With the possible exceptions of former Republican
Govs. Dave
Treen and Buddy
Roemer, no governor in modern state history suffered more brutalization in
a calendar year by legislators as did Edwards this year. He absorbed several
defeats in the almost total failure of his agenda and in having to accept things
contrary to it.
Chief among these was tort
reform that will trigger lower vehicle insurance premiums but at the cost
of defunding both one of his major constituencies and state Democrats. Republicans
outmaneuvered him to put him in a no-win situation where he dares not exercise
his veto power. They did the same regarding capital outlay, forcing him to
accept in total the Legislature’s list.
But his ability to cast line item vetoes in other budget
bills remained unconstrained, so he fought back. Ironically, typically such
vetoes reduce state spending, but Edwards, not ironically, found a way to boost
it by $69 million in the general appropriations bill HB 1. (Vetoes
to stricter Medicaid eligibility checking he alleged would save additional costs
of $42 million, but that figure neglects the much larger savings probable by
doing this.)
He excised $9
million by negating an appropriation he claimed the state fire marshal hadn’t
requested and by taking money set aside to go to local governments. At the same
time, he jacked up spending by $78 million through reinserting $57 million set
aside for classified employee pay raises and $21 million more in delayed executive
agency spending under the governor’s control.
If Samuel Johnson’s aphorism that patriotism is
the last refuge of a scoundrel were appropriated for Edwards’ explanation of
many of his vetoes, the operative phrase would replace “patriotism” with “claims
of unconstitutionality.” In fact, none of his assertions in this regard hold
water.
For example, Edwards wrote about the raises, which
the Legislature wanted to hold off because of uncertain future state finances
and the significant hit taxpayers have taken economically while state employees
have not suffered at all with the exception of some enforced furloughs, that the
refusal to appropriate constituted a “violation of Article 10, Section 10 of
the Louisiana Constitution, encroach[ing] upon the exclusive constitutional
authority of the State Civil Service Commission to regulate the compensation of
employees in the classified service and meet its duty to maintain a uniform pay
and classification plan.”
It does nothing of the sort. The passage in HB 1
merely says that certain monies won’t be used for the raises. It doesn’t
attenuate the ability of the State
Civil Service Commission to grant raises under its own authority, so in
that case agencies would have to scrounge around for monies to do this and they
have the authority to make budget adjustments to do it.
This particular veto actually carries a subtext: that
Edwards’ political stock has fallen so much that he can’t be sure that the CSC –
excepting the employee representative all its members are Edwards appointees
and typically beholden to him – would have issued the market adjustment raises that
upon doing so would put him in a fiscal bind. As with uncorking early the $21
million, this was about growing government by spending more in a bid to make
the adjustment upwards a permanent feature of a larger state budget.
Making false unconstitutionality claims serves
only as a smokescreen to the essential truth behind Edwards and his striking
back: he wants to inflate government, he’s angry that the Legislature stood up
to him and imposed its will on him that damaged his ego, so he cast these
vetoes to salvage what he could in the most vindictive way he could.
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