Yesterday, HB
141 by state Rep. Kevin Pearson
got tuned up so badly by the House and Governmental Affairs
Committee that it got put up life support with the plug scheduled to be
pulled by session’s end. The bill would have scrapped the requirement that at
least 60 days before introduction any bill affecting retirement systems have
notice of it printed in the state’s official journal, currently (as it has been
for decades) the Baton Rouge Advocate.
The Constitution
requires this publication, at no cost to the state.
In front of the committee,
Pearson laid out a very simple case for it. There’s nothing special about these
bills that forces their publishing in agate that could not be done elsewhere.
For example (one he did not use but which his bill would permit), why not put
them in the Louisiana Register, where the effort to put them out there might
cost pennies a bill, if even that, as opposed to the estimated $40 apiece coughed
up to The Advocate?
Because these aren’t supposed to
cost money to taxpayers, traditionally around the capitol if by their own
volition legislators bring up such a bill, they pay the tab, typically out of their
campaign accounts. If it’s by request, such as by a retirement system, the
legislator asks the system to reach into its own budget to pay up – money which
otherwise could be budgeted for retirees’ coffers.
But he got as icy a reception
from his colleagues as if he had stolen the hockey
stick from the faithful that worship the idea of significant anthropogenic
climate change. The most bizarre commentary came from state Rep. Steve Pugh (a Republican!?), who argued that as a
means of economic development newspapers deserved to continue to receive subsidization
in this form. Pearson, perhaps resisting the temptation to draw a parallel
about whether government should have subsidized the buggy whip industry circa 1900, replied that some didn’t
think this ought to be government’s job in any event.
Thus the bill, after a
half-joking move to defer it involuntarily (meaning executing it then and there
instead of letting it linger), was deferred voluntarily, sidelining it for the
session. Most amazing of all, considering there were about 80 bills that would
qualify in this session for this treatment, the amount of money being shunted
to The Advocate this year as a result
totals around $3,200. It’s not going to make or break the newspaper, now owned
by successful businessman and failed political candidate John Georges where that
represents 0.00091
percent of his net worth. It’s not even a month’s salary for a reporter.
So think of it as “protection
money.” Even though GOP politicians like Pugh in desperate need of a spinal
transplant to get the backbone they apparently lacked from birth rarely have
anything nice written about them in the pages of The Advocate, maybe getting $40 squeezed from them from time to time
makes them think it won’t print as many bad things about them. Or maybe they think
it can secure a donation from a guy who has given over the past decade to campaigns
of state and local candidates $73,615 (although only
once since assuming ownership of The
Advocate)?
Therefore, the reaction to this
trivial proposed change makes it no surprise that, instead of any effort this
session to get rid of the general subsidization of newspapers by state and
local government by legislators, they’re trying to solidify the monopoly
granted to newspapers over this business. While there’s
no real reason in this day and age of technology even to have a journal of
record requirement, at the very least if the state is going to stick with having
taxpayers transfer millions of dollars at all levels to
newspapers for what essentially is duplication, it could expand the field of
providers to outside of print journalism.
But the only thing bills filed
this session dealing with the issue do is to try
to put more newspapers on board the gravy train. Among others, past
recipients of Georges’ campaigning largesse state Rep. Neil Abramson
and state Sen. Danny Martiny have introduced
bills that would allow the New Orleans edition of The Advocate to win contracts. While proponents argue this
increased competition could bring down prices, its real effect would be to
curry more favor from newspapers by making more of them eligible, principally
Georges’, to win a contract by relaxing the all-but-one-day-a-week printing
requirement and/or having been in business for a few years.
Given the attitudes expressed in
the HB 141 hearing, it’s little wonder we should expect this corporate welfare
to continue – and demonstrates yet again how populism has burrowed like a tick
into the consciousness of even those who, like
Pugh, at other times rail against wasteful state government spending but
see no problem with it when it goes to a newspaper. It’s more proof that
principled conservatism and true reform still have a long ways to go before gaining
a significant foothold in the landscape of Louisiana’s public policy.
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