The Louisiana Legislature has its Joint Legislative
Committee on Capital Outlay to approve of forwarding items from its capital
outlay bills to the State Bond Commission. Practically speaking, since the
state’s executive branch or local governments carry out the actual projects, for
state items it approved it relies upon the governor’s office to carry out the
steps towards project completion, including sending these to the SBC to garner
debt financing.
Typically, the highest-priority projects and those
that already have money spent and need more perfunctorily move to the SBC. But the
Edwards Administration said it wanted to hold off starting work on $136 million
worth, about a fifth of the total and far above the usual amount. Those not
included didn’t have a full cash commitment, except for seven
specially-designated projects. In essence, this holds back capacity for
projects that Edwards can choose that could allow lower-priority projects to
leapfrog others.
This discretion Edwards sorely misses. In the
capital outlay bill from the special session HB 2, the
Legislature did two things to negate the influence governors typically have
over the process. First, it didn’t put more projects in it than borrowing
capacity, meaning the governor had discretion in choosing what to pursue in
choices brought to the committee and SBC. Second, the governor could not block
projects through a line item veto, because the Legislature passed HB 2 early
enough in the process to have a chance to override any such vetoes, which
surely would happen as members would log roll with each other to make sure
every project of every legislator stayed in.
In essence, by saying it wanted to delay
proceeding with some projects, it was attempting to recapture some of that
discretion and gubernatorial leverage. Typically, governors will use this
discretion to try to reward or bully legislators into supporting his agenda and
opposing those items against it. The Administration claimed it wanted to hold
back because HB 2 came in a couple of weeks later than usual and the next SBC
meeting loomed, meaning it couldn’t do necessarily all the ground work to
proceed with them at this time.
Veteran legislators knowingly voiced skepticism with
the tactic and put the administration on notice they expected the vast bulk of
their stalled requests to move forward, and soon. In rare instances, some projects
might end up mooted for some reason, but that should be very few. As well, the
Administration took a very literal stance on “late” projects (those that came
in after the process of legislative choosing, which starts in November) not
moving forward even given the unusual nature of the times, a delay facilitated
by an Edwards line
item veto in HB 29 from
the special session.
It’s picayunish, as with a Legislature led by
Republicans and the SBC dominated by elected Republicans, ultimately an Edwards
gambit to try to replicate the carrot-dangling and switch-whipping governors
have had over capital outlay will fail. Still, he will try as he definitely
dislikes the new reality of an assertive Legislature – which has many diametrically
opposing policy preferences from his – disempowering a governor not on the same
page with it.
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