Louisianans Win Bid to Secede From Baton Rouge and Form the City of St. George

  

Much of secession talk revolves around states like Texas, Idaho, or New Hampshire creating their own country outside of United States governance, or counties in California and Oregon wanting to separate from their state government. But this five-years-long case in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has set the precedent for a suburban community separating from its city. 

A week ago, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a group of Baton Rouge residents could create their own city independent of Baton Rouge and its corrupt political landscape.

From the New York Post to the New York Times, it’s all about “white wealthy people,” and not about fed-up citizens who just want sanity and proper use of their tax dollars.

A group of wealthy white Baton Rouge residents have won a decades-long battle to split from the majority-black city to form their own suburb following a state Supreme Court ruling.

After reversing a lower court’s decision on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the incorporation of St. George, which will form in southeast Baton Rouge.

“This is the culmination of citizens exercising their constitutional rights. We voted and we won,” Andrew Murrell, one of the leaders of the St. George campaign, said in a statement following the victory.

“Now we begin the process of delivering on our promises of a better city,” he added. “We welcome both our friends and foes to the table to create St. George.”

Interesting that all this started, not because of crime or racial tension, but because of school choice.

Much like the case with Central — the last incorporated city to be born in East Baton Rouge Parish — the St. George initiative began with hopes of residents starting a new school district before ultimately deciding to create their own city.

Scott McKay, a local Louisiana political writer, laid out the inconvenient facts.

There’s a lot of whining about this, though it’s hard to understand why – at least, until you recognize how deeply corrupt the in-crowd who run the city-parish of East Baton Rouge are. After all, the area which is now St. George could have been annexed into the city of Baton Rouge at any time, but no effort was made to do that.

And the impetus for St. George from the very beginning came from a desire by people living in the southeastern reaches of the parish to have an independent school district, which is entirely common all over the South in jurisdictions where parents aren’t interested in their kids being bused to schools all over town. Texas, which offers terrific public education, is full of independent school districts within cities. Houston in particular is loaded with them.

But when the people who wanted that southeast Baton Rouge ISD initially proposed it, they were told by a certain state senator representing North Baton Rouge that if they wanted a separate school district they needed to have a city to go with it.

And that is what they did. They followed their state and local laws, gathered enough signatures, and put it on the ballot. The initiative did not garner enough votes in 2015, but they did it all over again and were successful in 2020. This is how the Constitution works, just like Russell Brand and Nala Ray coming to Christianity is how the Bible works. Why does anyone have a problem with this? In the case of Baton Rouge, a majority Black city, it’s because WhItE sUPrEMacY! 

Language warning on this post, but their analysis is spot on.

Most media has painted this secession as a Black vs. White thing because of the optics, but what it really is about is economics. Not to mention the constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is interesting that major opposition to this secession came from that “certain state senator” mentioned above who said that the residents who comprise St. George had to start their own city if they wanted an independent school district. That state senator is Sharon Weston Broome, who, quite conveniently, happens to be the Mayor-president of Baton Rouge. 

Mayor-President Broome had some thoughts about the ruling.

WATCH:

Broome is very sad. Sad over all that sales tax revenue that’s now gone bye-bye! 

That was the crux of the case against St. George – that forming the new city, and in so doing squiring away the sales tax revenue generated in that part of the parish into the new city’s coffers rather than their current destination, the treasury of the city-parish of East Baton Rouge, would adversely affect the city-parish.

That argument should never have gotten anywhere in the courts. Essentially, what it says is that the people of Baton Rouge have the right to treat St. George as an economic colony, and to pillage their wallets for government spending elsewhere in the city-parish.

As ascertained above, it was the use of that racism cudgel that kept such a spurious case in the courts for far too long.

It was only a matter of time before a court, and it’s something of a shame that it had to be the Louisiana Supreme Court, would recognize the disgraceful bad faith of that argument. It only got as far as it did because of the racial element – because St. George is north of 75 percent white and Baton Rouge proper is north of 60 percent black, to rule that people in St. George are entitled to enjoy the benefits of their own tax dollars would be “racist,” of course.

And that likely had something to do with why this lasted as long as it did when the law of the case was as clear as it is.

As is typical of Democrat politicians, the city approved the illegal annexation of areas of the town that rightly belong in St. George’s boundaries, along with a loss of $250 million dollars in tax revenues that should have been escrowed in the event of a win for the City of St. George, but instead was spent by Mayor-president Broome. 

There will be much to work out, but secession leader and attorney J. Andrew Murrell will work alongside Mayor-President Broome to ensure a smooth as possible transition. The official formation of the city will require Governor Jeff Landry’s appointment of a mayor and city council members. Once this is all established, St. George residents will vote for their new leaders at the next election.

Like it or not, this has established a pattern that could well become the norm. Consider this a harbinger of things to come for taxpaying citizens in blue cities who are tired of being outright gaslighted and ignored by their leaders and elected officials, despite the fact that these folks generate much of the revenue that keeps these cities afloat. 

Thanks to the Louisiana Supreme Court, FAFO has now been established in this case of city secession. We will see how it goes, and what other red communities trapped in blue cities come aboard. In the meantime, rock on, St. George.