Last month, almost nobody seemed
happy in the aftermath of the passage of Act
859, which on the surface seemed to make mere semantic changes to the law
about investigating law enforcement officers. At least that’s how it started
out, but on the final day of the session, in a conference committee because of
minor disagreement over versions of the bill between the chambers, a provision
appeared that undid a law passed a few years ago on behalf of a narrowly-defined
class of individuals – estimated at exactly two – which seemed if not
innocuous, then unnoticed by legislators who passed it unanimously, and then
got Gov. Bobby
Jindal’s signature on it.
The only problem is this violates
Art. X Sec. 29 of
the Constitution. Because it made a change to retirement benefits, the entire
bill in that form had to be advertised at least 30 days prior to passage, at
least twice. Now it’s incumbent on the State
Police Retirement System to sue the Legislature to have the law declared
unconstitutional. Yet no action seems forthcoming at least until the board meets in early September.
But, politically
speaking, the real fallout hits policy-makers, who apparently didn’t read the
bill or didn’t care or didn’t understand its unconstitutional implications, and
especially related to state Sen. Neil
Riser, who had the measure slipped in that most notably would benefit state
police Commander Mike Edmonson, who has said as a result of the ruckus he would
not take the raise if he retired. Riser had been considering whether to run
again for the Fifth Congressional District seat that he lost in a special election
runoff last year, and announced his intentions to pass on it just days after
the end of the session. This incident would have put a serious dent in those
hopes, and may for his legislative reelection next year.
Retirement also may place a bump
in the road for what was appearing to be an inevitable ascension of First
District Judge Scott Crichton to
the state Supreme Court. A year ago he began running, and soon found himself
the only candidate competing when the current justice from the northwest
Louisiana district, Jeff
Victory, announced he would not run for a final term for which he was
eligible.
With endorsements left and right,
steady fundraising on his behalf, and nobody having indicated they will oppose
him, Crichton still may have to answer satisfactorily a question about favored
treatment to run for that office. In 1991 and 1993, laws were passed to
allow for judges then sitting in districts that would be reconfigured in the
next election as a result of lawsuits creating minority sub-districts to
receive retirement benefits that they ordinarily would not have qualified for,
on the condition that such judges do not seek election or reelection to any
judicial office. The law said any such decision properly executed was “irrevocable.”
According to copies of apparently
genuine documents received anonymously, such procedures were executed before
the deadline by Crichton. Further, others of these show that in 1996, as his
first term was coming to a close, Crichton had a change of heart. He wrote the
board that oversees judicial retirement, the Louisiana State Employees Retirement
System, to pursue revocation of that declaration. The board ruled that perhaps
a legislative instrument could allow for this. In the 1996 session, SCR 42 by
then-state Sen. (now Public Service Commissioner) Foster Campbell was passed that
suspended that part of the law. LASERS then apparently approved the revocation,
and Crichton ran unopposed for reelection in 1996, 2002, and 2008.
The Legislature is empowered constitutionally to
suspend laws, but is limited in making any one suspension to last only until 60
days after the next year’s regular session end. Apparently, since Crichton and
LASERS acted within that window, the revocation was legal. Still, like the
favoritism shown to Edmonson by Riser, in the court of public opinion a break
from the law sought by a judge might not look so good. While it’s unlikely to
prompt a candidate to get into the contest, if one or more do get in, this
could become a distractive issue that Crichton’s campaign would rather not have
to address.
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