Ordinarily, this space covers a governor’s state of the state speech at the beginning of an annual legislative regular session. But Gov. Bobby Jindal has shown he’s unwilling to put much into a legislative agenda for this year’s edition, largely mooting the point of this tradition and making for a lot of legislative idle hands in the devil’s workshop that invites putting him into a delicate political position.
By temperament, unlike some past
governors, Jindal is not one who lives to tell the Legislature what to do,
preferring to lead parsimoniously. But he found out early in his gubernatorial career
that deferring on giving these guys and gals directives and thus leaving them
to their own devices can cause him political headaches. In his first session,
in 2008, Jindal let a tax cut gain momentum that, seeing national fiscal hard
times looming and the impending election of a president who would use it to
make any recovery from it tepid or worse, he rather would have deferred until
the future, resulting in him jumping
on its caboose as it roared through state government and into law. Almost simultaneously,
he let the insipid idea of paying part-time legislators a full-time salary
mutate into putting him in the awkward
position of having to drive his veto pen through it, souring relations with
legislators who risked looking greedy, entitled, and out-of-touch only because they
thought he would let them get away with it.
Since then, Jindal has provided
more direction and came up big at the beginning of his second term, fresh off
an impressive reelection, with items
that have fundamentally challenged and started transforming the state’s
political culture. But they came at great
cost to his popularity, and, combined with the natural decline of political
capital as a governor ineligible for immediate reelection experiences in the
last couple of years of his last term, obviously have made him consider his
reach goes so far only to as to pursue, along with a couple of pieces of
low-hanging fruit, one significant item this time around.
That would be tort reform, and
even that he might have considered a bridge too far without the issue juiced by
actions
of a rogue state government subdivision. As it is, the fuss kicked up has
raised the ire of many legislators independently of him, which makes the task
of generally making the state less captive to jackpot justice and specifically curbing
political maneuverings of these subdivisions one both likely tractable and one
where he will get enough help that his diminished influence will be enough to
get it across the goal line.
Yet while a governor in his
seventh year, and particularly one not wildly popular, has but a limited
offensive capability, his defensive capacity remains largely unaltered. It’s
one thing to try to round up votes to get something done, but it’s entirely
another and much easier to use the veto and other trades to stop stuff from
happening. Thus, Jindal probably will expend the majority of his effort in defending
and consolidating his gains, in the areas of warding off wasteful
and counterproductive spending on Medicaid, an economically
destructive increase in the minimum wage, undoing
measures promoting quality and accountability in schools, and in other
areas.
However, the light touch also
allows for rambunctious legislators to put him in the position of having to make
decisions on divisive issues that could erode his power more, or that could
weigh down his ability to rise higher on the national political scene if his
ambitions out of state office take him in that direction. For example, having to
act either way regarding the largely
overblown criticisms of the Common Core State Standards could alienate future
political supporters. Or, having to derail measures that create special
privileging of individuals based upon their sexual attitudes and behaviors through
increased government regulation that often are presented to the public by their
supporters in simplistic and disingenuous ways could create a false negative
impression of him causing the same erosion of popular support. On these kinds of issues, Jindal will have
to assure firm backing to legislative allies and then have them carry the load to
get the job done in the hope he can stay out of the spotlight in any dealings
on these.
A good man knows his limitations,
and Jindal must realize that reduced political capital must be deployed
efficiently – avoiding last year’s mistake in stumping
for a tax overhaul plan that tried to thread a needle that in the process made
his reach exceed his grasp. Expect a session consistent with this that follows
the football maxim that defense wins championships.
1 comment:
Professor Cockalorum, you are at it again!
Apology and revision!
"Almost simultaneously, he let the insipid idea of paying part-time legislators a full-time salary MUTATE into putting him in the AWKWARD POSITION of having to drive his veto pen through it, SOURING RELATIONS with legislators who risked looking greedy, entitled, and out-of-touch BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT HE WOULD LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT." (Emphasis mine)
That is certainly a new, novel way of recounting that HE LIED TO THEM. HE SUPPORTED THE RAISE, AND WHEN THE HEAT GOT TURNED UP, HE RENEGED ON HIS PROMISE! That is what really happened. Just the kind of guy one would want in your corner.
And, as to those "... actions of a rogue state government subdivision ...", I see in the paper this morning that the court has UPHELD those actions.
The Governor loses again, and you are wrong again.
Readers beware!
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