Free Republic

Could Louisiana be a major player in presidential primary politics? Not according to the present election day schedule. But what with a little fine tuning, the Pelican State could emerge as a major factor in deciding what candidate in both political parties starts off at the top of the heap. And it would not cost a penny. Here's the present scenario. Louisiana's presidential primary date is set for February the ninth. The time slot was moved up several months by the legislature a few years ago in order to try to attract more attention from candidates vying for early votes...

Caddo Parish Commissioner Jim Morris was elected to fill a northwest Louisiana state House seat Saturday, but races for two other seats went to runoffs. Morris, a Republican, got 69 percent of the vote against four opponents for the seat vacated by the death of Rep. Roy "Hoppy" Hopkins, complete but unofficial results showed. Morris, a Republican, was running in District 1, vacated by the death of Rep. Roy "Hoppy" Hopkins. Richard "Richie" Hollier, a Democrat, was second with 826 votes, or 18 percent of the vote in the district, which includes precincts in Bossier and Caddo parishes. Democrat Ruth...

A federal district judge in Shreveport has dismissed a lawsuit filed by unsuccessful congressional candidate Patti Cox challenging the residency of U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery and seeking to overturn the election results. Such a challenge should be decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. District Judge Tom Stagg said. "The House of Representatives is the only institution permitted by the Constitution to decide the qualifications challenge," Stagg wrote in a one-page judgment. That was the position McCrery's lawyer as well as a federal magistrate who heard the case had also taken. Cox has a challenge pending before the House...

Just days before he was to take office, the body of Westlake Mayor-Elect Gerald Washington was found outside the old Mossville High School on Old Spanish Trail. According to authorities with the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office, the 9-1-1 call came in at 9:49 p.m. from a motorist passing the school who said they saw a body on the ground of the parking lot. Calcasieu Sheriff's crime scene investigators arrived and found the body of a black male with a single gun shot wound. The body was later identified as Washington. The Calcasieu Coronor's Office is performing an autospy to determine...

WASHINGTON — The population diaspora caused by Hurricane Katrina will likely result in Louisiana losing one of its seven U.S. House of Representatives seats, analysts said Thursday. Though the 2010 U.S. Census that will ultimately determine the shape of the congressional districts is still four years away, the nearly 220,000 population loss over the last year estimated by the Census Bureau indicates that the state will have to fight to maintain its congressional power. “Even if a lot of people come back, we’re going to lose,” said former U.S. Rep. Clyde Holloway, R-Forest Hill. “You don’t have to lose population;...

Voter purge to take place the day after Christmas More than 83,700 voters will be dropped off Louisiana's voter rolls next week, inactive voters whose addresses can't be confirmed and who haven't voted in at least two years, according to Secretary of State Jay Dardenne. Nearly 3 percent of Louisiana's 2.9 million registered voters will have their registrations canceled on Dec. 26, as required by state law, Dardenne said in a news release Wednesday. "The affected individuals have not voted in the past two years and have not responded to canvassing efforts or other attempts to confirm their registration address,"...

The survey, conducted by the polling service surveyusa.com, show Blanco with one of the lowest ratings among all of the Governors throughout the United States. The data further shows that the Governor has some significant hurdles to overcome with various constituencies to win re-election. The survey of 600 likely voters asked the question, "Do you approve or disapprove of the job Kathleen Blanco is doing as Governor?" Surprisingly, the results showed little of a gender gap. Usually, female governors enjoy a degree of sympathy by gender. In this case, only 39% of men approved of Blanco, and 40% of women...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco's push to spend $2 billion on tax breaks, pay raises and other budget proposals stalled in the state House on Sunday as the governor's allies ran into problems getting the votes to raise a constitutional spending cap. The Blanco administration tried to work out a compromise with lawmakers behind the scenes, to determine which proposals could gain passage in a 10-day pre-holiday special session called by the governor despite cries from critics for postponement. The House was expected to take up some of the Blanco spending proposals Sunday but adjourned when it was...

PINEVILLE, La. (AP) - Fourteen men were arrested at a central Louisiana rest area during an eight-day sting police launched in response to complaints that people were engaging in sexual acts there. Those rounded up included a retired realtor, a Rapides Parish school bus driver and a Bastrop mailman. Police say many of the suspects are married with children and grandchildren. Lieutenant Greg Henley says the men were booked into the Rapides Parish jail on a charge of felony obscenity after police caught them having either oral or anal sex in the park. This is not the first time a...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The flag blends a symbol of the Confederacy with the school colors of Louisiana State University, a combination that provokes anger from blacks and creates headaches for the university. Black students held a string of game-day protests last year -- the largest attracting several hundred participants -- to demand that the school prohibit fans on campus from flying the banner, a Confederate-style flag in the purple and gold of the LSU Fighting Tigers. The protests resulted in a few scuffles and a lot of attention in the news media -- but no ban on the flag....

May 23, 2006 XXXX 10:30 AM CT ** EXCLUSIVE ** Repbublican insiders are scratching their heads over some recent comments from state Senator Jay Dardenne, THE DEAD PELICAN has learned. Weeks ago, THE DEAD PELICAN unearthed the controversy over Dardennes controversial "abortion flip-flippong" in this DEAD PELICAN EXCLUSIVE. Senator Jay Dardenne, who for three weeks has insisted that he is pro-life and that his recent vote against landmark anti-abortion legislation was simply a “mistake,” shocked Baton Rouge radio listeners on Monday by defending a 1994 law allowing taxpayer funding of abortions. Dardenne told a caller to The Jim Engster Show...

In the heart of Cajun country, Louisiana state and municipal officials are completing the construction of a $27.5 million, supercomputer-powered 3-D visualization complex that they hope will become the nucleus of a new Silicon Valley. The Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE), which could be operational by late April or early May, would immediately support research and development activities for independent oil and gas companies that don’t have the expertise or investment dollars for such immersive technologies. Officials supporting the LITE complex said its leading-edge technologies could attract other industries, such as medical, biotechnology, environmental and entertainment companies — and help...

SpongeBob Odom, the defacto head of the Louisiana Democrat Party, caused a stir last month when he pronounced an end to the Blanco for re-election efforts in favor of his candidate, former U. S. Senator John Breaux (D - D.C.). Odom said Ms. Blanco was alright, but that we needed new leadership. He said he was conducting a poll to present to Breaux in hopes of coaxing the Edwin Edwards protégé to abandon easy street in Washington, D.C. to save Louisiana from the Republicans. A source close to Odom has leaked the results of the Democrat poll. It ain’t looking...

... In Barbour's state, New Urbanists dominated a weeklong charrette held in October at the Isle of Capri casino in Biloxi. Led by Miami architect and CNU mainstay Andrés Duany, the so-called Mississippi Renewal Forum architects and planners from around the country who are loyal to the group's cause. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco has also begun relying on New Urbanists for rebuilding advice. This week the newly formed Louisiana Recovery Authority tapped Duany to lead a statewide charrette and chose Berkeley-based architect and planner Peter Calthorpe, a CNU founder, to develop a long-term regional plan for areas devastated by...

Conclusions: 1) No one should have been surprised 2) Katrina wasn't that big (and we should expect more like it) 3) Floodwalls were properly built 4) Anarchy didn't take over 5) Evacuation plans worked 6) Government responded quickly 7) Government subsidies encoured bad land use 8) Energy infrastructure survived

A group of beauty school students who beat a would-be robber with a table leg, curling irons and blow dryers is now asking the judge to go easy on their victim. Jared Gipson will be sentenced March 1 for robbing Blalock's Beauty College in Shreveport. Depending on whether he's considered an habitual offender, he could get up to 203 years in prison. Last June, Gipson, 25, walked into Blalock's with an unloaded gun, ordered everyone inside to lie on the floor and began to rob it. But one of the students tripped him and others went after him, beating him...

Jindal Far Ahead of Blanco in Rematch Poll The first statewide poll pitting Gov. Kathleen Blanco against a challenger does not bode well for her. Congressman Bobby Jindal led her 53-31 percent in a 500-sample December survey by Multi-Quest, a Metairie polling firm. This week, Blanco repeated her intention to seek re-election in 2007, stating that the recovery effort could change many attitudes by then. Jindal has been making appearances around the state and has told some elected officials that he plans to run again for governor in 2007.

In an exclusive, The Louisiana Weekly has learned that www.recallgovernorblanco.com has received over 400,000 hits in the 48 hours since its founder Kat Landry filed the recall documents with the Secretary of State's office on January 10. Landry needs over 949,000 signatures or roughly one-third of Louisiana's registered electorate to bring out a recall election against Governor Blanco. The St. Martinville resident began organizing the effort in the weeks after Katrina when she said she saw "a criminal lack of leadership by the Governor." "Louisiana cannot survive another two years of Kathleen Blanco," Landry told The Weekly on last week....

The reason why Gov. Kathleen Blanco will not get reelected in 2007 is she just doesn’t get it. Blanco seems to think that the public’s low marks given for her and her reelection chances are a function of a perception of her as weak and indecisive. To her and her handlers, the solution then seems to be an image makeover. If so, that belies a lack of reflection and understanding about a singular fact: ideas have consequences. The fact is, Blanco is a liberal politician in a state growing more politically conservative. She expresses some conservative viewpoints (such as being...

In the U.S., and even in Louisiana to a great extent, there seems to be a great sentiment to allow “democracy” to prevail in governing. Keeping that concept in mind and expanding beyond the parochial thinking and agendas currently articulated will serve the rebuilding efforts of New Orleans well. As the focus of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shifts from cleaning up to recovery, the plans the myriad of commissions (after all, this is Louisiana and where would be without a lot of duplicative, inefficient government) dealing with the idea of how New Orleans will rebuild fall into three major...