In keeping with the youthful orientation of his incoming administration, Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal selected current Secretary of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism Angèle Davis to serve as his commissioner of administration. Whether that will enable him to keep with his agenda of new direction in Louisiana remains to be seen.
Davis is an experienced hand in state government and in that role, having been former Gov. Mike Foster’s deputy commissioner in that role, which, most importantly among other things, is responsible for fiscal policy. The question is whether she is committed enough to policies that reshape state spending priorities and cut taxes, burdensome regulation, and bureaucracy through her budgetary suggestions to him.
Democrat-turned Republican Foster was not known as a smaller-government advocate, and the fact she had a high profile job in the Democrat administration of current Gov. Kathleen Blanco with Democrat Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu as her nominal boss indicates she is flexible enough to please masters of varying political persuasions. In addition, she has good experience for a Republican governor where there haven’t been too many in such positions of responsibility, which is needed.
Yet this also leads one to wonder whether she will bend to good-old-boy legislators who want to keep a bloated, inefficient state government more suited to their political agendas. Especially to put up with lot of them in the incoming state Senate, she will have to be a firm believer in the platform for change Jindal espoused throughout his campaign to stand up to their attempts to sabotage it. We just don’t know at this point how successful she can be in that which will require deep belief in that platform that publicly in her past work she has not displayed.
Still, it is something that this is not a wholly recycled appointment from the past. Jindal promised fresh faces for a new start, and as far as experienced individuals in state government go, she’s not too stale.
2 comments:
I don't understand your (guarded) optimism on this appointment. Foster was a big government tax and spend governor. Populist in rhetoric and vindictive toward anyone who stood is the way of his big government agenda. How is someone who carried water for Foster, Blanco and Landrieu a "fresh face?" Commissioner of Administration is a powerful position. Having a Foster-ista there is akin to purposely bringing termites into your home. I am very discouraged.
Well, what would one expect from the former DHH Secretary under Foster? Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
By the time our legislature gets through schooling the schoolboys, Jindal's term will be over with nothing accomplished.
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