Caddo Parish Commission president silencing voices

Have you ever found yourself in a disagreement with someone — maybe a friend, a coworker, a family member — and it’s clear they were wrong? You laid out the facts, stayed calm and perhaps even gave them every chance just to say, “Yeah, I messed up.” But instead of owning it, they dig in deeper. They double down.

Psychologists say it’s often about ego — and that the person you’re disagreeing with can’t handle being wrong, even when it’s obvious. Admitting a mistake feels like too big a blow to their self-image, so they protect themselves by pretending they’re still right, acting like nothing happened or minimizing it, essentially acting like you’re overreacting. It’s not that they don’t see the truth, they can’t face it.

It’s frustrating, especially when all you want is honesty and a little accountability.

What happened during a recent Caddo Parish Commission work session is an excellent example of where the public wanted nothing more than honesty and a little accountability, but what they got was a case study in local government dysfunction, a textbook example of arrogance, pettiness and utter disregard for democratic order.

So in that work session, what happened was that Commissioner John Atkins made a motion, following Robert’s Rules of Order (what the motion was about is not really important), and another Commissioner offered a second. A second means the motion is deemed worthy of coming to the floor for discussion, debate and possibly a vote. That’s how the process works.

However, Commission President Stormy Gage-Watts claims she heard no second and moved on with the meeting as if Atkins hadn’t made a motion at all. She declared his motion null and void for a lack of a second, yet moments later, even the Commission’s attorney said she had heard a second and it was in time for Atkin’s motion to be considered.

Gage-Watts wasn’t having any of that, though, saying she had declared his motion dead.

Let me tell you something: this is petty tyranny. This is the kind of gamesmanship that breeds distrust in government. And it’s especially galling because under Robert’s Rules of Order when there is any reasonable doubt about whether a second was made — especially in a room where people are speaking into microphones and multiple people confirm they heard the second — the chair is supposed to err on the side of allowing the motion to proceed. That’s right.

The benefit of the doubt is supposed to go to the democratic process, not to the whims of whoever happens to be holding the gavel.

So, let’s talk about that benefit of the doubt.

Atkins is not some rabble-rouser. He’s a seasoned commissioner. He knows the rules. He plays fair. He followed the process, he made his motion, and it got a second.

What did Gage-Watts do? She pretended it didn’t happen. That’s not leadership. That’s a power trip.

Do you know what this reminds me of? It’s the same behavior you see in left-wing academia, where conservative students try to speak, and they get shouted down. It’s the same behavior you see in woke corporations where dissent is labeled as hate. It’s the same behavior you see in national politics where they try to silence opposing voices on social media, in the press or the public square. It’s about control folks. It’s about shutting down any effort — no matter how respectful or procedural — that threatens the established narrative.

In this case, the narrative was that only certain motions would receive attention. Only certain voices were going to be heard. Atkins is a Republican. Gage-Watts is a Democrat.

But this shouldn’t be about party. When you have the leader of a governing body who feels entitled to ignore motions she doesn’t like, you no longer have a functioning democracy, you have a fiefdom. You have a monarchy.

You have a rigged game where the house always wins. And the people of Caddo Parish — the taxpayers, the voters, the business owners— they lose. They lose big.

Motions made within these governing bodies matter, even the ones that fail. Because they reveal where elected officials stand, they show who is trying to make reforms and who is blocking them. They expose who has courage and who is just taking the path of least resistance. When you deny a commissioner even the right to have a motion heard, you’re denying the public the right to know what’s really going on, and that’s what makes this so corrupt.

Imagine if you were in a courtroom and your lawyer objected to something improper, but the judge just looked the other way and said, “I didn’t hear anything.” Wouldn’t that be outrageous? Wouldn’t that be grounds for appeal? In any other setting — legal, corporate, even in a PTA meeting — this kind of maneuver would be called out for what it is: manipulation and abuse of power.

And for the record, I don’t care what party you’re in: Democrat, Republican, Independent. If you hold the gavel, you have a duty to honor the process. You don’t get to play referee and quarterback at the same time. You don’t get to pick and choose which motions count. That’s not just unfair, it’s dishonest. It’s an affront to the very principles that make representative government work and Gage-Watts owes Atkins an apology — not for being wrong, because we all make mistakes — but for doubling down instead.

Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman, attorney and author of “Bright Spots, Big Country, What Makes America Great.” He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. His columns have appeared regularly in 318 Forum since 2007. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com, and on American Ground Radio at 101.7FM and 710 AM, weeknights from 6 - 7 p.m., and streaming live on keelnews.com.