PRENTISS SMITH
Contributing Columnist
It’s a shame that Shreveport City Council members could not come together and choose someone locally known and affiliated with District E to represent the district. Governor John Bel Edwards, who has no local political skin in the game, should not have been the person choosing the district’s representation. Imagine the governor choosing a Republican to represent District F or District G. Citizens of those districts would be enraged, and deservedly so.
I understand the statute calls for the governor to make the pick, but the question is who influenced the governor, and are there any nefarious actions taking place? I don’t see that with this governor, but it still leads to the question, who is Alan Duvall Jackson, and what has he done to merit this appointment? The fact that the city council could not come to an agreement on the interim councilman says a lot about the need for change in the city.
The new representative for District E should have been a Republican, which would have been the fair thing to do, but that would have been too close to doing the right thing. District E elected a Republican to represent them in the past local elections, and the person chosen by the governor should have been someone of the same party as the person who previously held the position.
People who are voting for a particular candidate should know that their vote means something, and that their vote counts. Democrats should not fall into the same trap and start doing the same thing the Republicans are doing in local elections around the country to nullify votes and voters. Mr. Jackson is probably a nice and capable person, but he should not be the person chosen to represent District E, and that is no affront to him in any way. It just would have been the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, today some Republican governors and election officials are doing everything they can to nullify Democrat election officials and Democrat voters. That is wrong, and now Governor John Bel Edwards has done the same thing that Republicans have been doing; he is nullifying the votes of the majority of voters in District E.
The voters of District E chose Councilman Flurry, who is a Republican, to represent them in the last election. It goes without saying that the person chosen should have been a Republican like Mr. Flurry. There is a good chance that the next election cycle will put a Democrat in the seat, and that would be just fine. Appointing a Democrat to the position is not fine.
Citizens deserve better than what they are getting today from city hall. Leadership in the city leaves a lot to be desired, starting with the executive and legislative departments of city government. Hopefully, the upcoming local elections will yield candidates who are serious about moving this city forward and making sure that improving Shreveport and its quality of life are their main focus and not padding resumes and padding pockets. And that’s the way I see it. smithpren@aol.com