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They call it The Big Easy. While New Orleans has earned a reputation for its laid-back lifestyle, its government has long been known as an easy, sleazy den of corruption and incompetence.

It’s a good-paying gig if you can get it.  

In fact, there’s much cheese to be made as a “dedicated” public servant in the nation’s largest Democrat-led cities — even while they burn. 

Take New Orleans’ top crimefighter, Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, the old gal with the Kristen Wiig Target Lady hairdo. She’s raking in more than $300,000 a year. Kirkpatrick started her tenure as superintendent in September 2023 at an annual salary of $337,943, according to a new report from government spending tracker Open The Books. 

That’s a hefty paycheck, even for a 65-year-old seasoned law enforcement veteran who appears to be a dedicated soldier for the left’s three pillars of public safety: diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

‘I Didn’t Know About Them’ 

Understandably some of her fellow citizens are questioning the value Kirkpatrick brings to her post after a U.S. born-radicalized jihadist with an ISIS flag drove a pickup truck through a crowd of Bourbon Street revelers on New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring dozens more. Questions of confidence definitely popped up when Kirkpatrick admitted that she had no idea that New Orleans had in 2017 put barriers in place in an attempt to impede such attacks in the tourist-rich district. The barriers were not up at the time but have since been installed. 

“Actually, we have them. I didn’t know about them, but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out,” the apparently overmatched Kirkpatrick told reporters a day after one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. 

As NBC News reported, “the 700-pound steel barriers, which are certified by the Department of Homeland Security, were credited with preventing casualties in a similar incident last year in California at the Rose Parade.” The security barriers were reportedly taken down because they had been malfunctioning, with city crews in the middle of installing a new bollard system. Apparently the bewildered police superintendent wasn’t aware of all of that. 

City officials did not return The Federalist’s requests for comment. 

‘When You Mess Up, You Fess Up.’

Bizarrely, Kirkpatrick was under investigation after a similar car-versus-pedestrian incident near the same area where the New Year’s terrorist attack took place. The police superintendent was driving in the French Quarter when her vehicle struck a man and a woman. The female received minor injuries. 

Kirkpatrick told NOLA that she was on duty at the time, having just visited an injured police officer in the hospital when she made a left-hand turn and didn’t notice the pedestrians. 

“I’m so sorry for what happened last night. I’m so grateful that the two people involved really are going to be fine. Just terribly sorry,” the superintendent said in August. The status of the investigation is not clear. In a subsequent interview, Kirkpatrick said, “When you mess up you fess up. And that is also part of leadership and leading the way. And even myself, if you mess up, I own this, I apologize for it, and then I will take the consequences for it and then we’re gonna move on.” 

According to Open The Books, Kirkpatrick has collected nearly $3 million since 2016. She previously served as police chief in Oakland, California, where her 2017 starting salary grew from $250,003 to $334,090 by 2019, OTB reports. 

“The Oakland Police Commission voted unanimously to fire Kirkpatrick without cause in February 2020. She sued for wrongful termination, claiming she was fired for speaking out against alleged corruption in the Commission, an independent civilian group that oversees Oakland’s police,” the watchdog notes in its report. 

She won in federal court. A judge in 2022 ordered the city of Oakland to pay Kirkpatrick $1.5 million in damages, including a full year’s salary of $337,675, according to OTB. She had sought $3 million, part of it in “emotional damages.” 

Kirkpatrick, “one of the most tenured police executives in the country,” is steeped in the politics of DEI. As a National Press Foundation bio notes, the police superintendent is a national instructor at the FBI’s Law Enforcement Executive Association’s Leadership Training Program, “where she instructs on topics including, but not limited to, Bias and Diversity, Emotional Intelligence and Leading Generations.”

‘With Distinction and Integrity’

Kirkpatrick is pulling down a much heftier salary than New Orleans’ leftist Mayor LaToya Cantrell, according to Open The Books’ review. But the mayor will muddle through somehow on her $188,370 annual compensation. 

Of course, Cantrell is a real high flier. She got busted a few years back bumping up her unnecessary “official” overseas flights to first class. According to New Orleans’ Fox 8, the Democrat and three of her top aides enjoyed a junket to France so the mayor could sign a “sister-city agreement.” Not willing to fly with the peasants in coach, Cantrell bumped up her seating arrangements to the elite section — charging New Orleans taxpayers $18,000 for the privilege. 

“About a week after she returned from France, Cantrell traveled to Switzerland for another signing of a ‘sister city’ agreement. Her flight there cost just over $9,800, and she spent more than $11,000 for the six days in Ascona, Switzerland,” Fox 8 reported. 

Cantrell had long refused to pay the city back for the extravagance, despite a city policy clearly stipulating that if city employees want to travel in business or first-class, they do so on their own dime. 

“All expenses incurred doing business on behalf of the City of New Orleans will not be reimbursed to the City of New Orleans. I do my job and I will continue to do it with distinction and integrity every step of the way,” Cantrell huffed.

She ultimately agreed to pay back the nearly $29,000, but only after the New Orleans City Council threatened to take the unauthorized travel expenses out of her salary. 

‘Accusation After Accusation’ 

Cantrell and Gilbert Montano, the city’s chief administrative officer, were implicated last year in a 25-count indictment unsealed in September. Neither has been charged, but they are referenced in the indictment against Randy Farrell of Metairie, “a licensing inspector accused of conspiring to offer bribes to city officials to dissuade an investigation of illicit permitting activity,” Fox 8 reported.

It gets worse. According to a column in the Louisiana Illuminator: 

A previous federal indictment was issued July 19, accusing Jeffrey Vappie, a former member of the mayor’s police security detail, of defrauding the taxpayers by submitting false timecards to the NOPD for work he never did. The indictment charges that, instead of conducting police work during those hours, he was “carrying on a personal and romantic relationship with public official 1.”

“Public official 1” is the mayor, according to multiple reports. The FBI has charged Vappie with making false statements to try to cover up his romantic relationship with the mayor. Vappie has filed a not guilty plea, and his trial date has been pushed back to July. 

“How I came in seems to be how I’m going out,” Cantrell said at the beginning of her Oct. 1 budget presentation to the City Council, according to a recording from Fox 8. “Accusation after accusation after accusation. But also a track record of delivering results.”

Crime Pays

While Cantrell did Europe in style and Kirkpatrick made law enforcement diversity, equity and inclusion a top priority, New Orleans continued to hold the dubious honor as one of the most dangerous cities in America. While the former “Murder Capital” boasts of a significant decline in violent crimes from the record numbers a few years ago amid the national “defund the police” movement, celebrating FBI crime statistics can be a tricky business. As John R. Lott, Jr. reported in October in The Federalist, the bureau has been caught fudging the numbers in the Biden years.

“While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8 percent since Biden took office, the NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] numbers show total violent crime has risen by 55.4 percent,” the story, originally published by RealClearInvestigations, notes. 

That’s the same FBI, by the way, that missed an Islamic State-inspired terrorist’s deadly intentions because it was too busy hosting DEI-ladened recruitment sessions. 

“#FBINewOrleans is holding a Diversity Agent Recruiting event and we want to meet you! Agents and FBI executives will provide first hand information about a rewarding career. Apply now to see if you qualify for the July 17th event in Metairie, LA here: https://ow.ly/YWh250RPl15,” an inclusive X post advertised in June. 

The story is the same all over. The nation’s largest cities, run by Democrats, are crime-infested, debt-ridden places that are making their leftist leaders a very good living. 

According to a salary review by Open The Books for The Federalist, the mayors of the nation’s five-largest cities hauled in a combined $1 million-plus in total compensation in 2023 — not counting kickbacks. 

While California Burns

Karen Bass, the grossly incompetent mayor of Los Angeles, raked in compensation totaling more than $300,000, according to OTB’s records. As the Los Angeles-area burns from “unprecedented” wildfires, Bass is on the hot seat for slashing the city’s fire-fighting budget. As the wildfires raged out of control, the Democrat mayor was in West Africa — attending the inauguration of Ghana’s president. Bass was one of four delegates representing President Joe Biden. 

Her predecessor, like Bass, pumped plenty of DEI into “fire protection,” according to my Federalist colleague Beth Brelje. 

In January 2022, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti checked multiple DEI boxes by appointing Kristin Crowley as fire chief, the first female, LGBT chief in Los Angeles. That year, according to LAFD data, “of the more than 6,500 applicants to LAFD, 70% were people of color and nearly 8% … were female,” which was “double the … percentage of female firefighters within the Department” at the time.

Crowley, according to OTB’s review, collected “an absurd $439,772 — $412,493 base pay and $27,278 ‘other’ pay.”

Crowley has pushed the banner of DEI inside the Los Angeles Fire Department. 

“As the fire chief, if confirmed, I vow to take a strategic and balanced approach to ensure we meet the needs of the community we serve,” she said, as Newsweek quoted her. “We will focus our efforts on increasing our operational effectiveness, enhancing firefighter safety and well-being, and fully commit to fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture within the LAFD.”

Los Angeles’ top cop, Jim McDonnell, was sworn in in November at a $450,000 base salary, one of the highest police chief salaries among the nation’s largest cities, according to the Associated Press. 

And if you’re scoring along at home, Brian K. Williams, Bass’ deputy mayor for public safety, was on administrative leave after being accused of making a bomb threat to city hall, the Associated Press reports. The FBI searched Williams’ home last month, and the matter remains under investigation. 

Crime and Debt 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, facing corruption charges, collected $258,041.16 in total compensation in 2023, according to OTB. The mayor is looking at some big legal bills ahead of an April trial tied to his alleged relationship with Turkish government officials. Prosecutors accuse Adams of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in improper gifts, including extravagant international travel packages from wealthy foreign businesspeople. Earlier this week, federal prosecutors said “law enforcement has continued to identify additional individuals involved in Adams’ conduct, and to uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.” 

The Democrat, who has pleaded not guilty, blasted the prosecutors at a press conference.  

“You know, even Ray Charles can see what’s going on. And I have an attorney, Alex Spiro, he is handling that. I’ve said over and over again, I’ve done nothing wrong. Let the attorneys do that. I have to run the city,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson — Let’s Go Brandon! — was set to earn about $221,052 last year following a pay raise tied to inflation, according to Illinois Policy. Chicago City Council members, the publication reported, pulled down a comfortable salary of just shy of $146,000 after a whopping 9.6% pay raise in 2023, even as crime and debt continued to devour the Democrat-led Windy City.

“Chicago is not only the nation’s murder capital but leads the nation in mass shootings. Last year, there were 83 mass shootings, which Chicago Police define as three or more,” Illinois Policy reported in July. 

Left Coast Corruption

Ousted San Francisco Mayor London Breed was the highest-paid mayor in the nation, raking in $383,760 in total salary and benefits in 2023, according to Open The Books. 

Breed’s tenure in office was so disastrous that even the most devout liberals in the leftist city couldn’t take any more. The Democrat lost her bid for reelection in November amid chaos in San Francisco’s streets. Her leftist leadership only exacerbated the city’s homeless, drug, and brazen retail theft crises. Breed’s fellow Bay Area Marxist, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, suffered a worse fate — she was ousted in a recall election after just two years into a four-year term under a cloud of corruption.

Breed, too, faced a corruption scandal heading into November’s election after the former director of the mayor’s multi-million dollar “Dream Keeper” initiative, billed as an “ambitious social equity program,” was suspected of improperly spending funds. Breed faced “mounting scrutiny” after the San Francisco Chronicle investigation exposed troubling expenditures. 

Despite the crime, the incompetence, and the corruption, voters in the America’s biggest cities continue to elect leftist mayors. NBC News called the Dem stranglehold on mayoral seats — effectively 10 of 10 liberals leading the 10 most-populated communities in 2023 — the new “Blue Wall.” That same year, Democrats controlled all but three mayor’s offices in the nation’s 25 most-populous cities, according to the corporate news outlet. 

“Those 25 cities are home to 38 million residents, about 12% of the country’s total population and more people than the combined populations of 21 states,” the NBC News noted. 

‘Mentality of Liberal Failure’

While Democrats still dominate the city electoral map, President-elect Donald Trump “made significant inroads in surprising places,” from blue havens like New Jersey, New York, and Hawaii, according to an AP analysis of November’s vote totals. AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide, “found that Trump made substantial gains among Black and Latino men, younger voters, and nonwhite voters without a college degree, compared with his 2020 performance.”

In the Bronx, for instance, Trump picked up 27 percent of the vote, unheard of in the deep blue bastion, according to the New York State Board of Elections. It was the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate there in 40 years, NBC News reported. 

“Even Chicago, the bluest of blue cities, is getting Trumpier,” Chicago Magazine reported post-election. 

“In the last three elections, Donald Trump has steadily increased his share of the vote here, from 12.4 percent in 2016, to 15.8 percent in 2020, to 21.4 percent” in November’s election, the publication noted. “In Illinois as a whole, Trump’s percentage jumped from 40.5 percent in 2020 to 44.3 percent this year.” 

Of course, lots of Democrats, uninspired by fill-in candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, sat out the election. But Patricia Easley (aka “P Rae”), a black conservative activist and mega MAGA backer from Chicago, last summer predicted growing support for Trump in her city, as black voters especially grow tired of generations of broken promises from Democrats.

“Our goal is to get people away from the mentality of liberal failure that is happening in our city,” Easley, the founder of conservative group ChicagoRed, told me at July’s Republican National Convention. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.