forgotston.com

Sen. Buddy Shaw

On Monday in a senate committee, Senator Buddy Shaw, R-Shreveport, voted against eliminating the “sleeper tax” on our driver’s license.   This was the tax that was passed years ago, but not implemented until “The Roads Scholar” decided to impose it this year.

Shaw said: [H]e has not received any complaints from constituents about the increase. Baton Rouge Advocate, April 27, 2010.

If Shaw hadn’t heard from his constituents and thought the tax was a good idea, why did he author the repeal? ( See here.)   Did he read the legislation?   If so, did he understand it? Or is Shaw simply confused?

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

House Bill 1074 was scheduled for a hearing in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday morning.  This bill provides an exception to the Public Records Law for emails we send to our leges and others.

One can only assume that your efforts to communicate with the members of the committee have created considerable heat for Rep. Steve Pugh, R-Ponchatoula who is pushing this legislation. As such, the bill was not heard.

Under current law, public records must be kept for at least 3 years.  This legislation would allow each lege and other persons who work for state and local government to declare our emails “junk” and IMMEDIATELY DESTROY IT.

Passage of this legislation will undermine our representative form of democracy by limiting our ability to communicate with our representatives.

What’s next?

Apparently, Pugh plans to wait until the heat dies down before bringing the bill up for passage.   Politicians believe that we citizens have very short memories.

Let’s disabuse them of this notion.

If you value your right to communicate via email with your elected representatives, please remind the members of the committee to defeat HB 1074 whenever it comes up.

Here’s the link to the committee: http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Cmtes/H_CMTE_HG.asp By clicking on the member’s name you will find a link to email them.

Thank you for your help.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  Wendell Phillips.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

Self-portrait

Yes, you read that correctly.  I was wrong.

Yesterday, on Jim Engster’s radio show, I made a huge mistake.

We were discussing Commish of Higher Education’s Sally Clausen magnanimous gesture by reducing her salary by half for the coming fiscal year.  I lauded Sally for the move.

I even mentioned how altruistic it was because she didn’t make a big public announcement about it. ( See story here.)

What a great example she set – NOT!

Today, “Watchcat” (a complimentary term) Jan Moller exposed the truth. ( See story here.)

Now, we learn that the salary reduction was meaningless.  The salary cut would not take effect until July 1.  It now appears that Clausen may leave her office before July 1.

Clausen’s gesture was meaningless.   Her successor will negotiate his or her own salary.

For anyone who heard me on the radio or heard about my comments, I sincerely apologize.   Clausen’s hollow gesture was typical Louisiana-style political grandstanding.

Despite having the reputation of being a world class cynic, I should have known better.

My problem is that I’m not nearly cynical enough to live in Louisiana.

C.B.

1 CB 9:32 am