State House District 3 Race - Barbara Norton

I was going to do this in one blog post, but it would be too much. I’ll take a look at Barbara Norton tonight and then Lynn Cawthorne tomorrow.
District 3 runs from Midway Street south to part of Cedar Grove down to the Innerloop and west across 70th Street and Hollywood to the Airport. You can find that district map here.
We’re all familiar with Barbara Norton, who has represented this district for the last 3½ years. The infamous Norton, of course, is renowned for her cursing of Shreveport Police officers on the streets of downtown during her African-American History Parade last year. To refresh your memory, here’s what happened, and it was verified by video and by eyewitness accounts.
The City of Shreveport has a law that says that drivers of parade floats must be cleared by the police department to drive in a parade. Norton did not turn in the required paperwork ahead of time so the police were checking all of the drivers as best they could.
Norton went ballistic. How dare they question her, a former ‘community activist’ turned state legislator?
Calling one officer a white motherfucker and the other, a black officer, an Uncle Tom, Norton had to be calmed down by then Chief Henry Whitehorn.
She should have been arrested, not calmed down.
In fairness, I searched for a campaign website and could not find one to link to.
Barbara Norton is a blight on the community and a disgrace to the district she serves, indeed to the Louisiana State House of Representatives.
As for issues, she is against corporal punishment in school and she didn’t like Henry Burns’ bill (which passed) to allow guns in churches with approval and under certain circumstances.
Other than that, it is hard to find anything substantive at all about Norton.
I did get the video below, in which she refused to answer questions and referred them to her ‘assistant’.
Video thanks to Shmuffinman on You Tube.
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at her opponent, local businessman Lynn Cawthorne. There is a lot to recommend him other than just not being Barbara Norton.

Barbara Norton, The Inquisitor and the Infinity to Understand

Danny Lawler at The Inquisitor gives us a report about State Representative Barbara Norton’s shameful behavior at the African American History Parade earlier this month. The Inquisitor obtained police video of the incident as well as eyewitness accounts of what transpired as police officers began to check drivers of vehicles in the parade, as required by city law.
The law was passed a few years ago when a child was hit by a float being pulled by a vehicle driven by a person who was intoxicated.
Being the ‘public official’ that she is, apparently Norton thought the law didn’t apply to her, and began making racial slurs at the officers, according to reports, calling one white officer a white motherfucker and a black officer, Kevin Anderson, an ‘Uncle Tom’.
There is a lot more to the story, but you’ll have to buy The Inquisitor to read it.
I thoroughly searched Channel 3, Channel 6, Channel 12 and The Times and there is no mention whatever of the incident.
I wonder why?
I did find the video below on Channel 3’s website from January. Gerry May interviewed Ms. Norton about Black History Month and the parade. She said that the purpose is “to teach our children and grandchildren about who they are, where they came from, and to give them the infinity to understand that others can do, and also that they can do it too.”
The infinity to understand? Now what the hell does that mean?