This space has documented thoroughly (most recently here)
the capital projects favored by the former long-time secretary of Agriculture
and Forestry, who served seven terms before being forced into a general
election runoff in 2007 and then withdrawing to elect current Secretary Mike
Strain, that identified them as boondoggles from the start and sounded an
alarm of taxpayer money in jeopardy. Unfortunately, as Strain
continues to concede, the assessment was entirely correct.
It could have been worse. In addition to two failed government enterprises,
dealing with cedar mulching and sugar milling, another sugar mill had been
proposed. But head of the State Bond Commission, whose panel must approve such
deals utilizing debt, and Treasurer John Kennedy,
who had gone along with the mill that got built, balked
at the arrangement for another, more expensive version, and eventually
was joined by then-Gov. Kathleen
Blanco with objections. Together, they had enough votes on the Commission
to have the idea rejected, and in doing so preventing the waste from doubling.
Kennedy then was and Blanco still is s Democrat, so their bucking the
guy who had the best voter mobilization machine in the state for Democrats was
significant and indicative of the changing atmosphere. Kennedy was looking to
cruise into another term the next year and was in the middle of a pivot from being
a populist of the left to one of the right, transitioning from the different
political environments surrounding is his failed 2004 Senate campaign to what
would become his failed 2008 Senate contest, culminating in his switching
parties prior to the 2007 reelection bid. Blanco already was in the midst
of her reelection campaign where delivering this sign of independence and going
against bigger government could help in a difficult electoral environment, but
which attempt she dumped months later upon realizing despite this attitudinal change
she could not win again.
For the Louisiana public finally was getting fed up enough about these
kinds of expenditures, and this would become reflected in subsequent vote
choices in state elections. While this space was a vanguard of this new
majority attitude, unfortunately the public had yet to quite catch up on that,
which had permitted Odom to continue in office and to have his way on these
capital expenditures and means
of financing them.
But what’s important to remember, and helps to explain why what now
seems widespread agreement that these decisions never should have been made
that then seemed not to trouble many, is that Odom had plenty of assent from
majorities of the time, in executive offices and the Legislature. Democrats,
who propagated a populist narrative that big government had to be in place to
smooth out the vagaries of an economic and social system they falsely claimed
made the distribution of resources little more than a lottery if not rigged to
favor some, commanded electoral majorities. This consensus in part eroded
precisely because the excesses of their rule became more widely known, with
Odom’s part contributing.
1 comment:
THANK YOU John Kennedy and Kathleen Blanco!!
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