HANDICAPPING THIS YEAR’S GOVERNOR’S RACE!

Monday, May 1^st, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

HANDICAPPING THIS YEAR’S GOVERNOR’S RACE!

 

     Alright! Alright!  I just know all your readers are anxious to find out my thoughts on the coming gubernatorial election.  We are five and a half months away from the first primary election date (October 14^th), with seven major candidates for governor having announced so far. Remember that Louisiana has this “jungle primary,” where all candidates, irrespective of party affiliation, run against each other at the same time.  So it’s possible for two candidates of the same political party to face each other in the general election that takes place on Saturday, November 18^th.

 

     Here is the conventional wisdom.  The runoff sems to be heading towards a two-man race between Democrat Sean Wilson and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry.  The reasoning? Wilson looks to be the only major Democrat running, and should coalesce a strong democratic vote. Landry started campaigning much earlier than the other candidates, has ramped up the state republican party nomination, and would seem to have gobs of money.  With Wilson running so strong, there would seem to be only one spot left for the other candidates.

 

     The skull duggery gets even murkier.  There are conspiracy theorists who claim that current governor John Bel Edwards does not object to such a scenario. He currently is strongly supporting Democrat Wilson. And he might not really object to a Landry-Wilson runoff.  Here’s the reasoning. 

 

     Right now the state is flush with money. Louisiana received 3.1 billion dollars in covid aid.  In fact, a watchdog group, The Committee for Fiscal Responsibility, issued a report that Louisiana has spent $47 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding from all sources. Then there is the BP oil spill money.  The Bayou State’s share of these funds comes to $6.8 billion.  Combined, this is a lot of moula that has been spent during the Governor’s current term.

 

     But alas, all these additional funds are coming to an end.  So the next governor is going to face major headaches in dealing with the state’s money problems over the next few years. So what happens at the end of Landry’s four-year term?  Does ole’ John Bel come roaring back?  Hummm!

 

     There is only one problem with this scenario. The election is over five months away; a lifetime in state politics.  The Wilson-Landry scenario might hold water for now. But what happens as the election draws closer? No one knows better than yours truly how quickly candidates can rise and fall.

 

     A few of you old timers might remember that I ran for governor in 1987. It was a crowded field made up of a number of well qualified candidates.  Governor Edwin Edwards was running for reelection, and was challenged by Republican Congressman Bob Livingston, Democratic Congressman Billy Tauzin, Democratic Congressman Buddy Roemer, former Congressman Speedy Long, and then there was me.  Conventional wisdom was that Edwin Edwards was in the runoff, with either Livingston, Tauzin or myself. Roemer was running way low in the polls, and was considered out of the picture.

 

     In fact, I was running a close second to Edwards in a poll conducted by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, just three weeks out from election day.  Roemer came out of nowhere with clever TV commercials saying he was going to scrub the budget and brick up the top two floors of the education department.  He ended up surging to the head of the pack, leading the first primary field and forcing then Governor Edwards out of the race.  So with six months to go until election day, the race is still fluid and so much can happen right up to the end. Nobody knows this better than me.

 

     There is a solid field of candidates for governor as well as other statewide offices.  Many voters have been complaining about the direction the state has taken for a number of years. If you don’t support and vote for your candidate in this year’s election, you really give up your right to complain.

 

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. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

 

 

CAN YOU RIG VOTING MACHINES IN LOUISIANA?

Monday, April 24^th, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

CAN YOU RIG VOTING MACHINES IN LOUISIANA?

 

   Election officials across the country are being besieged over allegations of election fraud.  The major charge by those buying into the voter conspiracy is that voting machines can be and have been regularly hacked to manipulate state elections.  The pinnacle of the hacking claims is that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has infiltrated voting machine software to control election outcomes.  I guess it does not matter that Chavez has been dead for many years.

 

   And how about the MyPillow guy Mike Lindell?  He has formed a new “weed out the election fraud” group that charges: “Most secretaries of state are corrupt and should all be replaced. They let our country be taken through computers.”

 

   Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has had enough.  He said he’s had his fill of “pervasive lies that have eroded trust in our elections, by using conspiracies so far-fetched that they belong in a work of fiction.”  He then announced he would not be a candidate for re-election this fall.

 

   So what’s going on, particularly here in Louisiana?  Can state computers be hacked?  Can the election process be manipulated?  Is there widespread election fraud as many questioners like the MyPillow guy and others allege?  I may be a pretty good source to give you an opinion. I did serve for eight years as Secretary of State, the chief elections officer.  So let me go back a few years to tell you how elections were in my day.

 

   Elections in the 70sand 80s generally took place without a hitch.  When I first took office in 1980, there was so much public confidence in the elections process that the clerks of court shut down their offices when the polls closed. The only way the news media could report the election results was by having a stringer reporter hang out at the clerk’s office and write down the results as the court workers hand-delivered the ballot totals.  I changed this procedure by meeting with the clerks, and getting their commitment that they would call me in Baton Rouge at the Secretary Of State's office to report the voting totals by telephone.

  

   Life seemed so much simpler then. My how our country has changed.  Unfortunately, manipulation of voting machines, widespread voter fraud, crooked elections officials, and foreign hacking have all become a rallying point for those who see conspiracies as our current election cycle rolls around.

 

   Alright, so how about now.  Are Louisiana elections rigged?  Can voting machines be hacked, particularly the new Dominion machines the Secretary of State is proposing that the state acquire?  According to every legitimate watchdog group and the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office, the answer is no.  And I would agree.  I just have seen no evidence that anything improper is taking place in the state’s election process.  The major criticism seems to be coming from candidates associated with former President Trump. But Trump carried the state by one of the largest margins in the nation.  And republicans picked up a number of new offices in Louisiana.

 

   The most recent validation of the system comes from the Fox News lawsuit settlement.  Commentators on Fox continued to allege voter fraud, and cited numerous problems in the use of Dominion voting machines that, according to these commentators, were easy to hack. But internal Fox texts and emails showed that they actually believed there was no such irregularities.  Just last week, Fox settled with Dominion for $787 million.  Fox also acknowledged that the Dominion machines were not hacked.  The new Dominion voting machines are under consideration now for possible use in Louisiana.

 

   Personally, it’s hard for me to buy into such schemes of election manipulation.  But we are living in a different world today where claims of crooked elections have become a way for candidates to raise campaign money. And like it or not, allegations of voting fraud will be a part of numerous elections across the country come this fall, including right here in the Bayou State.  So we better get used to it.

 

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. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RICHARD IEYOUB-A CLASS PUBLIC OFFICIAL!

Monday, April 17^th, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

RICHARD IEYOUB-A CLASS PUBLIC OFFICIAL!

Former three term Attorney General Richard Ieyoub passed away last week at the age of 78.  He was currently serving as Louisiana’s commissioner of conservation, overseeing the regulation of all oil and gas activities in the state.  Richard and I were both good friends, and we also worked together on a number of major state problems.

 The year 1991 was a crossroads year for both of us.  Four years earlier, while serving as secretary of state, I lost a close race for governor and joined a Dallas law firm.  As election time approached four years later, I was eyeing a comeback for one of several statewide elected offices.  One such office was Attorney General.  I felt qualified for the office as an attorney, the named director of one of Texas’s largest law firms, and having been elected twice for both secretary of state and state senator.

At the time, Richard was serving as district attorney the lake Charles area, and was popular in Southwest Louisiana. He too was eyeing the office of Attorney General, but knew I had a much broader base statewide.  We had several long phone calls weighing both our political futures. I finally opted to run for insurance commissioner, giving Richard a wide opening to be elected Attorney General.  Both of us were elected to those respective offices in the 1991 statewide election.

Once I was sworn in, I realized I faced a dysfunctional office that needed a major overhaul. In the coming months, I shut down over 40 busted insurance companies. I called on Richard week after week to give me his legal advice, and for him to assist in making numerous criminal referrals to the Justice Department.  We often campaigned together during the next two election cycles, attending a number of fairs and festivals and coordinating our efforts to get out the vote on election day.

Richard compiled quite a record in his three terms is Attorney General.  He did not shy away from controversial issues and took on major tobacco companies obtaining major settlements for the state. He helped my office form a consumer protection division, and was actively involved in a number of landmark civil rights cases.

In later years, we joined the same health club here in Baton Rouge, and we always took a break to talk about state politics.  We both were glad to be away from the elected public fire, and felt sorry for some of our friends who were in public office and who were being attacked often from both right wing conservatives and left wing liberals.  Richard told me: “Trying to serve the public is just not rewarding or fun anymore.”  How true.

Richard was a devoted Catholic, rarely missing Mass and making regular retreats to the Catholic religious haven at Manresa.  Shortly before he died, I told him I was attending the traditional Catholic Mass in Latin at Saint Agnes Catholic Church in downtown Baton Rouge.  He told me he was interested, and wanted to come along on a future Sunday. Unfortunately, he never got the chance.

General Ieyoub (I always called him that in front of a crowd or when I had not seen him in a while) was a decent, family loving, hard working and honest guy.  He donated one of his kidneys to his ailing brother. He should have been governor of Louisiana, just missing out in quite a close race.  Louisiana is a better place because of Richard.  I was both glad and honored to call him my ally and my friend.

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. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

LOUISIANA LEGISLATURE OFFERS FEW PROPOSALS FOR INSURANCE CRISIS!

Friday, April 14^th, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

 

LOUISIANA LEGISLATURE OFFERS FEW PROPOSALS FOR INSURANCE CRISIS!

 

The Louisiana legislature begins its annual session this week, and insurance proposals will certainly be on the front lawmaking burner.  The current insurance commissioner made a really insightful statement last week. “We are currently in the midst of an insurance crisis,” Duh, you think?  An insurance crisis that has been going on in Louisiana for over fifteen years, about as long as Rip Van Winkle was asleep, and it would seem that the Department of Insurance and the legislature are just waking up to the fact.

 

One of the proposals is to pour more state tax dollars into an incentive fund to attract more insurance companies into the state.  When asked about this idea, the reaction for our U.S. Senator John Kennedy was: “We tried that one.  It blew up in our face.”  The Senator is right. In a special session a few months ago, the legislature handed 42 million dollars over to the insurance department.  Few companies applied for the funds, and the majority that did took the tax dollars then went belly up. Now the department is asking for an additional $20 million for more incentives.  So expect more bankruptcies.

 

Here is a partial list of proposed new laws.  (Notice that I did not say proposed new bills.  A bill is something I get in the mail for a purchase of service.  Why do these insurance officials and legislators speak in gibberish?) 

 

Under another proposal, Insurance companies could demand that policyholders have to go get a notarized sworn statement before they could even file a claim. So a family is devastated by a hurricane with no local services available and searching for cover over their heads.  Before they can even get even basic help from their insurance company, they have to travel to who knows where to find a notary and also find an attorney or someone else to prepare a sworn proof of loss form, then hope the post office has not been shut down, send the form to the insurance company, and wait and wait to hear back. What a terrible piece of legislation, that is proposed to let the company delay any payment.

 

Then there is another effort to shore up this state-run Citizens Property Insurance Company.  You will remember that Senator John Kennedy has said the Citizens was the worst, mismanaged company in the state back when he was state treasurer.  The insurance department wants to prohibit any policyholder from receiving bad-faith fines when Citizens continues its habit of ignoring policyholders and failing to pay claims timely.  Sen. Kennedy was right. Citizens has been a disaster from the get-go and should be abolished.  It ought to tell us something that no other state has a state-run company like Citizens.

 

Policyholders need to keep the guard up when told by legislators that these proposed changes are going to keep insurance rates from going up.  Remember it was two years ago when the legislature approved so called tort reform that the insurance commissioner promised would reduce auto insurance rates by 25%.  So what happened?  Have you checked your policy lately?  Rather than rates going down, big rate increases continue to take place. Legislators were sold a bill of goods and they bought right into it.  Now policy holders are paying the price.  A Big price.
  

There are a few other proposals being offered by the insurance commissioner and legislators but most of them are little more than putting a finger in a collapsing dyke. So are there any significant changes that could be make outside of praying for no hurricanes?  Yes, and I have listed a number of ideas in past columns. But the single most import concept is to have the Governor join in with other Gulf Coast state governors to form a joint insurance pool. Louisiana has huge weather exposure but is just too small to go it alone.

 

None of this is original or rocket science. It’s a matter of emphasis. And the Governor obviously has to become involved. In all but twelve states, the Insurance Commissioner is appointed. So congress will look to Governors to aggressively pursue these important concepts. There are ways to resolve this major insurance crisis. But it will take more focus and much stronger leadership. 

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. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.

 

 

 

 

A LOUISIANA GAL GOT TRUMP INDICTED!

Monday, April; 3^rd, 2023

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

A LOUISIANA GAL GOT TRUMP INDICTED!

 

Whenever a major public event takes place in the news, there always seems to be a Louisiana connection. The initial shot that began the Civil War was fired at Ft. Sumpter by a St. Bernard parish confederate General named Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard. The first family of football?  The Mannings of course from New Orleans.  Las Vegas entertainment? A Kentwood girl names Brittney Spears is always the biggest draw.  We might also put in that same category Louisiana rocker Jerry Lee Lewis from my hometown of Ferriday.

 

Now, former president Donald Trump is facing criminal charges that involve a Baton Rouge gal named Stormy Daniels. For the first time in history, an American president has been indicted. This is a big deal. But let me get this straight.  With all the controversies supposedly involving the ex-president, from his inciting the January 6^th riots, interfering with Georgia elections, to withholding classified documents at Mar-a-Largo, he was indicted for paying off a porn star? Come on man!

 

As former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in a recent Wal Street Journal column, “Charging him (Trump) in the Stormy Daniels case is below us – not below him, below us. The subject matter is below us. The nature of the charges is below us. The players in the drama aren’t people of import who stand for big things. They are tacky lowlifes doing tacky lowlife things.”

 

Look, I’m not pro Trump or anti-Trump. I’m a registered independent.  I believe if you commit a crime, you should be held accountable.  But indicting a former president over his paying hush money to a porn star?  As the 1969 Peggy Lee song asks, “Is that all there is?”

 

Remember that the current charges are not federal crimes. New York state law must be applied.  If Trump is charged with falsifying business records, that’s a misdemeanor.  He might also be accused of shielding a campaign donation so as not to allow the Stormy imbursement to become a campaign issue.  But his former lawyer previously testified that the payment was made through another Trump lawyer to hide it from his wife.  So the ex-president has a compelling defense that the hush – money paid out has nothing to do with his campaign, but was done so as not to embarrass his family. And if the payment was made through his lawyer, a solid defense could well be that he was acting under legal advice.

 

If the New York district attorney tries to prove that the payments were in fact campaign contributions, also remember that Trump was running for president in a federal election, which is not subject to New York campaign laws.  In fact, federal campaign statutes say specifically that federal law “supersedes and pre-empts any provision of state law with respect to election of a federal office.”  So prosecutors will have to explain how they can charge Trump under state law when federal law pre-exempts.

 

Stormy, our Louisiana gal, said she was involved with Trump back in 2006. That’s seventeen years ago.  The actual hush money payment of $130,000 was made in 2016. Would there not be a statute of limitations on such charges being brought?  In New York, there is a two-year statute of limitations for a misdemeanor and a five-year limit on felonies. And what about the fact that two previous New York district attorneys looked at the evidence and felt there was not enough to bring charges.  Also, Trump’s former lawyer plead guilty to several federal crimes involving Trump’s finances.  If Trump was also involved, why wasn’t he charged by the Feds?

 

Here’s the bottom line.  Neither Trump nor anyone else should be above the law.  But should this former president, who has not been charged under federal law, be indicted by a local district attorney under a seemly convoluted theory that has not been used against any other defendant?  It seems like common sense to consider any possible offenses against the nation. But charges involving Stormy? That seems more like an offense against his wife.  

 

I’m not saying all Trump did was legal.  But is justice really being served? Any citizen, whether it be you or me, and yes, even an ex-president, should have better legal protection than this.

 

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. You can also listen to his regular podcast at www.datelinelouisiana.com.