re: Livingston parish sheriffs election

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The reason these sheriffs get entrenched is because they can pretty much campaign their whole term with the public appearances, toy drives, loan out the big tent for events, doing favors for people,etc. They get to make a speech on the news everytime there's a big drug bust but nowhere to be seen when deputies are giving out cupcakes with secret ingredients at schools.
Then they have several hundred families that have someone employed by the sheriff's office in some fashion, so nobody wants to rock the boat and bring in a new guy that would make a bunch of changes. The whole department is campaigning for the sheriff to keep his job so nobody in the department wants to run or they'd get blackballed. And an outsider wouldnt have the local connections and the law enforcement background needed to run.

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All this...sadly

Which isn't to say there aren't good sheriffs. Just that it isn't a necessary quality to get re-elected.