LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

Published: May 12, 2020

By: Paige Daniel, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—A Senate committee voted 4-1 Tuesday to forward a bill that would designate possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a felony as a crime of violence.

Currently, the minimum sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is five years. Changing the possession of a firearm by a felon to a crime of violence would ensure harsher penalties, such as lengthier jail sentences.

Mike Ronats, executive director of the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association, cited statistics showing that between 25% and 48% of murders involving firearms are committed by felons.

According to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, there were 436 homicides committed with firearms in the state in 2018. This means between 109 and 210 of the murders were committed by felons.

“The decision that we make today is not just about this crime,” Ronats told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary C. He added: “It’s about how that crime affects the other crime, the larger picture, and that being homicide.”

Sheriff Mike Tregg of St. John the Baptist Parish is also a proponent of the bill, which was proposed by Sen. Bodi White, R-Baton Rouge.

“I have too many young men dying,” Tregg said. “I intercept their social media. They’re fascinated with guns. Children, 15 years old. I’m only here today to ask you guys to strengthen what we’re doing so we can send a message before they commit that crime.”

Sen. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, opposed the bill, stating that it was “chipping away at criminal justice reform.” Carter also questioned its urgency, saying violent crimes have gone down and that the bill would add to the state’s corrections costs.

“We are going to be facing undoubtedly an unprecedented deficit because we have so many unknowns,” Carter said.

Read more at KALB.com.

(Photo Credit: MGN)

Published: May 11, 2020

By: Catherine Hunt, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—Louisiana’s revenues are expected to drop by $1 billion or more due to the coronavirus, threatening cuts to services in the fiscal year starting July 1, state economists told the Revenue Estimating Conference Monday.

The four-member group adopted the lower forecast, which could translate into a 10 percent cut in the state’s discretionary funding, as Louisiana grapples with high levels of unemployment, falling oil prices and business closures because of the pandemic.

“There’s no crisis we’ve had that even comes close to this,” said Greg Albrecht, the Legislature’s chief economist.

The economists released their estimates shortly before Gov. John Bel Edwards announced that the state will be entering the first phase of the reopening process on Friday. He said he would loosen restrictions on businesses such as restaurants, gyms and salons. These businesses, along with churches, will be allowed to operate with 25% occupancy. However, bars, amusement parks and tattoos parlors will remain closed.

Even so, Albrecht projected an $867 million loss in general tax collections in the next fiscal year and about $165 million in tax and fee dollars for specific agencies.

Health services and higher education are typically the most vulnerable to budget cuts because they are not protected by mandated spending laws.

Falling oil and gas prices are responsible for much of the damage. Albrecht and Manfred Dix, the chief economist for Governor Edward’s administration, projected oil prices to be between $28 to $32 a barrel.

In addition, the projection calls for revenues to decrease by $362 million in the current fiscal year, with $123 million of that total coming from the state’s general tax collection.

Albrecht and Dix said they are highly uncertain of most of their estimates, since the data is distorted because of the coronavirus. It is difficult to determine how people will react once businesses do reopen, they said.

“People have to feel comfortable going out,” Albrecht said, “I don’t think people are going to be real comfortable for a while.”

Read more at KALB.com.

Published: May 2, 2020

By: Paige Daniel and Abigail Hendren, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Three blue states — Washington, Oregon and Colorado — conduct all of their elections through mail-in votes, and four red states — Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Alaska — are joining them this year in conducting their presidential primaries entirely through mail ballots.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, 28 other states have announced plans to increase access to absentee ballots or take other actions to keep voters from lining up at polling places.

Yet, in deciding on Tuesday to delay Louisiana’s presidential primary to July 11, the Legislature insisted that state election officials scale back plans to rely less on in-person voting and more on mail voting to reduce the health risks.

Republican legislators expressed concern that more mail-in ballots could increase the potential for voter fraud. But national election experts say there have been few instances of fraud as other states have expanded voting by mail. And even once the risks from the virus ease, they say, Louisiana could increase voter turnout if it made greater use of alternative voting methods.

Voter turnout in governor’s races in Louisiana declined steadily for several decades, from 54% in 1979 to 31% in 2011 before rebounding to 51% last fall, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office. Turnout in presidential elections in Louisiana has stayed higher, at 55% to 60% of eligible voters, though voting-rights advocates fear it could slip this year if voters do not feel safe.

Voting by mail is “something we’ve thought was important for a while now, but with the current state of the world, we now believe it is not only important, but essential to the democratic process,” Catherine McKinney, the director of the Louisiana Vote-by-Mail initiative, said.

“Now it is not only easier but imperative to keeping our poll workers and our voters safe from a global pandemic,” she said.

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Lara Nicholson, LSU Manship School News Service

Children of Klansmen are sometimes haunted by the sins of their fathers.

James Poissot, of Baton Rouge, never knew his father, but knew he was a violent man who beat James’ mother so severely decades ago that she miscarried.

In Rayville, the late William L. “Boo” Spencer grew up under the direct influence of his dad and consequently spent time behind bars, at times raging against the world and spewing racist hate.

Although the two sons never knew one another, James Poissot and Boo Spencer shared a common bond: their fathers were implicated in the same half-century-old Louisiana murder.

Earlier this year, while employed as a facility services worker at LSU, James Poissot observed a framed The New York Times article hanging on the wall of the Journalism Building. It described the unsolved 1964 murder of Ferriday shoe shop owner Frank Morris, whose business was torched on a chilly night 15 days before Christmas.

Sleeping in a back room when he heard glass breaking in front of his shop, Morris confronted two Klan arsonists, who fled the scene while he was trapped inside the flaming building. He died four days later.

Poissot looked at the article, pointed to the photo of Morris’ face and told the receptionist he believed his father was one of the men responsible for Morris’ death.

“I walk by, and I see a picture of the gentleman my dad killed,” Poissot said. “And I did say it without any hesitations.”

Morris had operated the shoe shop since the 1930s. His business had a devoted black and white clientele. Due to the racial climate of the era, Morris walked outside to take or deliver orders of white women who sat in their parked cars.

For years there were rumors that the Klan had killed Morris because he allowed black men and white women to have sex in a backroom of his shop. But an investigation by the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday found not a shred of evidence or a single witness to verify that any of that was true.

In 2010, Boo Spencer told the newspaper that he, his mother and his uncle had heard both Coonie Poissot, James’ father, and Leonard Spencer, Boo’s father, confess to the shoe shop arson. The three relatives also told the FBI.

Read more at The Advocate or at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.

Published: April 23, 2020

By: Allison Kadlubar, LSU Manship School News Service

LAKE CHARLES — Lake Charles attracts visitors to its restaurants, events and outdoor adventures, but its luxury casino resorts dominate the city’s hospitality and tourism industry.

The novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has shuttered these money-making machines for seven weeks, leaving the booming Lake Charles economically filled with uncertainties.

Tye Robinson, a bellhop at Golden Nugget Lake Charles, collected his last tips from Golden Nugget guests over a month ago.

“I would get a lot of tips, so I would use my cash on my bills and daily necessities,” he said.

(Photo credit: Augustus Stark/LSU Reveille)

Published: March 18, 2020

By: Katherine Manuel, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Circulation of misinformation about the coronavirus and other fake news is a threat to social-media consumers worldwide, but one LSU professor is leading a team of students to educate the public through a website.

Leonard Apcar, a professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, founded detectfakenews.com, a site designed to inform audiences about the dangers of fake news and offer tools to identify it, including misinformation surrounding COVID-19.

LSU Professor Len Apcar has been studying fake news for several years. According to the website, identifying fake news involves checking the quotes, images, attribution, sources, bias and a website’s URL address. Apcar says media consumers should look for independent and corroborated reporting.

The site posts articles that identify fake items, and Apcar and his students update followers via a Twitter account, @detectfakenews.

One of the stories, by a French news agency, describes how social media accounts linked to Russia have launched a coordinated campaign to spread panic about the coronavirus through fake news. The article says that the Russian accounts are spreading conspiracies that the United States was behind the COVID-19 outbreak.

Some posts say that the virus was manufactured by the CIA to disrupt China’s economy, while others falsely blame the charitable foundation led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for spreading it.

The LSU site also includes an article from the Washington Post, in which a State Department official blames Russia for spreading the misinformation, and an article from the New York Times about Britain’s efforts to combat coronavirus disinformation.

“The best way to guard against this is, first of all, to read the story,” Apcar said. “Too many people read headlines and just pass along stories, both true and false.”

                                                                                    Photo Credit: Houma Today

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Maria Marsh and Hailey Auglair, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—A Houma lawmaker criticized Gov. John Bel Edwards today for extending his statewide stay-at-home order through May 15 instead of opening parts of the state sooner.

Rep. Tanner Magee, who as speaker pro temp is the second ranking Republican in the state House, said Edwards’ decision not to let many businesses reopen more quickly will have consequences on the GOP-led Legislature’s willingness to work with him in a bipartisan way when lawmakers reconvene after a nearly two-month recess.

“There were windows of bipartisanship, and I think they probably closed yesterday,” Magee said in an interview. “We’re moving toward a very anti-bipartisan mood.”

The governor’s decision to extend the shutdown longer than many legislators wanted “was really hurtful,” Magee said. “Not intentionally, but in having new members come in that had never been through the process before, and they’re very much itching to do something to lead with this crisis. They feel helpless back in their districts because they can’t do anything, and that has caused a situation where people are kind of spiraling out to the wings.”

Edwards and Republican leaders have worked together reasonably well so far through the COVID-19 pandemic, which has sickened more than 27,000 state residents and killed more than 1,750.

Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is running for reelection, accompanied Edwards at his briefing Friday and agreed the state should only begin to reopen once data about the spread of the virus meets guidelines created by the Trump Administration.

But business groups and some Republican state lawmakers had been urging Edwards to let areas that have not had significant numbers of cases open next weekend, and Magee’s comments signal rising tensions over the timetable.

The tensions come as legislators and the governor need to work together to pass a new budget even as the state’s finances are being decimated by the cost of fighting the virus and the collapse in tax revenue from major industries like gambling, oil and gas and tourism.

Read more at Houma Today.

Photo Credit: 4WWL.com

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Kathleen Peppo, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — Along with the expected tolls that Gov. John Bel Edwards’s stay-at-home order has taken on citizens across Louisiana, the new normal has had a positive side effect: Crime rates have fallen substantially in cities and towns that are following it.

With the options to roam the streets and hang out in groups ruled out, towns whose citizens are taking the order seriously have seen significantly lower rates of crime and relatively few arrests. On the other hand, crime rates in areas that are continuing life without as much focus on the stay-at-home order are virtually the same as before it was put in place, police say.

A spot check suggests that crime has dropped in the biggest cities—New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette–and in many smaller spots around the state. Except for a shooting that wounded two juveniles last week, Eunice has seen less crime along with less traffic and less activity all around. Randy Fontenot, Eunice’s chief of police, said the town has been “extremely quiet.”

Fontenot said that the Eunice Police Department made only several arrests during each of the last two weekends, an unusually low number.

“We’re making some, but our daily logs are usually about two or three pages long, and, lately, some have been only half a page,” he said.

With so many public places closed or operating with very little human contact, crime is hardly an option in some areas. People cannot sit inside restaurants, peruse stores freely or roam the streets. There is little to no group activity, and crime is becoming less and less convenient.

Sgt. Wayne Griffin said that the Lafayette Police Department has “seen a real decrease in crime with the stay-at-home order in effect. We’ve seen less stores open, less people on the roads, less people at work, so we’ve had less incidents for sure.”

“Our citizens have been really great about adhering to the orders,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate that people are kind of just staying at home, doing their things, doing some honey dos.”

Read more at 4WWL.com.

       Photo Credit: News Radio 710 KEEL

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Catherine Hunt, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE —The biggest auto insurance companies, including State Farm, Allstate and GEICO, have announced temporary cost cuts and rebates of 15% to 25% for customers in Louisiana since the coronavirus has kept drivers off the roads.

The savings are a welcome relief for the state’s roughly 3 million insured drivers, who together pay the second-highest costs in the country, following only Michigan residents. And Republicans in the state Legislature say they are looking for solutions that could permanently reduce car insurance rates through “tort reform,” changes that could reduce the number of lawsuits filed over accidents and the size of some of the damage awards.

“I know that insurance companies have given rebates because less people are driving, but we’re still the second highest in the country, and that’s not going to change,” said Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge. “There is more of a need for this kind legislation now than before because of the coronavirus.”

The legislative session convened March 9, the same day that Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. The session was suspended a week later, and lawmakers hope to return to the Capitol in May to pass a new budget. They also would like to consider economic relief measures, either then or in a special session later this year, and that could include tort reform.

Republicans have long pushed for such changes. Talbot, who now chairs the Senate Insurance Committee, sponsored a bill last year that passed the Republican-controlled House. But it failed in a Senate committee amid questions by Democrats and other critics about whether the changes really would lower costs and be fair to people injured in car wrecks.

Louisiana’s rate of car cashes is on par with the rest of the country, but the rate of bodily injury claims is nearly double the national average. Talbot blames the state’s legal climate, contending that “there are things in our tort system that make us very unique to the rest of the country.”

“The data proves that those things are creating an environment where these bodily injury claims are double the national average and causing premiums to go up and insurance companies to leave,” he said.

Read more at the Daily Comet.

                         Photo Credit: Shreveport Times

Published: April 25, 2020

By: Evan Saacks, Myles Kuss and Eric Brasher, LSU Manship School News Service

Graham Jordan, a 21-year-old LSU student, did not wake up one morning after partying at a bar in the Tigerland area near campus in 2017. The autopsy showed that Xanax had been in his system, but a deeper observation showed something much worse — traces of fentanyl, a dangerous compound that street dealers mix into other drugs to increase the high.

Fentanyl is an opioid that doctors use to treat severe pain. But it is so powerful, and it is becoming so common as an added ingredient in street drugs, that it is responsible for more than half of all opioid overdose deaths in some parishes.

The Centers for Disease Control say fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and should only be used when pain is so severe that morphine will not be enough.

Jordan, the LSU student, died after taking Xanax laced with a lethal amount of fentanyl. Mary Ellen Jordan knows fentanyl was not a drug her son sought out.

“I had never even heard of it before we got his autopsy report,” she said. “I don’t really think most people take that on purpose.”

Two of the state’s largest parishes, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson, have seen fentanyl use rise even as overall opioid use has leveled off.

In 2018, 102 people died from opioids in East Baton Rouge Parish, with 32 of them involving fentanyl. 2019 saw a total of 127 opioid overdoses. The number of those deaths involving fentanyl is unclear, but East Baton Coroner Beau Clark said illicit manufacturing of the drug has risen substantially.