Can Louisiana Democrats Pass this Test?

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama and his advisers believe they can pick up electoral votes in the South in this fall's presidential election.

The article takes a somewhat skeptical view of this strategy and quotes a strategist or two not connected with the Obama campaign to explain why this won't work.

Obama is right. And, Louisiana can be one of the states that move back into the Democratic column when the Electoral College meets to elect the next president.

Here's the bit of the story that jumped out at me:

In 1996, for example, Mr. Clinton got the votes of 36 percent of Southern whites and 87 percent of Southern blacks, and carried 5 of the 13 Southern states.

There are two things that are relevant in that sentence. The first is that Louisiana was one of those five Southern states that Bill Clinton carried — he did it twice (1992 and 1996). He is also the last Democratic presidential candidate to spend media and campaign money in Louisiana after the nominating convention. Is it just a coincidence that no Democrat since Clinton has been elected president?

The other part that jumps out is that the percentage of votes that Clinton got from Southern white and blacks fits the broad outlines of the modern Democratic formula for statewide success in Louisiana. The formula, established by Edwin Edwards and proven by other Democrats in the nearly 40 years since it was established is this: a Democrat needs to carry about 90 percent of the African American vote and just a bit more than 30 percent of the white vote in order to win election.

This formula has broken down somewhat in recent years as a string of increasingly conservative Democratic candidates emerged via the open primary system. Over time, the appeal of these candidates among Democratic African American voters has waned as the perception arose that white candidate pledges of responsiveness to the interests of these voters was rhetoric, at best.

This has fed a resentment among African American voters towards white candidates that manifests itself in distrust ("why do they only come around here during election time?") or indifference as expressed in declining voter turnout among African Americans in state elections.

African American turnout has not fallen as precipitously in federal elections, in part because the lines between the parties are more sharply drawn at the federal level than in state politics.


Louisiana voters (white and black) care more about who gets elected president than we do about who gets elected governor, as turnout in presidential elections runs 15 percent higher than elections for governor. Could it be that our open primary system, which was supposed to polarize our politics on the extremes, has actually watered down out politics to the point of diluting it of meaning? If voter turnout is an indicator, there may be something to this line of thought.

A Historic Moment

Whatever else might be said about the upcoming election it is that this will not be politics as usual. Barack Obama is the first African American to become the nominee of a major party in this country. His campaign and its message have inspired African Americans to turnout in primaries in record number. But, his appeal has not been built on race and that is why his campaign has succeeded where other African American campaigns for president in the Democratic Party have not.

But, the question at hand is this: Can Barack Obama carry Louisiana this fall?

Judging by the numbers that Bill Clinton drew and by the outlines of the traditional Louisiana Democratic formula for victory, the answer is a resounding "Yes!"

Yes, we can put Louisiana's nine electoral votes in the Obama column.

No doubt African American turnout in Louisiana will be at historic levels. Voter registration among African Americans has been growing all year. Concerted efforts are underway to push those numbers still higher as the historic opportunity becomes clear.

The real test, though, will be for white Louisiana Democrats. As everyone knows, a high percentage of whites who are registered Democrats rarely vote for people carrying the party label. Why these people continue to cling to the label of a party to which they have such tenuous connections (if not outright disdain) is beyond the scope of this piece, but might well earn someone a Ph.D.

But, can Obama attract the votes of about 1/3 of white voters in order to carry our state as Edwin Edwards, John Breaux, Kathleen Blanco and Bill Clinton did? Or, put the other way, have about 1/3 of the white voters in this state moved beyond the prejudices that are loose in our culture and can they then bring themselves to vote to elect Barack Obama president of the United States?

This is the test of our party and its leadership at this historic moment.
Work To Be Done

As we have seen in recent weeks, there is substantial tension in the party between African American office holders and the party leadership over the perceived preference the party gives to white candidates in campaigns where African American candidates are also running. The current flash points are the 4th and 6th congressional districts where there is virtual parity between white and black registered Democratic voters in those districts (see June voter registration figures below).


The party's decision to open the newly re-established party primary system in federal elections to independents and minor party voters has had the effect of tilting the racial balance in those primaries in favor of whites since independents and small party voters are predominantly white.

We'll know by July 11 whether prominent African American lawmakers Lydia Jackson and Michael Jackson decide to run as independents in the 4th and 6th districts respectively. Doing so would guarantee them spots on the November 4 general election ballot. It would also likely guarantee the election of Republicans to each of those seats. The 6th is held by newly elected Congressman Don Cazayoux. The 4th is an open seat that has a real chance of moving into the Democratic column, but not unless the some kind of accommodation can be made in that district.

In the 7th District, State Senator Donald Cravins, Jr., has declared his candidacy as a Democrat for that congressional seat.

Ultimately, the party must prevent the splintering of its traditional coalition or doom Obama's electoral chances here. The collapse of this coalition would shatter the party and inflict deep — and possibly irreparable — harm.

With African Americans constituting something like 45.71 percent of registered Democrats and (based on the voting behavior of white Democrats) a higher percentage of people who actually vote for Democrats, the end of that coalition will mean the end of the Democratic Party as we know it in Louisiana.

Renewing Our Coalition

In sports, franchises can achieve greatness, fall from the pinnacle and rebuild over time. The New York Yankees, Boston Celtics, and New York Giants are franchises that have done this repeatedly over the decades. The teams and their fans carry the same banner, but the make up of the teams changes over time reflecting changes in the game, the aging of players, and changes in coaching and even ownership.

Louisiana Democrats find ourselves at the lower end of the cycle now, but the path back upward, toward consistent electoral success at the local and state level is clear. We must renew the political coalition that has served us so well, but it must include the willingness of white Democratic contributors as well as voters to wholeheartedly support African American Democratic candidates — just as African American voters wholeheartedly supported Democratic standard bearers in our illustrious past.

The future of this party depends white Democrats getting into the habit of casting their ballots for African American candidates in offices up and down the ballot. If enough of us can get into the habit of doing that, we can not only put Louisiana back in the national Democratic Party column, we can get our party back in the habit of regularly winning elections up and down the ballot all across this state.

We can do this only if we can prove that our coalition is something worth preserving; that it is something more than a one-way street working for the benefit of white Democrats but does not respond to the aspirations of African American political leaders and the people they represent.

The Heart of the Matter

This gets us right to the heart of the matter: race.

It is no accident that the Democratic Party is the party where the first African American presidential nominee has emerged. It was, after all, the Republican Party under Richard Nixon that developed its "Southern Strategy" of exploiting Southern white racial resentment to the Civil Rights movement and the end of segregation. It is a strategy that has been the Republican Party's basic playbook for national politics since 1968.

Barack Obama could only emerge as the nominee of the Democratic Party because our party has been the party of racial inclusion harking back to the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Because Republicans have used race as a tool to divide people for their political advantage, they are not capable of dealing with the impact of racial division in anything other than a politically calculating way.

But, the days are gone when being "not a Republican" was good enough to be considered a good Democrat. The times demand that being a Democrat mean something in the affirmative. That affirmation is a deep and abiding commitment to true multi-racial politics. That means white Democrats electing blacks to office even in districts where whites still hold a majority. It happened here in Lafayette Parish in the District One parish council election of 2007. It can happen anywhere.

It needs to happen in the 7th Congressional District this fall.

As we move deeper into the 21st century, America faces many great challenges. Louisiana, because we trail the nation so badly in so many categories, is doubly challenged. That is not cause for despair, but it is reason to recognize that if we are going to break the bonds that tie us to such this legacy of failure, we will need to draw on the capabilities and talents over every Louisianan.

We can no longer afford the luxury of our prejudices. Because of the history of the two political parties on matters of race over the past half century, only Democrats are capable of delivering that message — and, in so doing, delivering Louisiana into a new era.

Democrats across the country voted in primaries and caucuses to deliver that message. By huge majorities, we rejected racism and we rejected sexism. We declared ourselves ready to redefine our party and our politics. We voted to move into a new era bound not by the politics of fear but inspired by the audacity of hope.

The Choice Before Us

Now, the general election campaign is upon us. White Louisiana Democrats now have a choice to make. We can try to cling to the vestiges of a failed past and find some lame excuse not to embrace Obama's historic candidacy (and, in the process, recommit our nation to another four years of Republican corrupt failure and neglect). Or, we can rise to the occasion, seize the opportunity to launch our nation, our state and our party into a new era of forward looking consensus building.

This test will measure whether white Louisiana voters who call themselves Democrats have truly rejected the Republican siren call of race-based politics. Or, has it just been a game we could play to our advantage because whites and blacks had "their own" political safe zones?

The future of the Democratic Party in Louisiana depends on whether white Democrats can pass this test. For our party to have a future, it must be like the Obama campaign: multi-ethnic, inclusive, and transparent.

Are we up to it?

We're about to find out.

Bush's Energy Policy: A Lie and a Smear

Bush's Energy Policy: A Lie and a Smear

President Bush's June 18 statement on energy policy was the latest inthe continual series of low points comprising his administration. After eight years of failing to develop an effective and sustainableenergy policy (six of them with a compliant Republican Congress), his answer to the nation's energy dilemma is to claim that high prices are the Democrats' fault. Even Mr. Bush knows that this is a lie. Oil and gas are products in a global market, and their prices in the U.S. are reflections of that. Global demand for oil and gasoline has expanded exponentially over the past decade, while supplies have not. As usual, he hasn't read - or ignores - the reports that his own government's agencies have issued.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in February 2007 titled "Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production" (www.gao.gov/new.items/d07283.pdf). The GAO report cited the International Energy Agency's conclusion that most countries outside the Middle East have reached their peak in conventional oil production, or will do so in the near future (p.7).*

Whatever amount of price-gauging and speculation that is forcing up prices in the short term has gained traction because of the market's recognition of the fundamental shift in the energy picture that is underway. The U.S. can do little to control this global market - nor, interestingly, can the major oil companies, which the GAO report notes now account for only 22% of global production (p.25).

If the most pernicious fiction that the President conveyed was that current high prices are the result of the Democrats blocking energy proposals that he and the GOP have pushed for years, he did a further disservice to the country by trotting out those same "solutions" as a way to address the problem.

The three centerpieces of his proposal are:

1) Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and drilling - This has long been a goal of the GOP and the Bush-Cheneyadministration, but that doesn't make it a solution. The U.S.Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a recent report on the prospects of ANWR, which stated that "With respect to the world oil price impact, projected ANWR oil production constitutes between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030, based on the low and high resource cases, respectively. Consequently, ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices." (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/results.html.)

Note that the agency was directed to support the administration's agenda, so the report strives to give the most optimistic picture of potential reserves in the refuge, using the high end of estimates of oil that may lie there.

2) Drilling in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf currently off limits - The EIA has released a similar report to promote this option, but the analysts still have to convey some reality:

"The projections in the OCS access case indicate that [expanding] access... would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030... Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on
average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."
(www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html)

3) Expanding production from oil sands/shales - The White House statement of June 18 refers to the "incredible potential" of oil shales. The GAO report notes that 2005 worldwide production of oil sands, largely from Alberta, contributed approximately 1.6 million barrels of oil per day, and production is projected to grow to perhaps 3.5 million barrels per day by 2030.(p.20).
It's important to remember that global consumption is currently at about 80 million barrels a day, with the U.S. consuming about 20 million barrels per day. But the GAO report contains the reminder that production from oil sands causes significant environmental problems - it's very energy intensive, using large amounts of natural gas and water, and produces large amounts of toxic wastewater. The environmental effects in Canada have been serious, which raises the question of whether this is a worthwhile trade off, since by some estimates it takes as much energy to extract oil from the sands/shale deposits as we get out of them.

This suite of non-solutions, then, form the justification for the Bush smear on June 18. The background to the story is even sorrier. Energy analystMatthew Simmons has stated that he briefed Bush and his advisors about the "peaking" of global oil production during the 2000 campaign and during the early days of his administration when their energy policy was being developed.** You may recall Dick Cheney raising the dire prospect of energy shortages during the spring of 2001 when his secretive energy task force was meeting. Unfortunately, the centerpiece of their energy strategy turned out to be the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

We can look to the GAO report for the final nail in Bush-Cheney's coffin of failure: "there is no coordinated federal strategy for reducing uncertainty about [the peak of oil production]'s timing or [for] mitigating its consequences." We do, however, have an estimated $3 trillion dollar price tag for the occupation of Iraq.

There is no single answer, and certainly no easy one, for the energy dilemma. The oil that lies in the few areas of the U.S. now off limits is not insignificant, but it can't meet current levels of domestic use. We import over half our oil because domestic reserves can no longer meet that demand. Conserving more will save us money, but will not mean more oil in our future (unless we begin stockpiling, an option that also has obvious limitations), because oil on the global market not used in the U.S. will be grabbed by other consumers such as India and China. In an era of high prices, however, conservation will be a necessity. Reality-based planning for a changing energy system will be another necessity - something that Bush and the GOP apparently despise. But their cynical use of non-solutions to a painful problem has become even less affordable.

* The GAO report also notes a cause for further concern - "Estimates of how much oil remains in the ground are highly uncertain because much of these data are self-reported and unverified by independent auditors... Some experts believe OPEC estimates of proven reserves to be inflated." This reflects the premise of Matthew Simmons' book"Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy." (http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches.)

**http://globalpublicmedia.com/matt_simmons_speaks_about_bush_iraq_and_more

Buddy Jindal

The Jindal administration could be about to come to a screeching halt due to an astounding bit of incompetence on behalf of the Governor and his staff. You see, it seems the Governor has failed to submit to the Senate for approval several hundred appointments he's made since becoming taking office in January. As a result, those appointments are considered temporary and will expire unless confirmations are rushed through!

Here's how The Baton Rouge Advocate reports it:

Every appointment that Gov. Bobby Jindal has made since he took office in January is in jeopardy because he has not forwarded their names for Senate confirmation.

The appointments by Jindal for 437 jobs — including his top aides — will no longer be valid and they will have to stop working as of June 23, when the legislative session adjourns, according to the state law governing the confirmation process.

Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman state Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, asked Jimmy Faircloth, the governor’s executive counsel, Wednesday to send the official list.

As of 5 p.m. Friday, the list still had not arrived.

The Senate cannot confirm Jindal’s appointees until the list arrives, Kostelka said.

Senator Kostelka has been busy trying to keep and extend a wall of secrecy around the governor and his staff and ensuring that the new ethics regime remains unworkable, but somehow this bit of essential government work just came to his attention.

Who's positions are at stake? Oh, no one important:

Jindal’s top staff, his Cabinet secretaries and other top state agency officials, as well as members of state boards and commissions are among those needing to be confirmed by the state Senate.

This is how the procedure has worked for years, or, at least, until Team Jindal landed on the Fourth Floor of the Capitol:

The Senate gets copies of commissions issued when appointments are made that are filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. But the law requires governors and other statewide officials, who make appointments, to submit lists of their picks to the Senate.

Other statewide officials have complied, according to Senate records.

Kostelka’s committee is charged with conducting confirmation hearings on the governor’s appointees as well as those of other statewide elected officials.

The panel is the screening committee for the full Senate.

The panel conducts background checks on the appointees to make sure there are no criminal, tax or other problems in their personal histories. In addition, the names are circulated among senators to see if the senators have a problem with any of the appointees. Senators can blackball an appointee.

Jindal did not respond to four requests for an interview placed through his press secretary, Melissa Sellers.

Denial is, apparently, a major river now flooding the Fourth Floor and threatening to drown all of Jindal's executive appointments.

The Jindal bubble is so tightly sealed that Kostelka felt compelled to have to go public with the information in the hope that someone on the Governor's staff might (accidentally) read the story in the paper and see the need for action.

Jindal's imperial style of governing — learned at the knee of Mike Foster but honed to a fine sheen serving in the Bush administration and the Congress — has little use for law, rules or limitations. Those are for suckers!

Jindal operates on a rarefied plane where he is always the smartest person in the room and others are always deferential. It appears that the Governor could benefit from having his bubble pierced and recognizing that, from time-to-time, he'll have to comply with the mundane rules that governed his merely human predecessors.

The Jindal administration's 'we're special, so we need special rules' attitude hasn't been seen in such stark display in Baton Rouge since the days of Buddy Roemer's administration. That kinship borne of arrogance might explain why the two (Jindal and Roemer) work so well together on behalf of John McCain. They are kindred spirits.

With time and luck, if Jindal keeps on his present path, he could well meet Roemer's fate of being a one-term governor.

A Smear Campaign! I'm honored!!!

Tonight, someone hiding behind the nom de plume "Michael Hahn" circulated an email alleging that I contributed to Republican Woody Jenkins' campaign in the 6th Congressional District. The email contained the image you see above, which purports to be a money order that I sent to the Jenkins campaign.

There is no doubt that Jenkins got the money. But the money did not come from me.

I have never voted for a Republican — nor ever contributed to a Republican campaign.

This is a smear campaign.

I guess this is my official welcome into Louisiana Democratic Party politics.

Thanks, "Mr. Hahn," for the honor!

To Build the Party, Close the Primary!

The following is the text of an email I sent to the members of the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee today regarding changing current party rules on who gets to vote in our party primaries in the upcoming federal elections. The research on voter registration that I did for this piece led me to make this call to limit voting in our party primary to registered Democrats only.

Dear Fellow Democrat,

I am writing you today on a matter of great urgency to our party.

As you know, qualifying for the federal election cycle is early this year due in no small part to the fact that — for the first time in decades — Louisiana will use party primaries to determine the nominees of the two major parties who will face each other in the Senate and Congressional races in the November 4 presidential election.

There will be one major difference in the way Louisiana Democrats and Republicans choose our respective nominees: Republicans will choose their nominees in a party-only primary; Louisiana Democrats are going to have to compete with independents and others to determine who will represent our party in those November races.

Considering the substantial rebuilding work ahead of us, I believe it is a mistake to give people who have no allegiance to our party so much control over who represents us.

I am asking you to use your position as a member of the Democratic State Central Committee to call for the party to change its party primary participation rules before qualifying opens in July.

No laws need to be changed to change this rule. The decision to open the party primaries to non-Democrats was made last year, before you and I became officers in the Louisiana Democratic Party (I'm an elected member of the Lafayette Democratic Executive Committee).

There is no evidence that it reflects or complies with the views and wishes of the newly constituted DSCC because it has not been a matter for discussion at DSCC meetings — despite the impact it will have on our party in the upcoming federal elections.

Please call or email LDP Chairman Chris Whittington and LDP Executive Director Britton Loftin to convene the DSCC in emergency session within two to three weeks so that this topic can be thoroughly discussed, debated and decided.

This is too important a question and the stakes are too high for this to be left in the hands of the executive committee alone. It demands the attention and input of the largest organized body in the party and that is the Democratic State Central Committee.

Rebuilding our party means making being a Democrat mean something both for voters and for candidates. We saw some of that in the spring presidential primary when many non-Democrats learned that it took being a member of our party in order to vote for the most progressive candidates in the presidential field.

We have the opportunity in these federal elections (the only elections where party primaries are allowed under Louisiana law) to re-enforce that message by making clear to voters that if they want to have a chance to choose between the best candidates in the fields in the various congressional races this fall, they'll have to be members of our party in order to do so. I'm hoping there is no need for a party primary in the race for Senator Mary Landrieu's U.S. Senate seat.

Whatever benefits the party might gain by allowing others to control our federal candidate selection process is far outweighed by the costs this decision imposes on our party.

Opening our party primaries to non-Democrats dilutes the votes of our party's most reliable constituents and most ardent activists. It insults them and denigrates their loyalty to this party. Rather than dilute the impact of these party loyalists on our candidate selection process, our party should use these primaries to reward our base and our activists by giving them more — not less — influence over the processes that determine who will carry our party's standard in the general election. That's how you build a party!

I'm sure that we all sought office in the party in order to build it into the effective political operation that we have not seen in recent years. I believe that building our state party depends on building upon the efforts that we are making in our respective communities to build up our local party infrastructure.

When you signed up to run for a seat on the DSCC you were indicating your willingness and commitment to work to build this party; that you had some idea as to how that might be done. I don't believe you got elected in order to sit back and take orders out of Baton Rouge.

This is our party. This matter goes to the heart of rebuilding our party. Demand that you have your say in how this matter is decided!

Please call or email Chris Whittington and Britton Loftin today. Tell them you want Democrats to be the only voters to determine who will represent our party in the general election this fall. That can only happen if we restrict participation in our party primaries in September and October only to registered Democratic voters.

The current rule can be changed — and you can change it! This is our party!

The shortest path to rebuilding our party is to make being a Democrat matter again. That begins by letting Democrats decide who will represent us in the federal general election this fall.

Mike Stagg
At Large Member
Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee

P.S. I welcome your feedback on this issue.

NOLA/Gulf: Deja vu all over again

There's another NOLA/Gulf Blogathon going on at Daily Kos. I'm a participant. Here's my post from today. To visit the site and read the comments, click on the headline of this post.

• • •

Two news stories conspired this week to remind New Orleans residents just how fragile their recovery is — and how indifferent the Bush administration it to that recovery.

The first story was that a combat brigade of the Louisiana National Guard has been notified it will be heading back to Iraq.

The second story was that, after millions of dollars spent re-engineering and re-building one of the levees which failed after Katrina, the 17th Street Canal levee is leaking now.

The stories, each ominous in their own right, are reminders of how the war and Bush administration incompetence diminish our ability to respond to genuine needs at home.

Hurricane season begins on June 1. This will be the third hurricane season since levees in New Orleans failed after Hurrican Katrina delivered the city what amounted to a glancing blow.

Since that time, the Bush administration has delivered on some promised resources to help residents and businesses rebuild, but as the leaking 17th Street Canal levee story illustrates, it is failing the fundamental test of providing the city secure reliable levee protection that will prevent a repeat of the post-Katrina flooding.

Here are the first paragraphs of the Associated Press story on the leaking new levee:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses.

Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.

The Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $4 billion so far of the $14 billion set aside by Congress to repair and upgrade the metropolitan area's hundreds of miles of levees by 2011. Some outside experts said the leak could mean that billions more will be needed and that some of the work already completed may need to be redone.

"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one -- really -- our cost is going to increase significantly," said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.

The eye-catcher here is that the seepage in this levees is showing up in other new levees. As the UC-Berkely engineer explains, this is a product of the brain-dead approach to the problem of New Orleans' levees taken by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps, for its part, says it believes there is "an adequate margin of safety" built into the 17th Street Canal levee and the other 50 or so leaking levees it has repaired in the almost three years since the levee failures of 2005.

So, the people who vouched for the original failed levees are now vouching for the newly 'repaired' levees after spending about $4 billion on what apparently hasn't alleviated the problem the money was intended to remedy.

Sounds a lot like the imperial adventure in Iraq.

Which is where the story about the decision to send the LNG's 256th Combat Brigade back to Iraq comes in to connect the dots.

While the specific deployment date has not been announced, the fact is that when it does happen, it will leave New Orleans and South Louisiana without the big vehicles that can drive through flood waters to help with evacuation and rescue. This is precisely what the situation on the ground in New Orleans and all of South Louisiana was when Katrina hit.

The Times-Picayune reminds readers about what happened and why this deployment will diminish Louisiana's ability to respond to natural disasters:

Based in Lafayette, the 256th is the largest single unit in the Louisiana Guard, comprising more than one-quarter of the total number of soldiers and airmen in the state.

The brigade has subordinate units throughout the state, including the 1st Battalion, 141st Field Artillery Regiment, whose buildings at Jackson Barracks were destroyed by flooding during Katrina. Until replacement facilities are built, the battalion is based at Michoud in eastern New Orleans.

The brigade was winding down from its yearlong combat tour in 2005 when Katrina struck. Many of its soldiers who began arriving home in the weeks that followed were immediately pressed into recovery duty.

So, after spending billions supposedly fixing the problem that resulted in the flooding of the city which killed at least 1,300 people, the levees are still leaking and the Bush administration has put us on notice that it is preparing to send Louisiana's best responders to natural disasters back to Iraq.

Welcome, 2008 (and 2009, 2010, and probably 2011) hurricane seasons!

As the Dear Leader famously said, "Bring 'em on!"

Mike Stagg

AT&T, Cox: Our favorite flavor is Cherry/Red

The post originally appeared on the Lafayette Pro Fiber blog.

• • • • •

This week's edition of the Baton Rouge Business Report contains an informative story about the spirited battle that EATEL is waging against Cox on the eastern edge of the privately-held cable giant's central Louisiana market footprint.

One comment that immediately jumped out was that the competition between EATEL (with its superior fiber network) and Cox (with its very deep corporate pockets) has prompted an in-your-face element of competition that neither the locally-owned phone company (EATEL) nor the Atlanta-based cable company (Cox) is accustomed to using:

Brad Supple, the director of sales and marketing with EATEL, says the ads represent the first time they’ve countered the competition in such an aggressive fashion. Cox says it’s a first for them, too; the companies have battled for customers for nearly three years.

EATEL's most aggressive move (detailed in the BRBR article) was the running of ads in Lafayette informing Cox customers here about the special bargain rates Cox was trying to limit to the market in east Ascension Parish, where it competes head-to-head with EATEL.

The ad has been discussed here before, but there is news in the article and it deals with the flavors of the video franchise bills up for consideration in the current session of the Louisiana Legislature.

For starters, it quotes Cheryl McCormick of the Louisiana Cable and Telecommunications Association (LCTA) for noting that one of the three bills up this session dealing with video is actually the LCTA's bill (HB 869); the other two (House Bill 1009 and Senate Bill 422) are AT&T's bills and would create the statewide video franchise.

The real news, however, comes from a woman who once held McCormick's job but now works as Cox's vice president of government and public affairs, Sharon Kleinpeter. Commenting on AT&T's push for passage of statewide video franchise legislation here, Kleinpeter confirmed a point made here recently — specifically, AT&T and the state's largest cable provider are engaged in a carefully choreographed effort to relieve both elements of this communications duopoly from current legal requirements to serve all segments of the communities where local franchise agreements now exist.

Here's the money passage:

While AT&T’s earlier efforts to get statewide authority have failed, Kleinpeter says Cox doesn’t oppose it as long as it can also get options that would free the company from 55 20-year and 30-year franchises it has in 13 parishes, which have more stringent provisions. So far, AT&T hasn’t agreed to the move, which she says would otherwise give Cox a competitive advantage. Talks are under way on this issue.

This is the Cherry/Red flavor of regulation they love.

That is, both AT&T and Cox (and other Louisiana cable providers) want the ability to provide services only in those neighborhoods where they believe they can make the highest rate of return and not have to provide services, say, all over Lafayette Parish as would be the case under the terms of the current franchise agreement here (and in, the article says, 55 other parts of the state).

They want to be able to legally cherry pick what they consider the best neighborhoods and legally redline those that they want to ignore. Cherry/Red.

Stunts, Scams & Sirens

The recent — but thus far not detailed — franchise agreement the AT&T signed with Baton Rouge is a public relations stunt, coming as it did on the heels of the recently-announced Cox rate increase. If the statewide video franchise legislation passes, the Baton Rouge/AT&T agreement will be meaningless. The statewide video franchise legislation would lift all local requirements included in that mysterious document before any of it took effect — and, I'll wager, before AT&T spends a penny on new services in the Baton Rouge market.

This clever dance that these two corporate giants are staging for us is an elaborate flim-flam. The fact is that this legislation will not bring new competition to Louisiana. How do we know this? Because similar legislation has not brought competition to Texas, North Carolina or Ohio.

But, the Louisiana version of this legislation will do long term damage to at least the 55 communities with franchise agreements by allowing companies like Cox and AT&T to discriminate against low- and middle-income neighborhoods in the delivery of modern network services. For that reason it is particularly disheartening to see the head of the Louisiana chapter of the NAACP fall for the competition scam at the heart of this legislation.

The Louisiana Legislature is being bamboozled by AT&T and the big cable companies which are acting in concert to get legal permission to leave significant portions of this state on the far side of the digital divide. "Competition" is a sirens' call that is only being used to convince our tech-illiterate legislators to sell out the hopes and aspirations of Louisiana citizens and communities to become full participants in the network-dependent global economy.

This legislation serves no other interests but those of the phone and cable companies. It is terrible policy for Louisiana citizens, consumers and communities. Rate relief will not come, but a widened gap between the tech haves and have-nots will.

Count on it.