Committee slaps Odom's hand; he still wants to keep it in your pocket

Well, I can’t always be fully right, like I was in yesterday’s post about the post previous to that. Guess I’ll settle for being half-right regarding what the Legislature’s Agriculture Committees would do concerning Agriculture Secretary Bob Odom’s attempt to become czar of gasoline prices and affect a neat transfer of wealth from consumers to certain sellers of retail gasoline.

I thought there was no chance either committee would vote to deny Odom rulemaking power he asserted over enforcing the ridiculous law that says retail gas must have at least a 6 percent markup. Believe it or not, the Senate version actually rebelled, and even Odom stalwart Chairman Mike Smith went against his patron (only Butch Gautreaux chose not to rescind). By contrast, the chairman of the House version Francis Thompson, who with his brother is all about boondoggles to help his allies at the taxpayers’ expense, said his gang would have voted for it (not surprising since this committee has almost all Democrats on it). Thompson’s son, of course, works for Odom (isn’t it great how the Thompson family all sticks together in trying to run this state into the ground?).

The way it works now Gov. Kathleen Blanco has the chance to allow this to stand by not choosing to override the committee vote no later than 14 days from yesterday. But Odom won’t give up, essentially telling the governor to do something anatomically impossible and he’s going to go running to Attorney General Charles Foti to get confirmed that he has the authority to do this. Even though Foti’s own subordinate testified at this hearing that Odom had exceeded his authority, so don’t expect that gambit to work.
Just when I’ve thought I’ve seen it all in defining arrogance, Odom manages to bring it to new heights. He uses the emergency rule procedure in state law, coupled with a change in another law introduced last year, to create this whole new, unprecedented power for his office. And then he fights his own committee, the governor, the attorney general, and common sense and logic to keep it.

Odom is just too perfect as a caricature of a good old boy politician. If he didn’t really exist, this blog would have to invent something like him for entertainment value.