street performer in New Orleans. My first Jerry Jeff concert was in 1982 at Armadillo World in Austin, a country music venue that held concerts nightly with an atmosphere something like the Flora-Bama beach bar in Gulf Shores, Alabama. There was a sign-up sheet to receive Jerry Jeff’s newsletter and become a member of his fan club. Of course, I joined up. A few days later, his assistant called to say Jerry Jeff was looking for a president of his fan club in Louisiana. I was secretary of state at the time, but I could always find a few moments to perform my fan club duties for a musical favorite. How could I turn down the author and singer of the southern anthem “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother?” When he performed in the Bayou State, I was usually in that number, and his staff always saw that I had a front row seat. It was obvious I had handled my responsibilities well. We will sure miss Jerry Jeff. Peace and Justice Jim Brown Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

WHAT WOULD YOU ASK THE CANDIDATES?

Thursday, October 22nd, 2020 Baton Rouge, Louisiana WHAT WOULD YOU ASK THE CANDIDATES? If you could sit down with each of the two presidential candidates, President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, what would you ask them? What insights would you be looking for? What knowledge would you expect them to have? And just how much difference do you think they could really make? Setting aside the coronavirus disease, the nation’s financial problems would most likely be at the top of anyone’s list. “It’s the economy, stupid,” said the Ragin’ Cajun, James Carville some years back. But can a president really make that much difference in solving the country’s economic woes? I tend to agree with a number of financial observers who say that no president has all that much influence on major economic change. Here’s what Austan Goolsbee, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers says: “I think the world vests too much power — certainly in the president, probably in Washington in general — for its influence on the economy, because most all of the economy has nothing to do with the government.” And Stephen Dunbar, author of the New York Times best seller on the U.S. economy, Freakonomics, agrees. In regard to the economy, “I believe that the office of the president of the United States, matters a lot less than most people think.” In a global economy, holding the president accountable for a country’s economic woes may be a good tactic for the political opposition, but don’t expect a “changing of the guard” to bring about any dramatic difference. “I’ll open up the jobs spigot, get millions working again, and lower gas prices to boot. Don’t think about it. Just read my lips.” Yeah, right! So if economic growth is subject to the whims of other world economies, just what else would you like to ask the president? I hope not the same old rhetorical questions that we have heard posed by the press in debate after debate. What would you “really” like to ask? How about: America has the highest total prison population in the world. By far. (My home state of Louisiana is, by large margin, number one.) Why is this so, and what can you and congress do about it? More laws you say. But the U.S. has more laws on its books than any other country. Over 5000 federal criminal laws alone. When the constitution was initially adopted, four crimes were listed. Four. Treason, bribery, piracy and counterfeiting. Are all these 5000 criminal laws now on the books necessary? Here are a few examples. Did you know that it is a federal crime to deal in the interstate transport of unlicensed dentures? For this you get one year in jail. How about a six-month jail sentence for pretending to be a member of the 4-H club? You can get six months for degrading the character of Woodsy Owl, or his associated slogan: “Give a hoot — don’t pollute.” Now down here in Louisiana, we love our rodeos to be orderly, and while we might frown on those who would disrespect that, we’d probably let him off the hook. Nevertheless, you’d better think twice about disrupting a rodeo – it’s a federal crime. Americans are the most obese people in the world and are getting fatter. And you and I, as taxpayers, are covering the billions in healthcare costs of this obesity epidemic. Does government have a role in determining eating lifestyles and what the food industry can produce and sell? Should nutrition requirements be set for school lunchrooms? It’s our tax dollars, and I say yes. Cut out the pizza and hot dogs. And trans fats? It’s poison. Get it out of all of our foods. Again, I’m sick and tired of having to pay the healthcare costs of so many irresponsible adults and the industries that produce and promote these seriously harmful foods. What do you say, Mr. President or President elect? So the question I would pose to the guy who wants to lead the free world and all of us for the next four years, do these issues concern you? How about taking a break from spending hundreds of millions of dollars beating up on your opponent and address these real problems, and our real concerns. Americans are a pretty savvy lot who realize that our way of life needs to change and that certain sacrifices have to be made. And they would like some answers from the next Commander in Chief. ******** Peace and Justice Jim Brown Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

TERM LIMITS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES?

Thursday, October 15th, 2020 Baton Rouge, Louisiana TERM LIMITS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES? Whatever the final result over the confirmation battle of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one thing is becoming more urgent. The court itself has a crisis of legitimacy. And one way to restore its genuineness is to require term limits for all future judges. The Supreme Court of old was more majestic with few periods of confrontation. Just a decade ago, 2/3rds of Americans had great confidence in the Court. No more. There’s trouble brewing in those marble temple walls. Confidence in the workings of the court and the Justices themselves have dropped to a mere 50% approval rating. And it should not be any surprise as to why the Supremes are held is such low esteem. They have become a partisan body, every bit as political as the other two branches of government. We saw such partisanship front and center in the Bush-Gore election decision and in the court’s blessing of Obamacare. Five to four split decisions are becoming the norm with Republican appointees voting one way and their Democratic counterparts voting just the opposite. No more moderates or progressives on the court. Just jurists who are either hard right or hard left. The writers of the constitution never envisioned such partisanship. The nation’s founding fathers imagined a court made up of legal sages, devoid of the political pressures experienced by congress and the president. Justices of the past seemed to relish in their image of being independent and simply interpreting the law as written. Current Chief Justice John Roberts made a vain attempt to enunciate such a balanced philosophy at his confirmation hearings back in 2005 when he told the Senate judiciary Committee: “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire. Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.” So justices are not influenced by their own personal opinions? Good luck with that. Partisanship has never been so extreme. Judge Kavanaugh was never going to receive any democratic support from the day he was nominated. And republicans in the senate refused to even consider or hold a hearing on President Obama’s last pick, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland. New justices taking office are well aware of their partisan supporters. And such awareness certainly affects their view of becoming activists by extending or even creating the law, rather than merely interpreting it as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. So why term limits? For a starter, no other democracy in the world gives life tenure to a sitting judge. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any other profession that makes appointments for life. Sure, the constitutional scholars back in the 1770s crated lifetime appointments. But remember that the average life span back then for a U. S. citizen was 35 years. Chief Justice Roberts endorsed term limits back in 1983 when he stated: “Setting a term of, say, 15 years would ensure that federal judges would not lose all touch with reality through decades of ivory tower existence.” And that’s an important point. The court has, too often, been occupied by aging justices who habitually seem disengaged form the world surrounding them. You would think that the court should have dynamism and consistency that a rotation of new judges would bring. It’s hard to breathe new life into a court that bases its make up on actuarial tables and the luck of the draw as to who lives the longest. Under the current system, a president can only serve in office for eight years yet can appoint a Justice or judge who can stay on the bench for 40 year or more. One term of say 16 years makes sense. Poll after poll show that voters want term limits for judges. With all the controversy in Washington over who ends up on the court, now seems like a good time to consider such a change. Peace and Justice Jim Brown Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

GOV. MIKE FOSTER LEFT AN INSURANCE LEGECY!

Thursday, October 8^th, 2020

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

GOV. MIKE FOSTER LEFT AN INSURANCE LEGECY!

 

There is no place like Louisiana on this earth, and I think that when my days are over, I’ll find heaven to be no different from Louisiana – maybe a little bit cooler in the summer.

Governor Mike Foster

 

Governor Foster passed away last week, leaving a legacy of numerous positive accomplishments during his time in public life.  I worked closely with the governor on a number of important issues during the time I served as Insurance Commissioner. 

 

Fly fishing, and insurance problems involving Governor Foster converged one spring day when I was vacationing at our family home in the North Carolina Mountains.  Some years back, I went there over Mardi Gras. One morning, I was at Faye’s General Store drinking coffee around 7:30 a.m. when the phone rang. One of the locals picked it up and told me that Governor Mike Foster was calling.  Now, remember, it’s 6:30 a.m. in Louisiana, and it’s Mardi Gras. I thought it was wife Gladys playing a joke on me.

 

But, no, it was the governor on the line. “Jim, Mike Foster. Got a minute?”

 

“Morning, Governor. You sure know how to run a fellow down, don’t you?”

 

“I called Gladys, she told me you’d gotten out early. I don’t want to disturb your fishing, but I just want to talk a little insurance with you.”

 

My coffee drinking companions at Faye’s had a hard time believing that the Louisiana governor would call me up in the North Carolina Mountains at the crack of dawn on a state holiday to discuss insurance business.

 

While still in the state senate, Governor Foster had created the Louisiana Worker’s Compensation Corporation to help small businesses that were having trouble finding insurance coverage for their employees. Even as governor, he was concerned about a healthy insurance climate. 

 

Let me share a story of how effective an aggressive governor can be.  Under the old system of setting automobile insurance rates, the governor appointed a six-member insurance rating commission.  Insurance companies had to appear before the commission and make their case for any rate increase.  As insurance commissioner, I served as chairman of the commission.  The system provided a good check and balance.

 

State Farm Insurance Company asked the commission for a major rate increase in December 1997.  Governor Foster called me and asked that I convey to the members that he wasn’t for any rate increase, particularly as the holidays were approaching.  I told the commissioners of the Governor’s concerns, but State Farm did a major lobbying job of wining and dining them.  In spite of joint objections from both the Governor and me, the commission unanimously approved the State Farm rate increase. 

 

The next morning around 6:30 a.m. my phone rang.  “Jim, Mike Foster.  Sorry to bother you so early, but I have one question.  Did you tell my appointed commissioners of my concern that no rate increase should be given to State Farm?”  I told him, yes, I had conveyed his message to each of the six commissioners. “Thanks, that’s all I needed.”

 

Three hours later, Governor Foster called a press conference and fired all six commissioners.  An insurance company needs to have a fair rate in order to stay in business.  But gouging the property owner without justification is not fair to the insured, and bad for economic growth in the state.

 

The Legislature, the governor and the insurance department could learn a good lesson from the Foster years.  Be fair, but don’t let rate increases take place at a company’s whim.  Policyholders  were better served under  Mike Foster.

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

 

 

 

 

LOUISIANA IGNORED IN SUPREME COURT PICK!

Saturday, October 3rd, 20120

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

LOUISIANA IGNORED IN SUPREME COURT PICK!

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”                                                  -Edmund Burke

Before the President made his choice this week for a new nominee to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, the White House undertook a nationwide search.  There were parameters.  The pick was certain to be a woman. But by even the widest stretch of standards to be met by any nominee, one thing was pretty clear from the start.  No judge serving on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals located in New Orleans was given the slightest consideration.

Being a federal court of appeals judge has become almost a prerequisite to ascending up to the Supreme Court.  Every present judge on the Court was elevated from the federal court of appeals system.  So one would think the seven women on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, all from either Louisiana or Texas, would have been given a perusal review.  No way say the close court watchers. Their qualifications or lack thereof, speak for themselves.

Here are just a few of the reasons why judges on the Fifth Circuit are held in such low esteem.  Former chief judge Edith Jones received international notoriety a few years back when she ruled that a fellow named Calvin Burdine, convicted of murder and sentenced to death row, received a fair trial even though his court appointed lawyer slept through a good bit of the trial. Her colleague on the Fifth Circuit, Judge Priscilla Owen, also has a colorful and controversial list of questionable decisions.  Times Picayune columnist James Gill outlined a litany of dubious rulings in a recent column, when he cited one example of Owens “setting on a case so long that a quadriplegic kid’s respirator failed before he could collect a dime of the $30 million awarded by a jury against Ford Motor Co. several years earlier.”

 

And then there is Judge Edith Clement.  Numerous press reports immerged where Clement was called everything from a “Secrecy Freak” to a “Closet Fascist.”  News articles also appeared questioning her judgment in taking free trips (called junkets for judges) paid for by conservative foundations that fund lawsuits that could end up in Clements’ court.  The New Orleans Times Picayunereferred to one of her decisions as being “patently un-American.”

 

The Fifth Circuit regularly leads all appeals courts throughout the country in its decisions being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.  In an expose’ of the Fifth Circuit’s recent rulings, the Times Picayune quoted both Justices on the Supreme Court as well as prominent law professors who regularly lambasted verdicts handed down in New Orleans.  University of Houston law professor David Dow said it seems clear that the Supreme Court “has lost confidence in the Fifth Circuit’s handling of capital cases.”  And Justice Sandra Day O’Conner was equally blunt in criticizing the Fifth Circuit saying it was “paying lip service to principles of jurisprudence,” and that often the Fifth’s reasoning “has no foundation in the decisions of this court."

It’s a shame for those who have to deal with the Fifth Circuit that its standing is so soiled, and that the reputation of some of its members has degenerated to the point of such serious criticism.  During the civil rights era, Louisiana federal judges like John Minor Wisdom, J. Skelly Wright and Albert Tate were held in high regard nationally.  Their work was admired and quoted in the nation’s best law schools.  But with such a mediocre judicial stature today, Louisiana won’t be in the running for one of its own to move up to the nation’s highest court.

Federal court watchers have a name for federal judges who lack the scholarship, the temperament, the learning, and are simply in the wrong occupation.  They are called “gray mice.” It seems pretty obvious that the Fifth circuit Court of Appeals is full of such critters.  Unfortunately, there is not much, short of impeachment, the discipline system can do about them.  But the court’s continuing incompetence places one more stain on the reputation of Louisiana. 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.