Edwards seeks Black votes through sports betting for Pre-K
18th February 2019 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Just over a month ago, Governor John Bel Edwards shocked the assembled reporters at the Baton Rouge Press Club by calling for an immediate legalization of sports betting and the use of any tax dollars garnered to help fund early childhood education. Combined with boosting teacher pay, Edwards’ strategy to carve out a second term victory over his likely GOP challengers began to come into view. He seeks to brand himself as “the Education Governor.”
Merging gambling with education funding has proven a solid strategy for conservative Democrats in the past, and Edwards may need every vote he can to pull away from Louisiana’s increasingly white working class before Republicans Ralph Abraham and Eddie Rispone claim them. However, the proposal also may be key to secure the wavering Louisiana African-American electorate who —if a recent poll is to be believed — has already started to shop for another Democratic gubernatorial candidate in which to invest their hopes. It was only last Fall, after all, in the special election for Secretary of State, that the desire of Black voters for an African-American contender for high office propelled an unknown, little funded candidate into the runoff over the hand-picked, well-financed, and heavily supported Caucasian Democrat. A strong Black Democrat in this year’s Governor’s race could prove a nightmare for the incumbent’s re-election chances.
Increasing education funding may be the means to merge those different white and Black swing constituencies behind Edwards — without alienating any of his Democratic core electorate. In fact, the aforementioned journalists’ surprise came from the fact that the Democratic Governor previously had not seemed particularly interested in sports betting, when the measure came close to passage in the last legislative session. Foresighted representatives had hoped to pass a legalization bill in anticipation to the Supreme Court authorizing sports betting in all 50 states. Mississippi already had, yet Edwards remained silent amidst his own tax battles and the measure got lost in the deficit shuffle.
SCOTUS ruled as expected, and Mississippi Casinos, not to mention the Magnolia State’s budget, have been the beneficiaries of Louisianans’ tax dollars flowing across the border.
So why now? Could it be that Edwards’ beleaguered Republican challengers may not be as weak as they first appeared — two comparative unknowns statewide who have been perceived as proverbial sacrificial lambs?
The weight of the National GOP and even the White House have seemed to gel behind 5th District Congressman Ralph Abraham in recent weeks. While the three term U.S. Representative lacks Gov. Edwards’ campaign warchest, his fundraising has been brisk, and it has seemed that prominent Republicans have worked to keep the field clear for his candidacy, mostly.
It briefly looked as if former 4th District U.S. Rep. John Fleming, who left Congress following a failed bid for U.S. Senate and joined the Trump administration, was considering a gubernatorial run, but thanks to a little bit of Oval Office influence, the physician-politician from Minden may be taking another path.
Fleming previously labored as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services. Last year President Donald Trump nominated him to be the Commerce Department’s assistant secretary for economic development, yet Fleming never got a confirmation vote. However, the White House appears undeterred, resubmitting Fleming’s name for the job, and are pushing for a final confirmation still.
Several Republicans have flirted with a bid for Governor this year, from Attorney General Jeff Landry to U.S. Senator John Kennedy. All have demurred in Abraham’s favor, save Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone. Originally considered a footnote, Rispone has pledged to spend $5 million in his bid for Governor, and has won support from a surprising number of political insiders.
In the age of Trump, Rispone bills himself as an “outsider” who can clean up the political “swamp” in Baton Rouge, a rather familiar phrase. Interestingly, the two men actually help one another into forcing John Bel Edwards into a runoff, claiming the insider and outsider wigs of the GOP, and stopping the Governor from a simple coast into a second term out of voter contentment — and lethargy.
Too many candidates, and Gov. Edwards triumphs in October thanks to an overly divided field on the Right. Conversely, facing just one GOP insider, the incumbent could simply brandish his pro-business, moderate credentials, emphasize the similarities, and win without a major policy reform.
However, in a battle against both wings of the GOP, represented by just two Republicans, a wide enough variety of voters could turnout out in October to force the sitting Governor into a runoff with one of them. That’s dangerous for Edwards. Democrats rarely do well in the lower turnout environment of a Louisiana second primary. Runoffs tend to favor Republicans.
Edwards had been poised to campaign as the Governor who had raised teacher pay, but his proposal ran into the fiscal wall of the Revenue Estimating Conference. House Speaker Taylor Barras backed up Appropriations Committee Chairman Cameron Henry’s original assertion that with oil prices falling, the state lacked the money for the $1,000 per teacher pay hike. The raises were contingently funded in the last budget cycle – only if the Louisiana budget went into surplus. Henry argued before the REC, though, as oil prices subsequently fell from $80 per barrel to $60, the state treasury no long had the funds to pay for the pay raise.
The Governor decried the move, but has been quiet of late as the Henry’s fiscal prediction proved true. The state budget is currently in balance, yet thanks to falling world petroleum prices, its barely avoided a turn into red ink. A major teacher pay initiative would require a tax increase, almost impossible in an election year. Edwards needed a new education initiative, funded through a relative “painless” form of additional revenue.
In the Governor’s defense, John Bel Edwards has long decried the fact that pre-kindergarten stands as a rarity in most local school districts, either unfunded or radically underfunded. When he told the assembled members of the Baton Rouge Press Club that expanding early childhood education programs was essential to reducing education performance gaps between poor and wealthy students of all races, Edwards simply articulated a long-held campaign plank.
“We have way more than our fair share of students who show up and are not ready to learn and we don’t catch them up,” Gov. Edwards said. “If we are serious about education in Louisiana, this is just something we are going to have to do.” By dedicating the new revenue toward early childhood education, he found a way to achieve a long-term goal.
At least in part. One defender of Edwards’ proposal, Melanie Bronfin, Director of the Louisiana Policy Institute, confessed to The Louisiana Weekly in an interview that a tax alone on sports betting could not come near to paying the fiscal note for universal pre-K across the state, but she added, “It’s a start.” Such a proposal could argument efforts underway in some parishes, and fund a few efforts for pre-Kindergarten in parishes where it currently does not exist.
Enacting such a proposal definitely would look good to suburban Republicans in parts of the state who have never heard of Abraham or Rispone, but free pre-K could also provide excellent optics to many African-American progressive voters who have seen little practical difference between the policies of Edwards and a Republican incumbent. This is not a small number of Black voters, if a recent poll commissioned by the Abraham campaign is to be believed.
A survey by Remington Research released by the Congressman’s allies in December indicated that John Bel Edwards enjoys only has 53 percent support amongst Democratic voters for re-election at present, with 25 percent wanting to vote for somebody else, 15 percent saying they won’t vote for a Democrat, and seven percent saying they remain unsure. The poll further indicates that the vast majority of the 25 percent — looking for another Democrat to get into the race — are Black voters.
Christopher Tidmore speaks about Louisiana politics on the radio four times per week, 8-9 AM Mon., Wed. & Fri. on 1560 AM, and Sundays on 99.5 FM, archived weekly at the podcast section of wrno.com.
This article originally published in the February 18, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
