Despite the challenges at hand in Louisiana, lawmakers still made time this session for a number of issues that offered little to no fiscal salvation for the state, Jeremy Alford says in his latest column.
Those were the times, he writes, that Capitol watchers would recall the words of warning from Obi-Wan Kenobi in the inaugural Star Wars film: ‘I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.’
“Each session disturbance over the past two months, by comparison, helped silence the cries for budget and tax reform,” Alford writes. “Interestingly enough, the biggest distraction of the regular session actually was a tax reform proposal that carried Gov. John Bel Edwards’ endorsement.”
Alford notes that things did not end well for Edwards’ signature proposal—the commercial activity tax. He calls the time wasted by the administration and lawmakers on the bill “shameful” and the legislation’s widely-expected death “spectacular.”
“It’s a rare thing to see a sitting governor put so much political capital into such an ill-fated proposal,” he writes. “The bill’s conclusion was so predictable that even mainstream newspaper accounts were noting its expected demise before the first committee hearing was ever convened.”
Still, the bill wasn’t the only distraction for the Legislature this session. Alford writes that late in the session The Advertiser published an opinion piece calling for House Speaker Taylor Barras to step down from the lower chamber’s top leadership position.
The negative press sent several conservative groups running to Barras’ side in a collective defense, he says noting that even Louisiana Association of Business & Industry President and CEO Stephen Waguespack took to Twitter, writing, “What is his crime? For being a conservative leader of the independent House? That is a fireable offense in today’s Louisiana?”
“There’s no doubt that leaders should be constantly questioned and challenged,” Alford writes. “But, simply put, lawmakers didn’t need another reason this month to take their eyes off of the proverbial ball.”
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
