Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely. This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).
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24.4.17
Edwards bears responsibility for contract dispute
Recently, a U.S. House of Representative with a
Republican majority gave Louisiana’s Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards the
business over the speed and execution of flood relief. But did he deserve that?
The committee’s majority probed
certain decisions made by the Edwards Administration that seemed to delay
getting money into the hands of flood victims. One line of inquiry in
particular focused upon the on-again, off-again, now maybe off-again situation
with hiring a contractor to coordinate the distribution of aid, which had
become entangled with the realities of executive power.
Essentially, the entity responsible for vetting
the selection, the State Licensing
Board for Contractors, on advice from its counsel Larry Bankston, shaped
the original bidding so that the contract would have gone to an entity that
employed his son. The disqualified winner then
sued the state, in short order the state rebid and again awarded it to the
original firm, and now another firm has filed
a complaint with the state over the process which ultimately could end up
in court.
Bankston’s insertion into the affair redounded
unfavorably to Edwards, as the committee asked the governor several questions
about the role of the former state senator sent to prison on corruption charges.
Not long after Edwards assumed office, the long-time former counsel, Republican
Murphy Foster, found his services suddenly no longer required, followed by the
Board twice letting contracts to Bankston, a Democrat stalwart whose father had
helmed the state party in decades gone by. In fact, GOP Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, who had to approve
of contracts for personal services, had raised objections to the choice the
second time around, an action which drew
public criticism from the Edwards Administration.
All of which leads to the question about how much responsibility
rested on Edwards for Bankston gumming up the works. It seems too coincidental
that the Board would dump Republican Foster after some years not long after the
election of Edwards for a controversial Democrat without his coming into office
having something to do with it all.
The Board is an agency under the Governor’s Office
comprised of 15 members from various disciplines and areas serving six-year
terms, appointed by the governor with perfunctory Senate approval. Most
importantly, its members
serve at the pleasure of the governor, meaning he can dismiss any one of
them at any time.
This leaves three ways in which a governor may
influence decisions made by the Board. First, he could directly tell members
what he wants, with the threat of canning recalcitrant members or not
reappointing them; second, he can indirectly drop hints about his preferences;
third, he needn’t communicate at all, knowing that members realize his
preferred actions without need of explicit or implicit conveyance of these.
After I wrote a piece
in the Baton Rouge Advocate noting
that events and actions suggested Edwards had influenced the Board into having
Bankston as counsel (although I erroneously had argued that Edwards had
selected members to it, having carelessly misread press release dates),
somebody best described as close to Edwards initiated a conversation with me.
This source insisted that Edwards had done nothing of the sort, despite the
rather compelling circumstantial evidence that made it appear that he had.
My contact told me that Edwards had said he never
asked any board member to hire Bankston, nor even gave the slightest hint to
any that it should occur. The explanation: Edwards had lots of stuff going on
with three legislative sessions held and the aftermath, so this matter barely
reached the level of trivial. Indeed, the source recommended that I contact the
Republican activist chairman of the Board about the matter to confirm this
account.
However, the problem with doing that is that no
gubernatorially-appointed member of anything ever will admit that the governor
has influence over him. To publicly tell the world that, yes, I’m nothing more
than the governor’s lapdog goes against the image they want to project as serious,
thoughtful, and influential policy-makers who decide on the basis of principle,
not someone taking orders from anyone out of fear they’ll lose their plum
position. If asked that, appointees either will avoid giving an answer or
simply prevaricate.
But let’s say that’s how it went down (a request to
the source to have Edwards personally communicate to me a first-hand account
that it happened this way did not produce the desired result); must Edwards
still take the rap for Bankston? Consider the third channel of influence, which
reached national consciousness concerning actions some years ago against conservative
organizations by the Internal Revenue Service and more recently in surveillance
of Pres. Donald
Trump during this campaign.
Former Pres. Barack Obama
or members of his Administration did not have to tell IRS officials to target
conservative organizations applying for 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 status; appointees
and civil servants sympathetic to Obama knew they had the green light to help
his political fortunes by deliberately and discriminatorily delaying the approval
process. Likewise, the Obama White House did not have to give orders even
indirectly for operatives
to use illegally politically information about Americans incidentally gathered in
observing foreign elements; his appointees knew what would benefit Obama
and his political allies.
So, to be influenced by Edwards Board members
needn’t have some kind of communication with him; they easily could intuit that
unless they handed out patronage that favored his political associations/party,
they might not secure reappointment (many but not all whose terms expired to
date subsequently have) or even could get dismissed prior to their terms’ ends.
And when, in the aftermath of Landry’s reluctance to approve Bankston’s
contract the Edwards Administration released a statement supporting the Board’s
action to hire Bankston while not explicitly endorsing Bankston, this acted as
a signal to the Board that Edwards tacitly approved the action, because the
Board acts completely as an arm of a governor who basically can hire and fire
its members at will.
Chances are Edwards has no real love for Bankston
and didn’t foresee the political problems that could result from giving the
felon some control over the recovery process. Probably what happened was his antipathy
to Landry got the best of him: interpreting Landry’s sensible attempt to keep
Bankston out as a kind of political attack, he let that emotion override better
judgment and dug in not to support Bankston, but to oppose Landry.
In the final analysis, Edwards influenced the
chain of events that got Bankston the gig that put the new counsel in the position
to make a decision that politically embarrassed the governor. Does anybody
seriously believe the Board would have hired Bankston had one of Edwards’
Republican opponents won the election? Or if Edwards had issued a statement
when Landry’s objections surfaced that the Board may wish to consider the
attorney general’s concerns, instead of attacking Landry's motives? Thus, Edwards bears responsibility for the wrench
Bankston has thrown into the recovery process.
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