Voter Apathy Killed Louisiana

I am disgusted by the apathy in yesterday's election here in Louisiana.  As I understand it, the early numbers show about a 39.7% turnout, only slightly higher than the October primary.  As of this writing, official numbers are not yet compiled.

In general, I am disgusted with the outcome.  Louisiana has returned a Democrat to the gubernatorial mansion primarily based on the fact that the Republican candidate was embroiled in the DC Madam scandal in 2007. Republicans I talked to just couldn't vote for Senator Vitter because he committed adultery and they couldn't find it in their Christian hearts to forgive him or to look at his conservative political record.  They either stayed home or voted for the Democrat.

John Bel Edwards won the election by a 56% to 43% margin.  Edwards campaigned as a moderate Democrat; he is an Obama supporter.  One of the first things Governor Edwards will do is to accept the Louisiana Medicaid expansion portion of Obamacare.

Another problem I saw with Edwards is that he is in the pocket of the trial lawyers and would do little to support the tort reform that is contributing to the anti-business climate in this state.  The business climate in this state is dismal...that is unless all you want to come in is more chain restaurants and tattoo parlors.  Not much else is happening here.

Edwards also wants to raise the minimum wage -- another anti-business move.

I also find it unsettling that Edwards seems to have no clear position on whether or not he would accept more Syrian refugees into Louisiana and that he has been obfuscating his earlier positions on this for what is apparently a more popular stance.  The Hayride outlined this word-juggling here.  Initially, Edwards posted on Facebook that he would be an "active participant" in talks with the feds so that "we can be partners in the effort to accommodate refugees...".  Well, if we can forgive Vitter for adultery eight years ago, (as his wife did, by the way), certainly we can forgive Edwards a little verbal nuance, no?  Everyone's entitled to change their mind, except when they lie about it.

Initially, Edwards want to accommodate and assist the Syrian refugees coming into Louisiana.  After his Facebook posts advocating this position, and the grief he took for it in the comments, he changed his mind.  Curious.

Both campaigns manipulated language and positions to enhance themselves; that is the nature of modern politics.  David Vitter was a flawed candidate and it looks like in general, Republicans just opted for the Democrat or else stayed home just to punish the Republican party for such sorry offerings.  The collateral damage of that is that good men like Henry Burns lost their elections.

State Representative Henry Burns was in a run-off with Bossier City attorney Ryan Gatti.  Burns lost that race by less than 100 votes.  That race wasn't in my district and I don't know much about Mr. Gatti; both candidates are Republicans.  I know Henry Burns though, and I know there is no finer, kinder man.  I've witnessed the work he's done for and with veterans and for this area.  He was a small business owner and understands the needs and responsibilities of the working man trying to make a living.  He's had an exemplary record in the House and I've never heard a negative word about him.  The only reason he lost his race is voter apathy.  What a shame.

My district BESE race didn't turn out as I wished either.  We had a choice between an educator and a non-educator in that one.  A choice between a woman who has been in education for 27 years and has been a school principal, who opposed Common Core, and a man that supports Common Core and has never worked in education.  The Tony Davis campaign released a photoshopped picture of his opponent, Mary Harris, with Governor Bobby Jindal in a heart-shaped frame to make the claim that Harris would be a "rubber-stamp" for Gov. Bobby Jindal (who won't be in office after January).  That the Davis campaign took the photo of Harris, which originally was on her Facebook page and was of her with Dr. John Fleming -- not Jindal, and photoshopped it to further their own campaign is just dirty politics.

But that's what Louisiana elected last night.

In the Caddo Parish District Attorney's race, we elected the candidate that accepted the George Soros money.  Judge Stewart may be a fine man and a fair judge, but I couldn't vote for Soros money.

All in all, it's a sad lot of affairs.

Elliot Stonecipher's new article offers a few pinpricks of optimistic light this morning.  We did elect Billy Nungesser as Lt. Governor over the Democrat Kip Holden, and we did elect Jeff Landry as Attorney General.

And by the end of the night, Senator Vitter declared that he won't run for re-election to the Senate which opens that slot up to some excellent candidates such as Rob Maness, Charles Boustany, and John Fleming.  There will be a strong Republican field for that seat.

It was a disappointing night for conservatives in Louisiana, but overall it was the apathy that killed us.  If we don't care about our political leaders any more than 39%, we deserve what we get.  We deserve the Common Core, the Syrian refugees, Obamacare, jacked up minimum wage, anti-business climate, and all of the other liberal dreck that comes with it.

Henry Burns Proposes Concealed Weapons in Churches

The Louisiana Legislature is never a dull place and with Rep. Barbara Norton in the House, well, it's even more interesting.

One piece of legislation garnering national attention is H.B. 68 (PDF: 4 pgs) by Rep. Henry Burns (R-Bossier) which will allow guns in churches "if the pastor or head of the religious body approves."  The bill has passed the House with by a vote of 74-18 and has been passed to the Senate where it currently has been referred to the Judiciary Committee.

Churches would be required to notify parishioners through bulletins, newsletters, or verbally that there is armed security in their congregation, reports this NOLA article last week.

Rep. Barbara Norton is, not surprisingly, totally against the bill:

"If God is looking down on us today I don't think he is happy with us discussing how we can carry our guns to church," Rep. Barbara Norton, D-Shreveport, a major opponent of the bill, said. "The church is a place of peace. I don't think God said it was OK to carry a gun in the house of the Lord.

"Nowhere does it say (in Scripture) the Lord said you have to have a gun in church. If you need to have a gun in church, you need to go to another church."

MSNBC interviewed Rep. Norton who voiced concern those that have concealed permits may not have proper firearms in which Rep. Norton describes a frightful free for all scenario:

"...When I think about, uh, we have no metal detectors that that is required to be placed in churches.  We don't know who is it may be sitting right next to us and a gun may go off and someone else thinks someone is shooting and then you have a lot of people pulling their guns.  The other thing is we may live in areas where there are crimes but at the same time that's what we pay our policemens and our sheriffs and our marshalls to protect us. If we give everybody a gun and tell them to go and start doing protecting themselves and others then we're taking it out of the hands of the law."

Video of Tamron Hall's interview is here.

Newsbusters plays devil's advocate with the Norton interview questioning why interviewer Tamron Hall didn't ask Rep. Norton about the 2007 Colorado incident in which an armed parishioner ended a shooting spree by an armed killer.

Church shootings have become more and more frequent.  In February of this year two teenagers were shot at a Richmond, California church.   In 2009 in Illinois a pastor was killed as he spoke to his congregation.  He tried to use his Bible to shield him from the bullets.  Two parishioners who tried to restrain the shooter were slashed with a four inch knife.  In July, 2008 a shooter entered a Knoxville, TN church during a childrens performance of Annie and opened fire, killing two and injuring several others.  And let's not forget about George Tiller who was killed last year as he entered his Wichita church.

Representative Burns does not require that churches have armed security.  It does require that parishioners be informed if there is armed security present.  From my perspective, I'd have some sense of security if I knew there was an armed police officer, or some other trained expert, in the congregation who could provide protection should the need arise.

For Representative Norton to assume that you are safe just because you are in church is to assume you are safe because you are locked in your home, because you're at school, or because you're at the mall.

It's naive.

Update:  By the way, Rep. Norton says in that interview with MSNBC that in Louisiana you don't have to have training to get a concealed handgun permit; she's wrong.  See the application here.