Remove reform opponents' only recourse by attentiveness

The predictable passage of the contract to hire a third-party administrator for the state-run employee and retiree health care plan was unremarkable, but the maneuvering and recriminations before were not and are illustrative.

This contract, now estimated to save the state in administrative costs anywhere from $11 to 18.3 million (the back-of-the-envelope calculations done last year in this space predicted $17.3 million in savings), came out approved by a joint House Appropriations/Senate Finance Committees meeting a week after it appeared the House portion would reject it. Then, the House panel voted to bring the matter to a vote where it appeared in would be defeated, causing proponents to withdraw it for slight modifications.

Eight days later it passed, but with some wacky things happening in the interim. Seven Republicans, six of whom might ordinarily be expected to vote for a conservative policy preference such as this privatization of administration, essentially voted against it then, as a symbol of other grievances against the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration. As a result, Jindal ally Speaker Chuck Kleckley moved against two of them and booted them off the committee. The two new members subsequently voted in favor and most of the remaining defectors, although state Rep. Brett Geymann didn’t bother to show up for the vote and state Rep. Rogers Pope, the least reliable of the Republicans, remained against.

LA winners & losers, who ran & did not, in 2012 contests

As usual, election results produce their share of winners and losers, and Louisiana politicians have no special immunity to this. Thus, from the latest quadrennial elections, we find:

WINNER: Gov. Bobby Jindal. While a Pres. Barack Obama reelection will continue to create governance headaches for him and all governors, on a career level that Rep. Paul Ryan (safely reelected to his seat) did not win the vice presidency and Republicans will not be the party of the White House leaves him with more options and more upwards potential. Should Jindal fancy the presidency any such quest would have been out the window for the next eight years, and even then Ryan would have become the favorite to carry the party banner in eight years. Now, they are more on terms with each other and Jindal has more control over timing of attempted moves.

For a politician ambitious to the highest level, a cabinet position does no real good and perhaps even harm, so a Republican presidency offering him such a position conveyed no real benefit. Without that kind of job, his only real option to keep the momentum going would have been to run for the Senate in 2014. Even as those chances now are enhanced as a result of the election, he could skip that step and go directly to running for the presidency at the end of his term in 2015.

LA 2012 elections produce winners, winners-in-waiting

Although the election calendar claims we’re going to have some contests in Louisiana on Dec. 8, in reality all statewide contests substantively will have been settled over a month earlier. Yet this outcome wasn’t the most interesting one in state politics from this election.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Public Service Commission District 2 contest did end without further voting with former state executive branch official Scott Angelle winning a majority. Considered the favorite with his fundraising ability as evidence, he proved strong enough not to need a runoff. This demonstration begins a solid electoral base for him to build on should his ambitions grow for more prestigious offices in the future.

By contrast, in the contest to fill the open Supreme Court District 5, the demographics suggested that Democrat 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Michael Guidry would face any of several Republicans in a runoff where the Republican would win and to some degree every Republican was competitive. The thinking was that whoever wound up second would have become so narrowly, but instead another Republican from that court, Court of Appeals Judge Jeff Hughes surprisingly created some separation from the others to claim that spot while all but one of them ended up with roughly the same number of votes.

LA ready to punish Obama for politicized disaster slight

The problem with the Macondo oil well blowout was it happened at the wrong time. Lesson: with a big government liberal in the White House, in a conservative state you better hope if a disaster comes it’s close to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in years divisible by four.

Shortly after Hurricane Sandy pushed ashore New Jersey, Pres. Barack Obama, among other things, authorized the waiving of the Merchant Marine (Jones) Act of 1920, which allows foreign-flagged vessels to transport between U.S. ports directly. Upon request in an emergency situation, the law designed to bolster the U.S. marine industry and its unions in this instance gave way to concerns of shipping in fuel to the stricken area. Former Pres. George W. Bush had done likewise when Katrina plowed into Louisiana in 2005 to facilitate rescue and relief.

But in 2010, despite at least one known request to do so, Obama refused to allow waiving of the law when BP’s well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, where in this instance the floating sheen advanced on the coastline and skimming vessels badly were needed to try to ameliorate the potential devastating effects. Officially, the Obama Administration feigned ignorance of the know request and asserted the law did not apply. Unofficially, this would serve to steer more resources into the hands of unions and placate environmentalist interests, as a broader strategy of turning down any foreign assistance.

Ousted legislators resort to ill-informed, illogical rants

There are three certainties in life – death, taxes, and sore losers among Louisiana legislators who want to blame others for problems of their own making. The fallout over House Speaker Chuck Kleckley’s booting a pair of House Appropriations Committee members over a contract to have insurance administration currently done by the state performed by a third party administrator reminds us of that.

Seven House Republicans last week, in a special joint meeting of Appropriations and the Senate Finance Committee ruled to have the power to approve of the contract, voted for moving the matter to a vote which well may have lead to its defeat on the House side. Their Senate colleagues refused to bring up the matter that would have led to a vote, prompting withdrawal of the contract as is presumably to be reintroduced in modified form in the near future. With six of them having put together demonstrably conservative/reform records over the past five years, their votes came more as succumbing to constituent and public relations pressures than as any signaling of repudiation of their political beliefs.

Of those seven, four held spots appointed through election by members from their 2000-10 U.S. House districts, meaning leverage against them could come only from their other committee assignments made by Kleckley. One, state Rep. Jim Morris, already had been stripped of a position he coveted on another committee, so there wasn’t a whole lot of inducement to be directed against him. Another, state Rep. Brett Geymann, has no other committee assignments since he declared himself in reclusion earlier this year (and is a pal of Kleckley’s so is allowed presently to have just the one House assignment). A third, state Rep. Rogers Pope, has been an inconsistent supporter of Kleckley’s agenda so punishment by removing him from another committee would not produce much leverage. The fourth, state Rep. John Schroder, has been perhaps the most consistent conservative voice in the Legislature in the past five years, and got a pass as a result.

GOP defectors on contract put image before conservatism

It’s a wacky time in the Louisiana Legislature when self-proclaimed Republican conservatives team up with liberal Democrats to try to defeat conservative policy. Yet understand that a vote last week by some Republican House members to push to defeat a money-saving measure does not so much reflect that they have abandoned conservatism but more that they needed to throw a tantrum to save face with constituents and/or to shape a public perception of them – even if it costs them influential positions in the House.

Such happened when the House Appropriations Committee met jointly with the Senate Finance Committee to review a contract negotiated to administer the state’s Preferred Provider Organization health care plan for state employees and retirees. The current state-run operation wastes taxpayer dollars and will produce an estimated $20 million in savings for them as well as lower costs to clients with comparable if not better service.

Trying to stop this contract – for while Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Division of Administration has complete legal authority to remove the state from operating its own insurance business without legislative input, an attorney general’s opinion interpreted that law to mean a contract to do so would have to pass muster of majorities of both committees – has become the latest cause célèbre for Louisiana’s left on the heels of a long string of defeats. Ignoring the taxpayer and ratepayers that preventing privatization represents, they justify this partially out of their love for big government (as a number of inefficient positions would remian), but perhaps more pertinently they wish merely to try to poke Jindal in the eye as he uses a conservative agenda to sweep them aside from policy-making relevance.

Orleans history confirms wisdom to approve term limits

While this space has provided guidance on statewide Amendments 1 through 9 in upcoming elections, there remains for voters in 67 school districts the question of imposing terms limits locally – one the answer to which should be affirmative.

The official view of those satisfied with the current state of elementary and secondary education in Louisiana is that “the best term limit is the ballot box” because term limits “mandate removal of qualified members.” So what? It is the height of conceit and arrogance for any politician to consider oneself so talented as to be indispensible to the body politic, and a sign of intellectual laziness if not of a slavish willingness to surrender self-governance to think as such of any. It is folly to think that in any school board district in the state there is not at least one person who would be as good as, or better than, an incumbent in each.

But, as explained ably elsewhere, likely an enormous proportion of those capable unelected does not run or cannot run competitively because entrenched incumbency brings advantages particularly in contesting low-level offices over a governmental unit that typically has the largest budget, often by far, than any other local government. Worse, this disproportionately aids the stinkers sitting in those seats in retention, most particularly those tied in with special interests who like things as they are and who have disproportionate electoral and policy clout in a situation where policy benefits get concentrated in the hands of a few (politicians, administrators, employees, unions, ideological fellow-travelers) while their costs are dispersed among the many (the taxpaying public).

Populist hot air on contract won't arrest sinking fortunes

Part of the last gasps of populism in Louisiana has come as hot air from opponents of the administrative decision to get the state out of the self-insurance business. Not so much despite, but more because of, the demonstrable savings involved, the populist left that opposes the reform reveals the poverty of their argument.

They’ll get a shot at it tomorrow when two separate legislative committees together get to review the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration’s plans to contract out the state-run health plan for employees and retirees. An earlier attorney general’s ruling provided the legal basis for the chance to veto the product of the negotiation.

Proponents of larger government with more control very tellingly do not suggest that the plan will not save taxpayers an estimated $20 million and reduce rates for those insured. Instead, they conjure up the notion that “loopholes” exist that will allow unilateral administrative actions to increase payments over the three-year deal to the administrator. Why that’s bad is never explained nor is it compared in any way to the state’s present ability to do the exact same thing under the plan it has run itself. The state needs flexibility over the life of the contract to increase – or decrease – payments as it sees fit.

Partnered with downsizing, consolidated LSU plan good

While the proposed reconfiguration of the Louisiana State University System brings with it many salutary characteristics and strengths, the nagging question remains about whether some of the things the system tries to do would not be done better with alterations to it.

At the end of this week, the LSU Board of Supervisors appears ready to accept the plan, drawn up by a nonprofit organization that consults on the area of higher education, that is congruent with the “One LSU” concept that has been floated by a number of interests in the state. The separate universities, professional schools, research/public service agencies, and medical educators/providers will cede some autonomy that fuses to some degree the Baton Rouge campus and present system, but retain a fair amount of it in a way that hopes to promote cost savings, efficiency, and increased stature.

The structure, similar to those of a couple of other state university systems, would provide consolidation savings of the academic administrative apparatus and also of back-office functions, the latter mirroring recent action taken by the Southern University System. It permits independence in many areas, such as the abilities for schools to continue to make personnel decisions, choose coursework offered (beyond a standardized General Education Requirement), and leave auxiliary programs intact such as sports and academic teams. The initial combining would go into effect by the 2015 academic year.

Kennedy's populist rhetoric suggests insincere conservatism

Since his dramatic pivot from the political left to right after his defeat for the U.S. Senate in 2004, the question always about state Treas. John Kennedy has been whether he truly has embraced conservatism. As he gears up for an expected run for governor in 2015, the things he says and does continue to cast doubt on that transformation.

The latest came in his response to Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell’s legal opinion confirming that the state corporation that insures property when no private sector entity will, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Company, could increase wind and hail policies for homeowners in several parishes where no standalone private market activity exists because of the high risk involved. In part, this reluctance to write has existed precisely because government will do it.

Legally, Citizens must offer policies at no lower than 10 percent higher than the market rate of a basket of insurers, or the highest rates charged by insurers with a minimal increase in recent business if not wind and hail policies, but if neither exists, then an actuarially rate based on recent past history must be used, This last approach underappreciated actual risk of wind and hail damage and therefore set the state up to collect too little money to pay off potential future major storm damage. In this situation, as occurred after the hurricane disasters of 2005, taxpayers would have to make up the difference.