Disposition of a bill from the just-adjourned regular session of the Louisiana Legislature reminds why informed consumers of Louisiana political news need to be discerning to understand what truly goes on in state government.
This week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry vetoed SB 89 by Democrat state Sen. Joseph Bouie. The bill would have added Senate confirmation to nominees to the governing board of the Port of New Orleans, which actually encompasses three parishes. Various special interests through a convoluted process come up with three names for each of the seven commissioners when a slot is open from which the governor may select.
Landry’s veto message noted the process that provides maximal input and ties his hands to a certain extent, claiming introduction of more “bureaucracy” through Senate involvement wouldn’t bring benefits. Few of Louisiana’s nearly 30 ports require such confirmation, but among the five deep draft ports, three do and the other besides New Orleans effectively has members elected. The trio also have special interests submit names to the governor for selection.
Of course, New Orleans is the state’s most important port and therefore its commission the most powerful, and not just because it is one of the largest ports in the country. The Port besides cargo has jurisdiction over ocean-going passenger travel, rail lines including the Public Belt system (meaning also the Huey P. Long Bridge) that snakes throughout the region, and is a landlord with extensive holdings.
It also has a history of being somewhat of a patronage sink with sometimes questionable accountability. The most recent display of this came about 15 years ago when Public Belt’s former general director finally was outed for spending lavishly and illegally apparently for awhile with little concern from the commissioners. Its most recent controversy comes from an ongoing clash with other deep draft ports, Plaquemines and St. Bernard, over expansion plans.
Whether Senate confirmation would improve performance is anybody’s guess. Throughout the legislative process, hardly a word was said for or against it except that it would make the process like other deep draft ports. Its author had no complaints about the existing system and called it fixing an oversight of unknown origin.
Especially the far leftist media have tried to establish a narrative that Landry is trying to create a more authoritarian state government that evades accountability, to which this episode could play in as defeating an effort to resist a step towards dismantling expanding gubernatorial power. Naturally, this view oversimplifies and distorts a more complex reality.
Generally speaking, the public has little understanding about the confirmation process dynamics. The Senate Governmental and Affairs Committee will hold hearings with nominees and make a recommendation about all, rarely negative, and then the entire Senate, usually at the end of a session, will vote upon confirmation as a package of those appointed after the end of the last regular session through the present – who make the final cut. That’s as the list put up for the vote has all approved names minus those individuals the senator from the district within which a potential nominee resides finds personally objectionable for whatever reason, which automatically kills that nomination.
In one of the most publicized such exercises of informal power, Democrat former state Sen. Karen Peterson, known as Prisoner #13864-510, blocked several nominees in 2020, likely related to a gambling problem that forced her from office and into prison. But any reason will do, no matter how trivial, such as in the case of Republican state Sen. Adam Bass last year quashing Landry’s pick for Bossier Parish’s Election Board of Supervisors Barry Butler because Butler was on the outs with the ruling clique of the Bossier Parish Police Jury.
Realizing that had SB 89 gone into law suddenly any of a half-dozen different senators effectively could veto a governor’s pick to the Port, a governor would be foolish to allow such power to gravitate away. Whether “bureaucracy” was a contrived explanation or a shorthand for describing empowering a few politicians at the governor’s expense, this dynamic more validly explains the veto than a lazy supposition that Landry didn’t want to devolve power in some (obviously not) more accountable way.
Other dynamics may be involved as well. Given that the Legislature rejected several other bills that would have increased Landry’s appointive latitude over various state bodies, this may be some payback. Regardless, adding in to the process senators who for reasons entirely unrelated to the public good can determine Port commission nominees has nothing to do with increasing accountability to citizens.
Thus, the veto shouldn’t be viewed either as an indicator that Landry is fitting a fantasy mold ideologically attributed to GOP Pres. Donald Trump or that it diminishes accountability in any way. It’s just part of a power struggle among elites in state government.
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