Jindal's vetoes of 'hot-button' issues altering his image
(Times-Picayune)

BATON ROUGE -- Although Gov. Bobby Jindal ended his first general and two special legislative by vetoing 29 bills and more than $30 million in three separate budgets, his first-year total is a far cry from the 83 bills former Gov. David Treen spiked in the 1981 regular session, according to legislative records.

Treen, a fiscal conservative and the first Republican elected governor after Reconstruction, battled with more liberally spending Democrats during his single term in office. In his four-year term, Treen vetoed 222 bills, not counting line items struck from state budget bills.

Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana, and Jim Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, both issues-oriented research groups, said Jindal has developed the reputation as a vetoing governor because he has killed some high-profile bills that made it through the Legislature. They include bills to double the pay of legislators, to grant a $30,000 salary increase to the elected five-member Public Service Commission, and a handful of bills to make exceptions to the conflict-of-interest part of the ethics code.

 

Public Service Commissioner won't seek Reelection

(WDSU)

Public Service Commissioner Jay Blossman has changed his mind and will not run for re-election, WDSU NewsChannel 6 reported on Thursday. Blossman, a Mandeville Republican, told the station he reconsidered his decision to seek a third term shortly after he qualified for the upcoming election. He has held the First District office since 1996.This fall, he faced a challenge from several opponents, including familiar foe John F. Schwegmann, whom Blossman had defeated in his two previous Public Service Commission elections. The other qualifiers for this year's ballot are Bruce Kincade, Kenneth Odinet and Eric Skrmetta.After a strong start, Blossman's political career hit rough times in recent years. In 2003, he made a failed run for the Republican nomination for governor, accruing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign debt.

Irate Lawmakers say session unlikely

Input sought on Holden's bond plan
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posted by Chase S., 1 day, 2 hours, 36 minutes ago

Gov. Jindal's administration accused of not being transparent enough

There's been lots of legislator carping about Gov. Bobby Jindal's vetoes for this past regular session, given he cast 302 of them (278 line items), and a lot of it has come from lawmakers who, frankly, have a fundamentally misguided view about the purposes of government. They may be safely ignored. But one complaint merits further investigation since it comes from one of the apparently more level-headed House members.

Of all the Democrats in the Legislature, state Rep. Neil Abramson scored the most conservative/reform in voting. Thus, when he complains that a veto of one of his bills, HB 176 (actually, a second attempt since an earlier version in the first special session also got vetoed), casts doubt on the sincerity of the governor on the issue of transparency of the office, it should be reviewed seriously.

This bill intended that an elected official with appointive powers disclose whether appointees had made contributions to his campaign (or a gubernatorial transition). Jindal vetoed the bill citing concerns that the language was overbroad and would force reporting of any appointee's contributions to any candidate. He also said his office had talked to Abramson about altering the bill to address that concern and that Abramson agreed, to which Abramson said he had not agreed and therefore did not change the bill.

But another reason Jindal easily could have used to justify vetoing the bill is it is a prime example of unnecessary regulation already adequately dealt with under current law. The point of the bill, to show which appointees gave to an appointer, already can be accomplished. All you have to do is go to the state's Ethics Administration web site, enter an appointer, and there will be the list of donors. And if you need to know who the appointees are, there's a list of boards and commissions with member names.

Yes, this is somewhat clumsy because in many cases, through this list or on agency web sites sometimes it's not clear who exactly is whose appointee, and an appointer's list of donors requires going through report after report, but the fact is the information is in the public domain. So when Abramson makes statement such as "It raises the question whether they're concerned about releasing that information or not," it shows he is one or more of misinformed, ignorant, or stupid, because information going back …
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posted by Jeff Sadow, 1 day, 19 hours, 59 minutes ago

Council discusses improvement vote
(The Advocate)

The Metro Council could decide next week if, when and in what form it will send Mayor-President Kip Holden’s $989 million capital improvement plan to voters in the fall.

Holden, who earlier this week unveiled the multifaceted plan, made his first pitch for the proposal to the full Metro Council during a special informational meeting Wednesday.

The Metro Council’s Finance and Executive Committee later sent the proposal to the full council without a recommendation, meaning the council could cast a final vote on the matter at Wednesday’s meeting.

“We have developed a plan that offers something for every family in East Baton Rouge Parish: a better quality of life, education, entertainment and quality jobs,” Holden said.

 

Jindal vetoes 29 bills from session
(The Advocate)

Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed 29 bills from the recent legislative session, rejecting measures he considered excessive or unnecessary.

Jindal’s veto count nearly equals the number of bills his one-time boss, former Gov. Mike Foster, vetoed during his last four years in office.

The governor’s tally also is only about a dozen bills short of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s veto total for her entire term. 

Jindal overturned legislation that sailed through the session with little opposition. He rejected bills that contradicted his stance against the expansion of gambling. Most notably, he said “No” to pay raises for legislators and Public Service Commission members.

Landrieu airs first TV Ad

Veto session possible

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posted by Chase S., 2 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes ago

Thursday, July 17^th, 2008
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

JINDAL;  WE NEED MORE OF A GEEK

AND LESS OF A TALKER

 
By his own admission, Senator John McCain is not very computer and internet savvy.  Some would argue that for this very reason, he needs to pick a young, hip and contemporary running mate who balances out the McCain image of being old and to some degree out of touch.  A number of national pundits are arguing that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal fits that profile. But if you look at his communication skills and his web tech profile since being elected governor, Jindal and his staff are not even close to being on the cutting edge of new ways to communicate.

 McCain certainly needs some help in the computer literacy department.  The Times Picayune editorial cartoon earlier this week had a member of his staff saying: "Okay Senator -- I'm here to teach you all about the computer.  Let's try an Apple."  McCain’s answer is: "No thanks.  I just ate.”  Others have joked that when the GOP nominee was handed a new iPhone, he thought it was a TV remote control.  He is regularly profiled as functionally illiterate when it comes to the Web.

 So how high does the Louisiana Governor rank in being tech savvy?  If you take a look at both his campaign and governmental websites, his grade will be mediocre at best.   The Jindal for Governor Campaign site is still up and running.  But except for press releases out of the Governor's office, it has not been updated in months.  Want to send the Governor a campaign contribution or be added to his mailing list?  Don't try this website; you will reach a dead end.  Nothing happens when you hit the applicable link.

 The Governor’s office website offers little more than references to other agencies along with press releases.  Quite vanilla as is the case with most Louisiana governmental sites. But with the Jindal administration, expectations were significantly higher. The new governor, only six months in office, has surrounded himself with a bevy of young staffers who are supposed to be web …
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posted by Jim Brown, 2 days, 14 hours, 49 minutes ago

Jindal's vetoes breeding "distrust"

I have to ask a similar question as one posed in yesterday's post: just how many Louisiana legislators are illiterate? More than a few, it would appear, from the rhetoric coming about the trimming Gov. Bobby Jindal inflicted on the state's appropriations bills through the use of his line item veto power, and questions can be raised about their attention spans and abilities to do their jobs as well.

Some legislators complained that they didn't have adequate "warning" about these cuts to their pet porjects, which totaled 283 items worth over $25 million in direct costs. Well, if they could read, they did indeed have it, courtesy of an Apr. 30 memo Jindal sent outlining his four criteria for judging the merit of such projects slipped into the budget, they being the project must have a statewide or substantial regional impact; have been presented or openly discussed during the legislative session; be a state agency priority; and must have the proper disclosure form published online prior to consideration for funding.

It was that simple, and it's clear that in reviewing projects in the cases of the vast majority of the vetoes that they unambiguously did not meet the criteria. Why is it that non-politicians can figure out the obvious, while the politicians can't? Instead of blaming themselves, the ilk like state Sen. Joe McPherson (who already makes millions a year off the state) tried to blame Jindal, claiming he tried to score political points in a kind of set-up to have legislators forward projects so he could relish vetoing some.

Such a statement might be made not so much because of inattentiveness to what Jindal wrote, but because these politicians discounted it. Note that while many Republican-sponsored projects got slashed, almost all of the complaining is coming from Democrats concerning the Republican Jindal. This is because political motivations of Democrats and Republicans differ because of the differing political ideologies each tend to follow.

Conservatism, to which most Republicans adhere in more or less purer forms, wins in the marketplaces of ideas and policy outputs over liberalism, as logic and history demonstrate. Therefore, when Republican politicians tell what their policies will be and when based upon conservatism, they usually mean what they say. Democrats, on the other hand, at least the ones who want to get elected where there isn't a large liberal majority in the electorate, knowing they lose on ideology, will try to obscure that aspect and regularly make policy pronouncements …
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posted by Jeff Sadow, 2 days, 22 hours, 22 minutes ago

Lawmakers mull session to override Gov. Jindal's vetoes.
(The Advocate)

Lawmakers aggravated that the governor removed $16 million from their favored budget projects are contemplating an unusual return to the state Capitol early next month to try to override the vetoes.

Notice will go out Wednesday advising legislators of Gov. Bobby Jindal's vetoes - 23 bills since the regular session ended and items stripped from three budget bills - and notifying them of the August veto session, which was automatically set when the governor vetoed bills.

A majority written vote of either the House or Senate can scrap the session, which lawmakers typically do as an afterthought. But Jindal rankled many legislators by stripping hundreds of earmarks to their pet projects, and behind-the-scenes discussions of a possible veto session are percolating.

"I've heard a lot of talk about it," said Sen. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi.

 

Jindal allows unsigned bills
(The Advocate)

More bills have become law without Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signature, including one clearing the way for college tuition increases and another requiring more automobile insurance coverage.

Jindal said Tuesday that neither of the measures originated with him and he decided to defer to the will of the Legislature which passed both bills.

“We are still not in support of (college) tuition increases,” Jindal said.

As of Tuesday, Jindal had allowed at least 141 bills to become law without his signature — the highest count of any governor in recent history. The tuition and insurance bills are among the highest profile of the measures.

 

Vetoes leave local entities scrambling for funding

Law undermines ethics former board member says.

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posted by Chase S., 3 days, 2 hours, 8 minutes ago

Jindal hacks budget earmarks

Just how dumb or illiterate are some Louisiana state legislators? Gov. Bobby Jindal certainly gave them an opportunity to wise up with his raft of line item vetoes to the state's appropriations bill HB 1

On Apr. 30, Jindal issued a letter outlining clearly and succinctly criteria he would use in making these decisions, they being the project must have a statewide or substantial regional impact; have been presented or openly discussed during the legislative session; be a state agency priority; and must have the proper disclosure form published online prior to consideration for funding. Scrolling through the list of requests, matching them to the actual line items, one could see a train wreck approaching.

As with the supplemental bill which Jindal also trimmed, in some cases, the item was missing on the list. In a few others, the list information mismatched with the item. But a significant number unambiguously were local in nature.

So what do we make then of state Sen. John Alario's complaint that Jindal went too far when he, for example, vetoes local government requests for playground equipment, prompting Alario in high dudgeon to declare, "I think they've gone farther than what the ground rules were. If you're playing a game, you ought to play by the rules." I guess we make that Alario is an idiot: what definition of "local" does he see as a synonym of "statewide" or "substantial regional?"

We can understand part of Alario's thinking by his very comment likening the process to a "game." To legislators of Alario's ilk, they see the entire scenario as a game, played by legislators where the object is to squeeze out as much state money as possible into the hands of local interests. Do enough of that, and you "win" the game by getting reelected. This idea stands as a principal tenet of their entire governing ideology.

By contrast, Jindal sees this exercise not as a necessary, much less a desirable, feature of modern governance. He sees it as an affront to taxpayers whose hard-earned money should go to statewide priorities instead of ending up subsidizing local concerns. As Jindal rightly pointed out, these vetoes don't mean the projects themselves necessarily aren't desirable, it's just that there is no moral reason state government should pay for these when legally it is not compelled to do so; these are matters outside the proper reach of government or are properly handled by local government.

If supporters of these feel differently, they are free to …
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posted by Jeff Sadow, 4 days, 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

'Pork' Pulled from Budget
(The Advocate)

Gov. Bobby Jindal angered a number of lawmakers Monday by purging $16 million in “pork barrel projects” from the state operating budget.

“For too long, state government has spent and spent with little regard for taxpayers’ money,” the governor said during a news conference at the State Capitol.

Jindal removed funding for community organizations, museums and a Baton Rouge balloon festival from the $29.9 billion state operating budget. In all, Jindal “line-item vetoed” 258 legislative pet projects.

The vetoes prompted Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, to suggest that Jindal made a mistake in eliminating so many projects.

 

Bids for office face challenges

(The Advocate)

LIVINGSTON — Legal challenges were filed against two candidates, including the incumbent mayor of Walker, in separate races Monday.

Walker Mayor Travis Clark didn’t show up to qualify for re-election until a few minutes after the 5 p.m. deadline Friday, reporting that he got caught in traffic, Clerk of Court Tom Sullivan said when questioned Monday morning about the situation.

Bobby Font Jr., the only other candidate in that race, filed a petition asking that Clark’s name be stricken from the ballot.

A separate suit asks that Carl Martin’s name be removed from the ballot for marshal of Ward 2 City Court in Denham Springs.

Cuts concern DHH Official

U.S. Secretary of Labor to speak in New Orleans today.

 

 

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posted by Chase S., 4 days, 2 hours, 34 minutes ago

Jindal vetoes $16 million in earmarks

Gov. Bobby Jindal had a Clintonian moment by showing up to his news conference announcing his disposition of HB 1 11 minutes late. The rest of his presentation was anything but.

Jindal meant what he said (contrary to former Pres. Bill Clinton who often said one thing then did another) that he would line item veto those projects that did not at least have a regional impact of some importance and/or were not documented properly and publicly. He thusly axed 258 items to the tune of $16 million (and said indirect savings were $27 million more), over ten times what he excised from the supplemental bill and about double the number from the last 12 budget bills combined. This in and of itself perhaps tells us there hasn't been a lot of good prioritizing in past budgets.

Perhaps the most controversial was the indirect item veto that would have allowed chiropractic services to be claimed on Medicaid (and at a higher reimbursement rate than other medical professionals were allowed to claim). The Jindal Administration had opposed the item during the regular legislative session. Some items were multiple requests for the same organizations.

He also mentioned many other items were kept despite having a tenuous connection with the criteria, particularly the "statewide/regional" impact criterion. He said he did so because they were important and they already were contracted to do government services - but that the process should be changed so that these line items weren't necessary. For example, he brought upon Councils on Aging and said an update of the formula that computed the contracting dollars should occur to obviate the necessity of line items. In other words, Jindal will look more dimly on such future requests and that the state should get going on making these kinds of revisions.

He said the priorities were economic development and transportation and shied away from purely local projects. Even so, many items that advertised themselves as for economic development still were vetoed. He also correctly noted that local government purchase of such items produced greater accountability and transparency, as the rationale for these would be better documented and local elected officials could be held better accountable through elections. However, most items were of nongovernmental organizations that did not appear to be at least regional in his estimation, with the usual amounts being around $25,000, give or take $15,000. As with the supplemental bill, for some the amount(s) requested appeared to be the organizations' entire budgets.

Such a huge total leads to wondering …
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posted by Jeff Sadow, 4 days, 19 hours, 18 minutes ago

AP: Kennedy's party switch might work.
(AP)

State Treasurer John Kennedy wants your vote in the U.S. Senate race. But first he wants you to know he’s a conservative Republican, not the populist Democrat he ran as four years ago for the job.

While rebranding yourself to the state’s voters might seem daunting to many a politician, Kennedy’s facing this issue head on, with the straight-talking, brash style he’s used repeatedly over the years. His supporters believe — and hope — that approach could neutralize the party switch discussion and turn the talk to other matters.

His critics call him a political opportunist, but Kennedy’s pitching himself as a man never embraced by his former Democratic Party, who held his nose to endorse a Democrat for president four years ago and who shouldn’t ever be defined by a party label.

Jackson qualifies, drops party tag

(The Advocate)

State Rep. Michael Jackson, a longtime Democrat, on Friday dropped his party affiliation to run this fall for the Baton Rouge-based 6th District congressional seat.

Jackson’s entry into the race on the final day of qualifying allows him to bypass the party primaries and could transform the race for the seat held since May by U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-New Roads.

All seven U.S. congressional seats are up for election, as is one of the state’s two U.S. Senate spots.

State Treasurer John N. Kennedy, a recent Republican convert, and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., signed up Friday to run for the U.S. Senate.

Kennedy was joined by fellow Republican J. Jacques Boudreaux of Baton Rouge, a landscape contractor. Robert Stewart of New Orleans, a waiter at Harrah’s casino, qualified as a No Party candidate for the U.S. Senate.

 

Jindal vetoes spending information bill

Treasurer Kennedy reminds voters he's now conservative

 

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posted by Chase S., 5 days, 2 hours, 28 minutes ago