Senator James David Cain discusses Stelly Tax Plan on Legal Lines with Locke Mer [0:00-5:01]

Hello. I'm Locke Meredith with Legal Lines. I'd like to invite you to join us on the next show. We've got Senator James Kane. He's been a Louisiana State Senator and in the House of Representatives for over 31 years. He's been there through a lot of governors and he's got a lot of expertise and a lot of knowledge. We're going to talk about the Staley Tax Plan, what the big issues for the state are for the new Governor Blanco and her new administration and his position as chairman of the Insurance Committee. So join us on the next legal lines coming right up. Welcome to Legal Lines. I'm Locke Meredith. I'm very pleased to have on the show Senator James Kane. He's a Louisiana State Senator and been there for over 32 years. Is that right? Well, almost that long. Thank you very much for going on the show. Give me a little personal information. Well, I grew up in Western Louisiana. I'm still there and I used to be a basketball coach. I'm lucky enough to be in our State Basketball Hall of Fame and I played in college and that was my life dream just to coach basketball. I did pretty good at it. I got the assistant, offered assistant coach, Louisiana Tech and I said, well, I believe I'll pass on that. I believe I'll get the head job at McNeese. Head job came open. Politics got involved. Politics got involved. I didn't get it. Well, I'm in the wrong business. Now I'm naming the coaches. Just kidding. But that's how you were introduced to it. Yeah. I was introduced to it when I applied for a college basketball job and I said, you know, I need to get involved. And is that when you got involved in hockey? I got involved. I ran for State Representative and it's the first job I ever run for. I took me 11 months. I saw everybody in the district and they voted for me. Where's your district? Weston, Louisiana. A boy guard, Vernon, Sabine, Kykeshue Parishes, Fort Polk area in Weston, Louisiana. That's why we're part of the State that taught different. You know, a lot of people say, what do you talk like that? I can't say right, right, right, right or not, right. But we talk different over this. A lot of people think we're in Texas almost. Are you saying I'm pretty Texas? I know. I know I did. Well, tell me. And so you were elected as the State Representative over there. And how long did you hold that position? 20 years. And then I knew it was time to go up and get out and I went to the Senate and I tell people I was part of the problem. I believe. When I first got elected, I thought if you give a guy hand out and get him on his feet but then, you know, the world had turned around and it'd be better. You know, we were wrong. We got third and fourth generations now in welfare. It didn't work. And so about five or six years ago, I began to travel the state and talk to other people in Louisiana, got involved with the water issues and brought the water issues to light. And I began to travel around Louisiana and talk about water and felt like we need to do something about the water issues in Louisiana and got that started. And during that time, I began to hear from other people across Louisiana. It certainly made me a better legislator and every legislator, I'll have to go in other parts of the state and talk because if you did, the people there will tell them what you need to hear. And you district sometimes they'll tell you what you want to hear. And I began to hear people loud and clear and they were fed up with taxes and I began to vote different. I voted for the least amount of taxes in the last five years of any legislator. It takes a pretty big man to sit there and say for 20 years, he did the wrong thing. Pretty much. And you know, but I was just stating my little district, listening to my people, stating my little world and that's why I encourage other legislators to go out. Last year, we made 75 speeches across Louisiana. When I leave here today, I'll run the dance bill, make a speech next week, I'll be in Spring Hill. And people hear me talk and I talk about things that what we did in the past, what we should do now, and they listen. I was on the committee to say the same, so I thought, we're great, let's say the same. I think New Orleans ought to pay for it, I didn't think three for it, I did. So they put me on that and then I got on the issue of against income taxes. I thought income tax, the worst thing you could do to people. Why punish a guy for working? You really shouldn't do that. And they said it would not travel the state, saying it wasn't good. And these are positions contrary to what you've taken previously. Well, pretty much. But after you get into listening to people and figure out, you got to admit, sometimes when you're wrong, you've got to take three steps back. You've got some history behind you, though. You've been there through Democrats and Republicans and Democrats and Republicans and the good and the bad. And they changed parties. I turned my life completely around, I did it back overflip. But look, sometimes you got admit that you were wrong and sometimes I was young, I got down here young and we did some things that, looking back on it, we thought that's what we ought to do. And I believed that, hey, let's just give people handouts, they'll get on their feet. It didn't work. I was wrong. And I admit I'm wrong. I was wrong. I'm not wrong now. Now, one thing I did do the whole time I was here, I never ate or drink was obvious. I'm the only legislator, been here 30 years and I'm on nobody's expense account. Nobody ever whined and dined me. And let's say, take the whole legislature out of the whole committee, I don't go. It's not anything I just like about lobbyists, you know what a lobbyist is, a lobbyist somebody walking up to revolving door and they're behind you and you're in front of them to come out ahead of you. They're slick. So, but I learned real quick, don't fill those two people too much. You got to listen to them, but I mean you don't, I don't let them whine and dine