Legislators whiff trying to reach ethics gold standard

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal wanted to go for the gold rather than titanium standard as far as ethics changes were concerned for state elected, appointed, and other public officials, perhaps as a bow to political reality. He certainly won’t get the titanium standard, and he may not even get the gold standard.

Louisiana’s legislators reared their obstinate heads yesterday and today in refusing to ban allowing family members on payrolls of political campaigns, in continuing to permit free tickets to be given to them by non-lobbyists for non-sporting events, passing on forbidding any expenditures for food and drink for state and local employees by setting the limit at $50 per occasion, and declining to outlaw contingency fees for lobbyists. Adding to that refusal to make campaign finance records collect data on donations from employees of corporate entities makes the silver standard the only certain achievable award to be given for this effort.

How fast government service can alter one’s thinking and priorities was shown through remarks by Republican freshman state Rep. Patrick Connick, who railed against the prohibition on family member employment by a campaign. He averred it was no business for the law to tell him on whom to spend his campaign money and said the voters could dun him if they didn’t like any potential employment of his relatives – conveniently forgetting that most expenditures made within the last 30 days of a campaigning do not get revealed until after the election, meaning voters might not find out about employment of a family member until after an election.

No delay needed for pension removal amendment

Not getting much attention as more far-reaching matters traverse the legislative course in this special session of the Louisiana Legislature is SB 17, which would enable the Legislature constitutionally to strip pension benefits from corrupt public servants. The main contention comes over how to deal impact on spouses and dependents and whether to act on it now.

The latter question popped up when it appeared the language of the special session call did not appear to allow for the enabling legislation to put this into practice to be discussed in the session. Some have argued the enabling legislation ought to be dealt with in tandem with the constitutional amendment, at least bringing it to the floor of either chamber (versions are in both) and taking their chances with a ruling from the presiding officer in terms of germaneness (which, if past declarations reveal anything, are fairly loosely-constructed). That option seems to have been rejected.

This affects the former consideration, since other arguments against SB 17 (and similar bills) are that, given the complexity of the issue, before voters who would have to approve the amendment get their chance on the item at the voting booth, they should have full information about the kind of law that would get passed relative to the entire question.

Legislators show feet of clay dragged by ethics reform

Legislators’ cowardice remained on full display yesterday as they made strenuous attempts to water down ethics legislation regarding removing the acceptance of up to $500 a year of free tickets from influence-seekers and in limiting meals to $50 per “occasion.”

These protestations both slowed the progress of such legislation and revealed the amazingly insular world in which some legislators apparently live, even as they argued in the case of the tickets which they often use to attend various events in their districts assisted them in actually meeting real constituents. And this isn’t even a total ban – it’s just tickets from those who wish to advocate something.

Perhaps that’s why Democrat Speaker Pro-Tem Karen Carter Peterson expressed that the legislation, SB 3, if not worded precisely, could threaten the amount of freebies she gets which she claimed would take her entire legislative base salary of $16,800 a year to pay for the tickets herself. Now, unless I’m missing the mark and underestimate the newlywed Peterson’s wit, charm, and good looks, my guess she wouldn’t get a fraction, or even any, of that value in free tickets if she weren’t in the legislature as second-in-command of the House. (Actually, as the new Speaker Pro-Tem, she’ll find her salary has about doubled.)

Isn’t this a problem, when a legislator basically matches her compensation through unregulated gifts even if they aren’t coming from the taxpayer? And while the donors of such tickets mostly never will be in a position of desiring influence, surely some will after the event in question which is not in and of itself unethical but the fact is none of this is regulated at this time – only when it involves an entity with a reasonable chance to wish to obtain influence.

In a world where legislators had courage, all free tickets, period, would be prohibited. But courageousness seldom defines the doings of the Louisiana Legislature and the present situation is no exception, so now there’s all this haggling over definitions to allow the free ticket ride, excepting influencers, to continue.

At least some over in the Senate do have some courage, as demonstrated by the approval of SB 19 by Democrat Sen. Ben Nevers that would not allow any lobbyist-paid meals, period, in contrast to the $50 standard, SB 8, being pushed by the leadership and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. But even that $50 is subject to carping by spoiled legislators. As Democrat state Rep. Charmaine Marchand’s impoverished district struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina, its legislator appears to be living high off the hog when she complains that the $50 limit would force her to eat fast food on lobbyists’ tabs. The stupidity of this assertion was noted by Democrat state Rep. Rick Gallot, who noted that this amount would be a night out for a family of four in the environs of Ruston (and, in fact, a big night out I can vouch from personal experience).

The ticket measure finally got out of committee today, even as legislators still were griping about how their legislative lives would become so crimped in not being able to take freebies and talking of altering the bill on the floor. When are these dunces going to learn that you don’t have to pop up at every glad-handing event to serve their constituents well? Or if that seems such an imperative, they can pay for the ducats themselves. Although perhaps a novel idea to some is that they could converse with constituents without having it tied into some extraneous event requiring tickets.

While the silver lining is these imperfect measures continue to move along the legislative process into law, the dark cloud is their doing so exposes ugly truths about the attitudes of too many legislators. Service to the public, not to themselves, too often gets forgotten by some.

Landrieu, others may decide fate of presidential election

In a contest looking to end up so close, every delegate counts and thus the spotlight is thrust upon Louisiana Democrat “superdelegates” in the decisions whether the national party choose Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama. And, just as many argue in the Republican case, the ultimate distinguishing issue between the two may come down to electability.

This is why Sen. John McCain apparently will carry the day in obtaining the GOP nomination, as several speakers exhorted during the party’s convention this weekend in Baton Rouge, despite being the candidate that on the whole deviated the most from conservatism and the wishes of the party base. This strategy also directly contradicts the party’s successful strategy in 2004: running relentlessly conservative messages (even as the candidate wasn’t completely conservative) designed to activate conservative voters in the belief that conservatives outnumber liberals.

That was correct and it worked. The problem with a McCain candidacy is the electability argument is but a half-truth. There simply are too many conservative activists out there only tenuously connected to the Republican Party who will look at McCain’s policies and past, understand he will deliver too frequently for liberals rather than conservatives, and decide that even as a Democrat president’s policies will bring needless harm and suffering to Americans, to a somewhat lesser extent so would McCain’s. They will figure this would discredit the only vehicle they have to bring conservatism into government, the GOP, so it would be better to allow a Democrat to come into the White House and tar that party for a generation as did Pres. Jimmy Carter in the hopes a refreshed conservatism and conservatives candidates like Pres. Ronald Reagan will emerge to create future conservative victories.

There’s only one thing that will change their minds, and that is to scare them with Clinton. Her veniality, core liberalism, but occasional penchant to sell out her principles for personal and political gain and long history demonstrating these things will make many consistent conservatives swallow hard and vote for McCain just because the destruction she could visit on Americans is so potentially great. Thus, McCain can beat Clinton thanks to enough conservatives voting not for him but against her.

But the same dynamic doesn’t exist in regards to Obama. Not only does he have little history with which to scare people (he in fact is more liberal than Clinton but has had just four years in the national spotlight to demonstrate it) he capitalizes on this as a reverse to Reagan: while Reagan had a gift for taking the complex verities of naturally-abstract conservatism and communicating them into concrete and identifiable policy prescriptions understood and supported by the majority, Obama has a gift of transforming the intellectually bankrupt, simplistic and half-baked musing of liberalism into vague, meaningless gibberish that inspires those who do not understand the human condition and/or who don’t deeply think at all.

It makes Obama appear messianic, or at the least non-threatening and this will fool enough people to give him the edge on McCain. It will dupe enough of the less-abstract-thinking conservatives, those who have grasped that conservatism properly understands the human condition but can’t explain why in great detail – exactly those Reagan was able to activate – into deferring from voting out of antipathy to McCain and feeling that Obama is not the threat that Clinton is.

Thus, the smart move for Democrats is to go with Obama, as longtime Clinton supporter Sen. Mary Landrieu seems to suggest when she argues the superdelegates from the state – who have nothing binding their commitments – should collectively vote in a way to reflect the state’s primary won by Obama. (This may also play into Landrieu’s spotty reelection chances, potentially presaging her vote in favor of Obama so she can be identified with him as he is more popular in the state among Democrats than Clinton.) Whether that can happen is another matter.

Just as Clinton’s long history creates the disadvantage of her seeming much more of a threat, it gives her the advantage of having an awful lot of chits to call in to get the superdelegates to support her. This is why she still has the advantage. Unless there is a decisive turn against her in the polls over the next month, she will win the nomination. As long as she runs no worse than parity with Obama, she’ll still be convincing that she has enough clout to call in these markers ands they will be the difference.

When the state Democrats meet on May 3, the situation should be enough resolved that it will be clear whether Clinton retained control of the party. Committed apportionments of delegates will be made there and the superdelegates (politically, not legally) will have to start committing. Especially among Landrieu and her kind, these should prove very interesting times.

Some using reform against itself and its backers

Some bills wending their ways through the legislative process give us insight into the agendas of the good-old-boys and others who try to smile through clenched teeth at the efforts of reformers led by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal to steer the state away from its populist/liberal past. Bills sponsored by one of those forcing a smile on his face, Democrat state Sen. Ben Nevers, are instructive in this regard.

In practice, his SB 19 is great. It goes beyond already-approved legislation that would allow $50 only per consumption opportunity for legislators by setting it to zero (which is the standard in several states). He’s right when he argues its better than the $50 limit in that it would reduce paperwork with no necessity to report expenditures to show they were under the limit. And there’s no reason lobbyists can’t conduct business outside of a restaurant or bar.

But when viewing other legislation of his, one wonders whether he really means this bill as a poison pill – getting his bill passed out of the Senate instead of the other set to $50 and then give the House the chance to rebel against going from all to nothing thus by rejecting his leaving the standard at any amount goes. This is because other bills of his seem designed to get back at reformers in the name of reform while exacting a terrible price on political rights.

His SB 23 originally was to prevent anybody who contributed to a campaign of an elected official, of any amount, from being appointed to a position in government. This bill was bad enough, forcing people who wish to serve in government to abrogate their free speech rights. In various ways government is permitted to limit free speech rights such as by capping amounts of donations or by prohibiting them entirely if the entity of concern is in certain regulated enterprises, but there simply is no compelling governmental interest in putting such limitations on the exercise of peoples’ political rights.

(The uninformed try to argue that contributions “buy” an office, but in fact not only does research show that simply is not the case, but intuitively such an assertion is illogical – the vast majority of large donors don’t get appointments, and many non-donors do. This doesn’t mean donations can’t be factor, but that their influence is so modest to nonexistent that curtailment of free speech rights simply cannot be justified.)

However, amendments he permitted to it really show where his true interests lie. The most current version of the bill passed out of committee places the stricture only on donors (and their family members, and principles of corporations in which they have an interest except for those publicly traded) who give at least $2,500 in an election cycle.

So, that implies that if you give $2,499.99 or less somehow this doesn’t taint your donation, but add a cent and suddenly it means you’re trying to buy an appointment? It should be equally as “bad” whether it’s one cent or $5,000, if there’s any principle at all involved here. And note that by law this now restricts the officials to which it would apply – unless it is exactly $2,500, it would apply only to “major” offices, basically statewide elected officials and those elected to state boards.

This points to the real agenda of supporters of the bill – to get back at Jindal for making government less of a potential gravy train for public officials. And given the disingenuousness of the backers of SB 23, it then brings to question their motives about SB 19 if they, like obviously Nevers, back the bill, too. Hopefully, reformers will see what SB 23 really is and defeat it, while foiling the poison pill strategy by passing SB 19.

Process to, not nominee, shapes Landrieu's chances

It’s refreshing to see that the media and other interested political observers finally have caught on to what I observed many months ago – that Sen. Mary Landrieu’s reelection chances are going to be significantly reduced if Sen. Hillary Clinton gets the Democrats’ nomination for president.

Simply, given the dynamics of Louisiana’s political scene – and now especially since a serious challenger in the form of Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy has committed to the contest – Landrieu is on thin ice to get reelected with Clinton at the top of the ticket. When somebody has about half the American public not wanting to vote for her under any circumstances, it’s bound to trickle down and harm under-ballot candidates across the country.

Whether Sen. Barack Obama was the party’s nominee would help Landrieu is another matter, at best marginally. While Obama would do better than Clinton in a matchup against presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain because he is the “magic Negro” prepared to give some white voters a chance to assuage their “white guilt,” that also is unlikely to trickle down very much to assist her since that magic will be contained mostly to perceptions about him.

Still, the fact is that McCain on his own will not activate conservatives to show up at the polls to vote for him and for other Republican nominees. Obama won’t do much to activate them against himself no matter how well publicized his liberal voting record is, but Clinton could get them riled to vote against her. For that reason, Landrieu should prefer that Obama carry the flag for the party in November even if his extreme liberalism will not limit much the losses sustained compared to Clinton as the nominee.

While the hypothesis that black voters, a voting base for Landrieu, would be activated by an Obama candidacy, is credible it can be overstated. If Clinton wraps up the nomination prior to the convention, she will rack up a similar number of black voters in the fall as would have Obama. But if it turns into an open convention with a floor fight for the Democrat nomination, the bitterness of a potential Obama defeat might discourage black voters from going to the polls and once there supporting Landrieu in November. Otherwise, expect a similar black turnout for either candidate, which Landrieu hopes is as high as can be.

So while it’s too simplistic to argue that one or the other Democrat presidential nominee will hurt Landrieu’s chances more, more pertinent is that either nominee is going to hurt Landrieu’s chances, and how much damage done will depend upon how bitter the nomination struggle is for the Democrats’ nominee for the presidency.

Whining legislators remind of need for LA ethics reform

Just as some opponents of Gov. Bobby Jindal have been using scare tactics to try to paint the governor as a hypocrite on the issue of ethics reform, as the special session devoted to the issue moves along, some legislators are beginning to scare people to dilute the whole effort surrounding reform.

While some (careful) carping has come from obvious suspects, such as state Sen. Joe McPherson who earns much of his livelihood from government, other complaints have registered from lawmakers who typically have shown a much better grasp of what is the real purpose of government and the role of elected officials within it. For example, state Sen. Mike Walsworth rapidly seems to be earning a solid reputation of speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue thereby demonstrating he doesn’t seem very connected to the typical citizen.

In one venue, we hear Walsworth saying of the ethics package “I think most of what I've seen is common sense,” and “I think the elected officials want it, too. We want to get this monkey off our backs.” But when it comes to the actual debate over the package, Walsworth’s rhetoric has illustrated one of the secondary goals the package seeks to accomplish, bringing elected officials back to reality and in touch with the people.

We witness Walsworth whining that the proposal to eliminate free tickets for officials to anything will hurt his ability to be a legislator and “I don’t want to get so far into ethics that we can’t do our jobs.” Next, in what appears to be a poison pill strategy to water down provisions against legislators he laments that another proposal that would limit spending on a public employee to $50 an occasion will mean a “mom and dad couldn't take their child's teacher out to say 'thank you' if her bill comes to over $50,” no doubt knowing that there’s no way a workable law can be created that would impose that limit on some government employees and not on others.

My advice to Walsworth is that he just suck it up and learn to live like the rest of us, both those or are or are not employed by government in some capacity. Does Walsworth seriously think it’s part of his job to get offered free passes to every baseball game, car and boat show, boudin festival, and back-slapping, flesh-pressing event? You know, if he really wants to attend these, if they are really so crucial to his being a legislator, he could just buy a ticket like everybody else. And if that’s too much of a strain on his bank account (which is what he implies), I’d recommend he find another way to serve the public.

And is Walsworth so dense that he doesn’t understand you can show appreciation to a public servant without on the behalf of the celebrant ordering every course at Don’s, Ruth’s Chris, or Commander’s Palace? During testimony on that bill, Sen. Pres. Joel Chaisson put in their places Walsworth and those who think a $50 limit is an intolerable burden by which to limit government employees by remarking “Legislators were going out and buying $100 to $150 bottles of wine. Unlimited expense is simply not acceptable.”

While the ethics package will have the very obvious and salutary effect of reducing opportunities for corruption, it also will have the benefit of reminding officials that government service isn’t about getting perks. And that’s why we can expect to hear more trivial sniping about it from some legislators over the next couple of weeks.

Ethics enforcement change criticism part of larger agenda

As the Louisiana Legislature dives into the ethics special session summoned by Gov. Bobby Jindal, a clever if not disingenuous sort of opposition has emerged against him piggybacked onto that very issue of ethics. It represents the opening salvo of anti-Jindal opponents attempting to diminish his political power.

Very overtly has been the issue of a campaign finance report oversight by Jindal’s campaign. Jindal’s adversaries in both the media and Democrat Party jumped on that in a rush to try to tarnish Jindal’s reputation on ethics. Mind you, the campaign received no assistance illegally, it just failed to report an expense on its behalf and corrected it but tardily, bending over backwards not to contest it and to pay the fine as quickly as possible. (And ironically, the Democrat who made the biggest fuss about it, Chairman Chris Whittington, a month later looks to be out of a job since he lost election to the party’s state central committee last weekend.)

More covertly has been criticism about one special session item call which would revamp the procedures involved in judging and enforcing ethics violations. This item would separate the investigatory and enforcement aspects, with the state’s Ethics Board essentially pressing charges, and then impartial administrative law judges hearing the case and deciding a sentence if guilt is established.

This is a fairer system, used already in 10 states. Not only would it put the eventual decision in the hands of individuals hired for their expertise through the merit-based civil service who cannot be pressured politically in their decision-making, but it takes it out of the hands of inexpert political appointees who act as investigator, judge, and jury. In short, it is an improvement over the current arrangement.

For example, a hearing may be conducted by somebody in a state civil service job who is appointed by merit and in all likelihood will possess a law degree (something in short supply on the current Ethics Board). Going up the administrative line (according to the relevant bill, HB 41 vesting the judges in the Department of State Civil Service’s Division of Administrative Law), this person’s boss would be a gubernatorial appointee (with Senate confirmation) of a fixed six-year term independent of the governor’s who cannot be fired by the governor. Part of the director’s job is to assign judges to cases. Overall, it is a system that promotes expertise and leaves little room for politics.

Yet in almost Orwellian fashion, some have gone on the record asserting the reform actually will make matters worse, regardless of the fact that it works elsewhere, that it increases expertise, and decreases politicization of the process. Amazingly – indicating either ignorance of the alternative or revealing their true motives are simply to oppose Jindal whenever and wherever on whatever – some of these critics have long lambasted the current Ethics Board yet when an obvious improvement in the ethics administration process comes about they somehow argue it is a step backwards. What’s it going to be, either political consideration plays too much of a role already, or it doesn’t and this change will?

As surrealistically, current chairman of the Ethics Board Hank Perret has joined in his criticism saying the DAL director, thus by extension the governor, can influence the process – as if the current board isn’t composed of political appointees such as himself who have much more influence over the current process with much less insulation from politics and personal agendas. Fear of loss of power and prestige, rather than a genuine desire to improve the process, seems a better explanation for his opinion.

As noted previously, much of the conflict that will occur during the ethics session outside issues of monetary and power enrichment by legislators will concern how the session’s outcomes will impact the power Jindal can use to fulfill an agenda which he promised would radically change the state’s philosophy regarding the size and priorities of government. Many opponents of that think that a little cut here trying to paint Jindal as insincere on ethics reform combined with other little cuts elsewhere will bring his overall overhaul efforts to a bloody halt. It is just the first of many tests Jindal can expect to receive.

More than ethics at stake for Jindal at special session

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal gave a pep talk to the troops hankering for ethics reform as well as a plea, and challenge, to the legislators who have to make it happen at the opening of the 2008 First Extraordinary Session of the Legislature. Despite strong support from many quarters, meaningful ethics reform in politics is by no means a “slam dunk” for Jindal and its proponents because of two forces that don’t want to see much in the way of changes – those for whom the changes would cramp their style, and those who don’t want to see Jindal off to a good start.

While those who would not like tougher standards are far fewer than those who do, those who don’t have disproportionate power in the process, for the most part legislators themselves and special interests whose machinations are aided by reduced transparency. Some of what Jindal calls the “squealing hogs” merely voice code- and carefully worded opposition, while others take more active measures to try to make the attempt look farcical.

For a specific example for the former, when Democrat maiden state Rep. Rosalind Jones – whose father in the Legislature drew 11 ethics rebukes – complains that legislators who hold contractual relationships that could be outlawed under these reforms should be grandfathered in, it’s a veiled jab at the entire idea, but one she knows is probably too popular for her to defeat. For a general example, we can views Democrat state Sen. Joe McPherson’s whining that “It’s the oddest call I’ve ever seen as far as the specificity of it. This is another governor who says, ‘It’s my way or the highway’” – a sentiment directly contradicted by other legislators such as Republican House leader state Rep. Jane Smith who said the administration’s willingness to work with the Legislature is one reason she believes Jindal’s package will pass.

The latter group is represented by the likes of Democrat state Sen. Ben Nevers, who has offered legislation (SB 20) that would prevent elected officials from running from another elective office and another (SB 23) that would prohibit the governor from appointing anybody to anything who contributed to his campaign. The former serves absolutely no ethical purpose and the latter is a deliberate attempt to discourage exercise of free speech rights. These will go nowhere, and then some of the hogs will create a straw man criticism that governor either isn’t serious enough about reform, or that their extreme bills are the logical extensions of his ideas and that such extremism of ideas should be defeated.

Looking towards a global perspective, there are those who want to make sure Jindal politically gains little luster from the session because they want to reduce his power for the future. Strategically, Jindal’s move to have the session is crafty. He picked a subject area with widespread popular support as the first opportunity to legislate for many, especially in the House with rookies comprising over half of it, many of whom evoked ethics in their campaigns – and who have not seen the temptations that lax ethics standards could entice them into opposition. If Jindal can get at least half of the agenda the way he wants and the other half in a semblance of the way he wants, his power will magnify for the next contemplated special session on economics and the regular session, which will feature the slaughtering of a lot of sacred cows for which he’ll need all the power he can get.

So there will be a struggle only partially related to the specific content of the ethical reforms. By design, a larger conflict will play out with ethics as the battlefield – but the place of conflict chosen by Jindal, which will give him an advantage in the long term. As long as the majority of Jindal’s agenda is not defeated or is diluted into near-vapidity, he wins this battle and gains advantage in the larger conflicts ahead. Otherwise, he may have trouble living up to high expectations that have formed around his governorship.

LA primaries keep McCain rolling, Dems up in the air

The results of the Democrat primary in Louisiana yielded no surprise, but a mild upset almost emerged on the Republican side.

Sen. Barack Obama pulled in numbers pretty close to what I predicted a few days back and he will very likely then win the majority of popularly-elected delegates when the party state central committee meets May 3. But given that Sen. Hillary Clinton will get the nod of almost all of the “superdelegates,” at best Obama will win a narrow majority of the state’s delegates. This means overall at this juncture Clinton was the real winner, since the dynamics of future primaries plus the large advantage she will hold in superdelegates when the dust settles means Obama needed to put as much space as possible as he could between him and her and he got little.

For Republicans, the expectation was that the suspension of his campaign by former Gov. Mitt Romney would discourage enough people from voting for him that it could allow Sen. John McCain to claim the 50 percent plus one vote needed to ensure that elected Republican delegates become pledges to him, about half of the total to be decided next weekend. Instead, support in north Louisiana for former Gov. Mike Huckabee thrust him into the position of potentially eclipsing the absolute majority statewide needed to capture these delegates.

All night as votes were counted, Huckabee cruised in the upper forty percent of the vote, However, since several candidates unlike Romney had withdrawn rather than suspended their campaigns, their votes were thrown out of the calculations to compute a winner, with those candidates getting about 2 percent of the overall vote. Thus, Huckabee’s effective overall percentage need to get the delegates was only about 49 percent.

In the end, Romney’s decision not to withdraw may have led to Huckabee’s inability to crest over the magic mark. Assuming those voters would not have voted or of those who did at least half voted for Huckabee, the 6 percent Romney did pick up was enough to deny him. And a vote for many for Romney could have bee purely intentional, even knowing effectively he was out of the race – a show of defiance against McCain for lacking too many core conservative beliefs, against Huckabee for his desire to tax and spend, and against Rep. Ron Paul (who Romey still outdistanced) for his inability to understand optimal foreign policy. Thus, the actual distribution of delegates will be decided next Satruday.

So in the end, the Republican version had little meaning bearing on a McCain progression to the nomination, while the Democrat exercise helped keep the competition going between Clinton and Obama without any substantial advantage to either side.