A Call for True Believers

Qualifying for state and local Democratic party positions opens today across Louisiana and the future of the party is riding on who among us will step forward to lead the effort to build this party.

Build is right word because there has never really been a Democratic Party in Louisiana. There has been a Democratic banner under which candidates have run for office, but there has never been much of anything resembling an actual party organization. There have been factions and organizations built around personalities, but there has not been a party organization per sé.

That is one reason why the Louisiana Democratic Party is in shambles today. It has never been more than a device to aid in the election of the top Democrat on the ticket in any particular election year. This year, there was no Democrat at the top of a statewide ticket — in fact, there was not a statewide ticket. There were House and Senate caucuses that managed to stave off Republican efforts to win veto-proof majorities in the Legislature, but there was no party behind any of those efforts. The state party was a mailing permit and a checking account.

This is just what the party was in 2010, only this time there were no statewide Democratic candidates on the ballot that could in any way be considered to have been standards bearers of what passed for the party this year.

The qualifying that opens today provides the opening to begin to change that.

The 210 seats on the State Central Committee are open for qualifying as are the 986 or so seats on the various parish Democratic Executive Committees.

These are the bodies charged with building and maintaining the party at the state and local levels. Based on the results over the last four years, the leadership at the state level has been an abject failure. That failure has many sources, but none more glaring than the fact that the party has not appeared to stand for anything; or, if it did, it could not articulate it. As a result, the party sat in silence as what passed for public policy debates took place (can there really be a debate when only one side is talking?).

For the Democratic Party to have a future in this state, we need committed Democrats to turn out at Clerk of Courts offices across the state and qualify to fill those state and parish party committee seats.

But, not just any Democrats need apply.

What we need now are true believers. Democrats who burn with a passion for our party and its principles (see "What It Means To Be A Democrat" for some ideas). Democrats who stand ready to build a political organization that will provide the boots on the ground for Democratic candidates at the local, state and federal levels. Democrats who will fight the Republican assault on working families, minorities, teachers, public employees and others rather than seek an accommodation with those who are out to dismantle the essential public services that are the pathways to social mobility in this state and this country.

We need zealous Democrats to turn out to qualify for these positions, run strong Democratic campaigns for those seats, and then to engage in the work of party building after those elections are settled in March.


In the church that is the Democratic Party, the state central committee and the parish executive committees are akin to the clergy. They are the keepers of the flame of the party, where the passion must be the greatest and the belief must be the strongest. Why? Because the members of those respective committees swear oaths of office to promote and build the Democratic Party in this state.

As in religions, there are many levels of faith and conviction in our party as is the case in other political organizations.

But, when it comes to party committees, the job calls for the efforts to be focused on building the party and advancing its mission — not in finding middle ground with our opponents.

That is the work of elected officials who serve in the Legislature and other government positions.

We need to look no further than our opponents to catch a glimpse of what the role of party organizations are relative to elected officials — parties put the stake in the ground on issues; elected officials find the middle ground that is somewhere inside of where their party put that stake. One problem with our side is that our party has not put often enough and thus ceded the defining of the terms of the argument (the framing, if you will) to the other side. A result of that has been a radicalization of the other side because not enough of their crazy ideas have been challenged.

Democrats who care about the future of this state, who care about the future of the middle class here, about access to public education, about access to public services, about the ability of their children to find rewarding and challenging work in this state, need to commit to at least four years of work aimed at protecting those things that encompass what we have long stood for as a party and as a people.

We need you to turn out to qualify. We need you to commit your time, effort, and creativity to the task of building a political organization that can first stem, then turn the tide of greed-driven anti-social behavior that masquerades as public policy that spews like an uncapped gusher from our opponents in the party that now appears dominant in our state.

We did not get in this mess overnight. We won't get out of it overnight either. But, if we commit to work harder and smarter to reverse this we can, because as a great American once said, "the arc of moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."

If you're ready to fight for your party and your state, go qualify for a party position this week — and let's get to work!

What It Means To Be A Democrat

 (This is a speech delivered at the Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee's fourth annual Lifetime Achievement Awards Banquet which was held on October 6, 2011. I got to deliver the speech by virtue of the fact I was the Democratic candidate for Lafayette City-Parish President.)

There are a lot of people thinking about this these days, particularly in our state and in our parish. Our state party was not able to field a single well-funded candidate for statewide office this year. The so-called smart money has abandoned us. Republicans have achieved the kind of dominance on the state level that some in this room have come to accept to here in Lafayette.

While conventional wisdom has it that these are bad times to be a Democrat, I believe we are exactly where we need to be in order to put our party in working order. There is no recognizable advantage to being a Democrat, so the opportunists have left us for greener pastures.

Clearly, for our party, the time has come to get back to basics. With most of the deadwood out of the way, we can now get down to the work of rebuilding our party.

In preparing for this speech, I went back to the very basics, starting with the root word “demos” in an effort to understand literally what it means to be a democrat.

The dictionary defines “demos” as being the common people of an ancient Greek state.

But, in the centuries since it originated, Demos has come to mean “the common people” in any political unit.

That form of government based on the notion of power flowing from the consent of the governed is called Democracy. Again, based on demos.

Democracy is defined as government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

The United States and Canada are democracies, although there are some in our own country who are working hard to restrict the right to participate in our elections. They are anti-democratic in both the little “D” and big “D” meanings of the word.

Democracy is also defined as a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges. That is, there is only one set of rules that we all agree to play by and that those rules produce a level playing field where your chances for success rest at least as much on what you know as  who you know.

There can be no privileged class in a democracy. We are all equal in terms of rights, duties and privileges.

So, demos is the common people. Democracy is rule by the common people, in a place having free elections, and where people have equality based on rights and privileges.

A democrat is an advocate of democracy.

That is, a Democrat is a person who believes in the political or social equality of all people.

We know this is an accurate definition, because for the past five decades in the South, our friends in the other party have used our commitment to equality as a wedge to turn some people away from our party. It worked so well on race, that our friends in the other party have tried to turn our support for equality for women, gays and others into wedges that they can use not just here but across the country.

In Louisiana, a state where we have 32% African American population and 37% total minority population, this tactic has worked to some extent, but has no long term chances for success here, so long as we remain true to our roots.

Our party, you might have read, no longer constitutes more than 50% of all registered voters in the state. We’ve known for a long time that not all people who are registered as Democrats actually support or event vote for Democrats.

The key to rebuilding our party is to embrace who we are and to run with it.

That is, to return to our great Democratic tradition of standing up for equality for all people. We stand for equality for women, for African Americans, for Asians, for Hispanics. We stand for equality of gays. We stand up for those who cannot defend themselves. The poor. The elderly. The infirm.

But also for the people who are the foundation upon which the wealth of this nation was built and continues to be produced. The people who build our roads; who clean our schools and offices; the people who wash those fancy cars; who mow those beautiful lawns; who work two or three jobs to ensure that the lives of their kids will be better than their own; those who teach our children; who work in the oil patch; those people who work countless hours trying to turn their small businesses into a bigger one.

Standing up for those people is the work that once defined us as a party. And that history shows the way up off the canvass and back into the fight.

Our friends in the other party like to defend the people they call “the job creators.” Fair enough — although they don't seem to be doing it very well now. But, let’s call the hard working people that we defend by their true name — They are the wealth creators. Nothing more and damned sure nothing less. These are our people — The people Democrats need to stand up for, to defend, to protect and to champion.

It is the work that we were called into being to do. It is the work upon which our future depends. If this is work that you are not willing to do, then you’re in the wrong party.

This is the work that makes calling ourselves Democrats meaningful. I'm Mike Stagg and this is what being a Democrat means to me — and I hope to you, as well.

Democratic Louisiana: "It Started With Jindal's Stelly Flip"

This article is "The Big Blue One" from Volume 1, Number 1, of Democratic Louisiana, a Louisiana d2d project.

Repealing the income tax portion of The Stelly Plan was not on Bobby Jindal’s agenda when he became governor in 2008, but as sentiment in the House grew for repeal, the new governor moved to leap in front of the parade that championed the repeal.

Under the Stelly Plan, which was approved by state voters in 2002 while Mike Foster was governor, the state sales tax on food for home consumption and the sales tax on natural gas, electricity, and water for residential use was lowered on January 1, 2003, from 3.9 cents to 2 cents per dollar. Taxes on those items were then eliminated on July 1, 2003. To replace revenue lost through Stelly, individual income tax brackets were adjusted upward.

The plan was not popular with those in the top two state income tax brackets where individuals paid up to $500 more in taxes each year.

In the 2007 statewide elections, Jindal romped to a primary win over a fragmented gubernatorial field and Republicans picked up significant representation in both the state House and Senate.

During the 2008 regular session of the Legislature, Jindal first opposed the repeal of the income tax provisions of the Stelly plan because of the loss of revenue would be too steep (about $358 million per year). Sensing the political momentum and not wanting to disappoint his conservative backers, Jindal flipped on the issue and endorsed the repeal. With the new governor’s backing, repeal passed easily. And Louisiana was sent careening down the road towards a financial crisis.

It did not take long for trouble to appear.

In December of 2008, the state discovered that it had a projected budget deficit for the 2008-09 fiscal year that nearly matched the cost of the Stelly repeal, dollar for dollar: $341 million.

The repeal of the income tax portion of the Stelly Plan is a mistake that keeps on giving as it deprives the state of significant revenue each year. Viewed another way, counting the budget proposed by Jindal and now being considered by the Louisiana Legislature, the repeal of the income tax portion of the Stelly plan has cost state government more than $1 billion dollars in revenue it otherwise would have had to meet rising need.

The Jindal Way: Afflicting the Afflicted

What rising need? The Louisiana Budget Project (LBP), a non-partisan arm of the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, monitors and reports on state government spending and how it affects the Louisiana’s low- to moderate-income families. In LBP's review of Jindal’s 2011 Executive Budget ("Louisiana's Fiscal Crisis"), the organization notes,

“between January 2005 and January 2010, families using food stamps increased 20 percent. Medicaid enrollments increased 13 percent from pre-Katrina levels. The number of enrolled students at four-year institutions increased 3 percent between 2004 and 2009, from 214,144 to 220,381. At community colleges, enrollment increased 37 percent during the same time period, from 50,920 to 69,940. The state’s unemployment rate increased from 5.4 percent in December of 2004 to 7.3 percent in December of 2009."

Yet, confronted with these growing demands, Jindal has steadfastly refused to take any step to increase state revenues. Why? Because agreeing to increase taxes or fees would damage his national prospects among conservative Republicans whom he has courted assiduously since his election.

Jindal’s resistance to raising taxes or seeking other ways to raise revenue combined with the fact that healthcare and higher education are the only areas of the state budget not constitutionally protected from cuts has produced a budget balancing approach best summed up as “comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted.”

Jindal’s calculation appears to be that he can build campaign for president (“The Louisiana Way” branding of his budget approach and the upcoming book some one wrote for him) on the backs of Medicaid recipients and providers and those in higher education.

Had the status quo held that might have been possible. But, as everyone knows, Louisiana’s economy has been floating on a sea of federal disaster dollars since the storms of 2005 (with more injected after the storms of 2008). That money is beginning to taper off. The LBP says federal dollars accounted for more than half of the state’s budget in 2009-10, and that will drop to 45% in the current budget.

And, with Jindal’s Republican colleagues in the Congress fighting to stop even the extension of unemployment benefits, the likelihood of additional federal economic recovery dollars is uncertain at best. The potential loss of those dollars is what sparks the talk of Louisiana’s budget going “over a cliff” next year.

That has forced Jindal to try to deny the undeniable (the state needs more revenue) by attempting shift program costs onto local governments, particularly local public school systems.

Jindal’s Blind Spot: Services Are Delivered By and Go To People

But, behind every number in a state budget is a human story. Dating back to his days when he was wrecking the public health network as Mike Foster’s secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals, the evidence is that Bobby Jindal has never understood this basic fact.

And here is where Jindal’s anti-tax fanaticism is inflicting its greatest toll on the state.

Jindal’s budget cuts, particularly in Medicaid, reduce access to care for the poorest among us. Medicaid provides access to care for children, pregnant women and the disabled. Medicaid is a huge program in our state and Jindal and legislators have found making cuts there relatively easy because of the size of the program. Medicaid is an insurance program. It does not give money to patients, it pays for patient care by paying providers — doctors, nurses, hospitals — for that care. The reason providers are turning away Medicaid patients is that the state of Louisiana keeps cutting the amount of money they will pay those providers to give that care.

So, Medicaid budget cuts impact not just the poor and the disabled, they also impact the healthcare provider community. The Louisiana Hospital Association (LHA) said Jindal’s proposed budget 2009 cuts would have cost nearly 2,000 healthcare jobs in our state. The final budget last year lessened those cuts, but subsequent deficit projections and cuts have brought additional compensation cuts, which are driving cutbacks in clinics and hospitals across the state.

Jindal’s budget cuts are wiping out good paying jobs across Louisiana. Yes, he is reducing the number of state employees, but Medicaid cuts are costing the state thousands of healthcare jobs each year and the cuts in higher education are shutting down programs, costing hundreds of instruction and support jobs, and sending research dollars out of the state that otherwise would have come here. At the K-12 level, Jindal is trying to push costs down to local school systems and eliminating programs intended to improve the performance of students in the critical early grades.

Compounding the error are recent revelations that outsourcing of state services particularly in the areas of health and social services will actually drive up the cost of operating those programs, and it is clear that Louisiana is merely a prop for Jindal’s political posturing on the national political stage.

Louisiana is historically a low-wage state. The jobs that Jindal’s cuts are forcing in healthcare, higher education and K-12 are not jobs that will make people rich, but they are good jobs that support middle class families and that have a high probability of including benefits packages for the people holding them.

And while Jindal saved 1,300 or so low-wage jobs in Union Parish by subsidizing the purchase of a bankrupt chicken plant, his cuts are forcing far larger losses of better paying jobs in the public and private sectors.

Bobby Jindal is sacrificing those good Louisiana jobs at the altar of his national political ambition.

Coming Friday: “Jindal’s Way: Economic Carnage”