The populism intertwined in Louisiana’s
political culture contains a fatal conceit that has held back the state for so
long, which expressed itself in the Senate’s decision
henceforth to hold secret ballots for Senate leaders that ultimately will
change little, and perhaps for the worse, because the problems deemed solved by
this do not come from outside the Legislature, but from within its own members.
Under current rules, a
voice vote determines the presidency. Under the new rule passed yesterday, the
president and president pro tempore
will be selected by secret ballot in two rounds if necessary. Currently, the
House follows the current procedure, but it could make a similar change today.
The rationale stated by some for
the switch that attracted all but five votes was that it increased legislative
independence. Supposedly by having a public vote this would prevent a governor
from backing a particular candidate, where knowledge of who voted for whom
would guide the chief executive in decisions such as concerning members’ bills
to support or veto these, capital outlay items to recommend, whether to veto
those, and in influencing committee assignments as the president makes those
appointments. In essence, a governor could not visit retribution lacking this
information, and it could increase the chances of election of somebody less
allied with the governor, for by breaking the governor’s stranglehold senators
now will have gained the liberty to vote for whomever, so the assertion goes.
For the most part, this is poppycock.
If senators considered themselves imprisoned to the governor’s leadership
choices, it has been a prison of their own making. For example, they can
override vetoes, and without a bothersome veto session if they don’t dawdle and
pass legislation early enough in the session; they don’t have to give the
governor power over capital outlay if they would not overload that bill with
items beyond the state’s spending limit and if he does cast vetoes on these to
override those; and, most importantly, at any time they can grab the conch
shell and find a new head to stick on a pole by removing the president with a
simple majority vote.
In fact, history demonstrates that
the alleged ironclad control a governor can force on the Senate largely is a
campfire myth. About a quarter century ago, in the middle of former Gov. Buddy
Roemer’s term, the Senate just up and kicked out of the presidency Roemer
ally former state Sen. Allen Bares over disgust with the governor. More
recently, the only vote against current Pres. John Alario, that of state Sen. Barrow Peacock, did not see the wrath
of Gov. Bobby
Jindal descend upon him; Peacock still gets bills passed – 12 in all signed
by Jindal in the past three years with none vetoed – and Shreveport and Bossier
City still get plenty of capital outlay items funded, largely because of the
high degree of ideological congruence between the two. About the only negative
it seemed for him was less
illustrious committee assignments – although as one of just a few incoming
freshmen without prior experience as a legislator, he wasn’t going to do great
on that account anyway.
Committee
chairmen and members
do get removed on rare occasion for bucking the administration, where it
appears the offense in its eyes qualifies as exceptionally egregious. Lots along
these lines goes unpunished, however, and, again, the power to stop this
already lies in the hands of the Senate, who could dump the president in
response.
Nor is there any evidence that
gubernatorial influence over Senate decisions will diminish dramatically as a
result of a different presidential election process. Prior to the new term, a
reelected governor/governor-elect still can make known his preferences with
that candidate still able to wheel and deal to secure the job, even if retribution
exits the mix – although the entire loss of that ability seems questionable,
for as secret as a ballot might be, some senators make their choices obvious
and information around the Senate has a way of becoming broadly known.
So, at best, the end result of the
change will disrupt marginally power exerted by alliances among legislators and
the governor. It might decrease to a minor degree the legislation a governor
wants to pass doing so and that which he does not stifled. But no substantial
change will occur until the Senate exerts the powers it has already and that it
has shown willingness to employ in the past, with the incentives to do so
little affected by the change.
Indeed, there is a distinct
drawback to the new arrangement, a loss of transparency. No longer, for
example, could the likes of Peacock make a credible promise to voters that he
would not vote for Alario as president. A presidential candidate for members’
consumption as a tool to attract support could say he makes no deals while on the
sly doing exactly that.
In reality, three reasons explain
why a large Senate majority embarked on this move. One came from a sense of its
own enforced perceived impotence that required a temper tantrum against Jindal
for horrendous slights as recent as checkmating them into signing
off on a complicated political fig leaf on taxation and as distant as
hanging many of them out to dry when they decided
to pay themselves full-time wages for a job designed deliberately to be
part-time. A second comes from a desire to garner good public relations in
creating the impression that they no longer subsist as whipped curs (even as
they tacitly approved of the whipping) but now have reared up on their hind
legs and puffed out their chests to show their alpha status, in order to signal
to the electorate that whatever low opinion voters may have of them for the
state’s budgetary ills it’ll all be different now if you just reelect them this
fall.
The final reason relates to how
this mostly inconsequential effort fits the populist mold in Louisiana
politics. Politicians of that persuasion, because of the Manichean view they
have, yearn for a figure to arrive on horseback, or for a magic bullet to be
fired, to solve their perceived woes. For them there’s always somebody else to
be blamed, not us or themselves, for our ills but if you find a way to sideline
those revanchist forces, all will be well. Until, of course, the indignities
persist because the problem is in themselves by their unwillingness to admit
that changing the way government intrudes on people’s lives doesn’t work,
precisely because government intrudes too much on people’s lives.
If you want to bring rationality to
Louisiana’s fiscal system, if you want to cure government from a spending
problem, if you want to empower schoolchildren instead of special interests, if
you want to health care delivery to put patients before jobs, if you don’t want
to overburden taxpayers in funding higher education, if you don’t want to
disproportionately and unfairly tax the wealth creators in the economy, if you
want to protect liberty, this alteration just doesn’t matter. The Senate’s
inability to address successfully aspects of these issues has nothing to do
with its leadership selection method but everything to do with that third
motivation to alter that procedure. Until that tendency in the political
culture dissipates sufficiently, none of this matters.
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