Alexandria Wishes To Rule Over You- Proposed Louisiana Congressional District

I very much enjoy the posts of proud Alexandria mover and shaker Cenlamar. Put him on your links. He has a post up today called Jindal Promises To Veto Central Louisiana Congressional District.

He is not a fan of that veto idea. His post I suspect has three purposes. There is a Democrat purpose and attack Jindal purpose. However the main purpose is to advocate for Central Louisiana and ESPECIALLY the Crown City of Alexandria / Pineville. (What I will Call New Rome).

Your city/town/home/ stomping grounds comes before your Party and other agendas. Well except for State Senator Lydia Jackson of Shreveport but that is another post.

Regardless CenLamr is not like Sen Lydia Jackson and is looking out for his home town which every native son or daughter should do.

I address his argument as to military bases in comment 1 at his site.

However I want to highlight a few interesting parts :
Central Louisiana is one of the fastest growing regions in the State, and with all due respect to my friends in Monroe, Northeast Louisiana has experienced significant declines. There is absolutely no reason that anyone in Monroe should worried about sharing a Congressional district with the good people of Shreveport. They’re your neighbors. Just hop on I-20 and drive west for an hour and ten minutes.

I am not sure how real this rival thing is between Monroe and Alexandria. Monroe shares much more in common with Alexandria than Shreveport. Further I am not sure how fast CENLAMAR drives, but if you can get from Monroe to Shreveport in a hour and ten minutes they will put you in a jail cell. On the bright side you might have a nice career at places like the Daytona 500.

When Governor Jindal says he will veto any plan that doesn’t preserve two North Louisiana districts, what he really means is that he will expend as much political capital as he possibly can in order to ensure Central Louisiana is sliced and diced so that two Republicans who live less than sixty miles from the Arkansas border can retain their power and control over Central Louisiana. Believe it or not, John Fleming (Minden) and Rodney Alexander (Quitman) live less than fifty miles from one another, in one of the least populated and most rural areas of our entire State.

Now this paragraph is the most puzzling. First in South Louisiana we got 3 Congressmen that live around 80 miles from each other at the most. So what if Fleming and Alexander live 50 miles from each other. Does the fact that Congressman Richmond and Congressman Scalise live within 20 minutes of each other mean that their two districts are the same?

Now I am not sure of this, but I am under the impression that CenLamar must think that Congressman Alexander resides in a Quitman that is in Lincoln Parish. Of course Quitman is in Jackson Parish. I assume that because it does seem a strange bit of advocacy to just pretty much bash Jackson Parish that is part of the GREAT NEW CENLA Brotherhood.

In fact if we want to talk "least populated and most rural areas of our State" within 60 odd miles of Arkansas then look at all those Northern Parishes in the new proposed DISTRICT on the map he provides. Those are Madison , Richland and heck almost Caldwell. Welcome PLEBES to the central Louisiana District.

There seems in the overall discussion of the Louisiana districts the fear of SHREVEPORT and MONROE Power.

Yet as he so well points out those two Congressman are from the "least populated and most rural areas of our State" . Somehow they managed to make their case and get elected over the big cities boys. Maybe it is because Shreveport and Monroe folks are self confident enough to look outside their city boundaries for their Congressman

I am not sure exactly what is going on here , but perhaps in Cenlamar's proposed district it is assumed that the Congressman will have to be from Alexandria (New Rome) .

Who these likely people might be I don't know. I am pretty sure CenLamar will be part of a group or faction that will give influential input what citizen of the New Rome will rule over the rural rubes. But it seems apparent from the above discussion a person from lets say St Helena will be deemed a plebe and unworthy and anyone else form the "least populated and most rural areas of our State" . :)

While I am sure it is Alexandria has many great leaders building a district to get them elected to Congress is not the highest priority in fashioning Congressional Districts .

The two vertical "North Louisiana" are best for the State as a whole and for 90[percent of the the rural and urban areas within them. There will be a few areas down South that should be in another District perhaps. But on the whole the two vertical districts serves most everyone 's needs.