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Corrupt-O-Meter

In a story in Tuesday’s Baton Rouge newspaper about Insurance Commish Jim Donelon dropping his defamation lawsuit against Sen. James David Cain is found the following comments:

“I am still not happy with the allegation and vehemently deny any selling of licenses,” Donelon said. “I’m not that stupid nor that corrupt.”

Which begs the question in LA:

So, on a scale of 1 to 10 exactly how corrupt is he?

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am

I read where one of the goals of our new Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is to increase voter turnout. Among other things he is suggesting is “early voting” in shopping malls.

Despite making it easier to register to vote (”Motor Voter”) the turnout instead of going up went down. Lowering the voting age didn’t increase voter turnout.

Recently, we heard suggestions that Saturday voting be eliminated or that elections only be held at times when it doesn’t interfere with hunting season or football season. The fact that people find hunting and football games more important than voting is a symptom of a greater problem. After all, we have 14 hours on Saturday to attend the ball games, go hunting or whatever and still go vote. Elections in the summers have dismal turnouts.

Obviously, we have too many elections. Having too many elections is a financial drain on the taxpayers and encourages less participation.

Bottom-line: The easier we have made it to vote, the fewer people that have voted.

Why we don’t vote

The bigger question is why people don’t choose to vote.

Maybe we have made it too easy to vote. Maybe if voting required more effort, people would take it more seriously. Look at the turnout for elections in Iraq. Was the large turnout because of ease of voting. Obviously not, people literally risked their lives to vote.

Suggestion

Instead of guessing at ways to improve voter turnout and using trial and error, my suggestion to Senator Dardenne is to meet with voters and find out why they are not voting. One of the things he will likely learn is that they believe that voting makes no difference. Once we elect someone to office, they quickly ignore us and begin doing whatever they think is in their best interest. Some of his votes for more taxes while in the lege are good examples.

Government in LA is no longer responsive to the people. Look at the lege reaction to the posting of their voting records. They are looking for ways to hide how they vote. They don’t want to be held accountable.

The point is that there is ample evidence that our votes don’t count. Votes serve only as a measure of which politician will ignore us for the next four years. Thus given the choice of a peaceful weekend in the woods or going to vote for those who will only ignore us, the choice is easy.

If nothing else, it would be a unique experience for us voters to have our opinions and suggestions asked and even more importantly taken.

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am

Thomas Jefferson

In his column in Sunday’s Baton Rouge paper, John LaPlante explores the importance of the First Amendment and the exercise of it by those who do not have degrees in journalism or who don’t work in the commercial media. It is complimentary to be compared to the “pamphleteers” of the 18th Century. Among them were Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

It is not as though bloggers have the market cornered on putting out erroneous information. One need look no further than the media icon The New York Times.

Some of us knew that the Heh, Heh, Heh, Ethics Board didn’t have the jurisdiction to regulate Free Speech. What we didn’t know was whether the board knew. In addition to being a “government gadfly,” I earned a law degree and am licensed to practice law in LA.

Why the agenda?

The fact that the board placed something on their agenda that was clearly not within their jurisdiction indicated the board’s lack of knowledge, not ours. It was an indication to the public that the board thought it had jurisdiction. The purpose of the LA Open Meetings Law and the posting of agenda items is to forewarn the public so that they can make their views known regarding the agenda item before a public body. That is exactly what we did. Thanks to Mr. LaPlante for hearing us.

If the Bogalusa Councilman written the Board to ask if they could regulate prostitution in LA, I seriously doubt that the item would have found its way onto the board’s agenda. What the staff should have done in the instant case would have been to write or call the councilman and tell them that they had no jurisdiction over such matters. At which point, the councilman could have quietly withdrawn his request. Allowing such an inflammatory item to appear on the agenda only served to embarrass the councilman as well as the board.

At at time when the Heh, Heh, Heh, Ethics Board is wondering why it gets no respect from the public nor public officials, this agenda item should serve as a clue.

Finally, as Henry Kissinger said: “Even a paranoid can have enemies.”

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am