Landrieu without quibble released
all of these forms from his years as mayor, where he has assented to 20
different recipients for a year’s worth over the past four years. The mayor times
five and each legislator are allowed to present an annual full scholarship to a
Louisiana resident in an ancient arrangement between Tulane and the state. City
regulations actually present Landrieu a choice from a list of eligible
recipients vetted by a board frequently refreshed designed to erase as much
politics as possible from the process.
Contrast this with the sinking
ship policy presently being perpetrated by Legislative staffers, who
surprisingly and contrarily to the opinion of every other lawyer or person who
can read the English language have declared such documents are not a public
record, despite a broad
waiver of confidentiality by applicants and a court ruling
nearly two decades old that seems to leave little ambiguity as to these being
public records. Yet neither House Clerk Butch Speer (who was on the losing end
of the 1994 case) nor Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp could give any convincing reason
related to the law (R.S.
44:1 et seq.) that would justify
their refusal. Even so, they exactly have refused
to release such records from 2010 as requested by media outlets.
The ruling almost two decades ago
came about when media sued to get this information. Eventually it was
discovered that lawmakers of various kinds, including legislators themselves, had family
members receiving these, so the latter category became forbidden and
standards were created for applicants. More
recently, some legislators revealed voluntarily who was getting theirs,
where some recipients were children of prominent local politicians.
So along comes Landrieu who
throws fuel on the simmering fire by cheerfully revealing all. It certainly
does his political profile no harm should he harbor ambitions beyond his
current post on Perdido Street. But through their mouthpieces Speer and Koepp, emulation
does seem to discomfit legislators, a category that by no means includes all as
some seem more than willing to share their selections with the public.
Such resistance seems bizarre
over information that includes, attached to a declaration of whether there is a
relationship to an elected official and if so who, only an applicant’s name
(which is released already by Tulane), Tulane identification number, address,
contact information, date of birth, and who are his legislators – all of which except
date or birth probably are out of date in fewer than five years, and in
addition to an applicant affirming that he “hereby waive[s] my right to
confidentiality under the Buckley Amendment or any other applicable law as may
be necessary in conjunction with consideration of my application” (which application
deciding the judiciary declared was part of the function of a legislator performing
his duties that fell under qualification as a public record). Strange, unless
what they end up revealing is chock full of political embarrassment.
Bad as that might be for some, it
only can get worse the longer this gets strung out leading to certain defeat.
Imagine the public outrage if legislators are sued for the documents and spend
one penny of taxpayers’ money to defend this, which in comparison would make the
infuriated public of 20 years ago over the issue look as somnambulant as today’s
zombified viewers of The
Governor’s Wife. And they still lose if for some reason nobody has the
inclination and/or resources to pursue legal relief and the stonewalling
continues, for now legislators who do not follow Landrieu’s lead if asked immediately
for these and fail to comply will be seen as hiding something; there’s no Fifth
Amendment assumption of innocence in the court of public opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment