'Fessing up, but a bit late Lest one think the Shreveport Times has the only hypocritical editorialists of newspapers in the state, the Baton Rouge Advocate showed it doesn’t want to be left out when discussing media that says one thing and then does another. The Advocate, joining the head of the state’s Democrats, took a shot at Gov. Bobby Jindal and his campaign staff that, by all accounts, made an inadvertent, incorrect entry on campaign finance documents. The state GOP spent money on the campaign’s behalf in June but campaign operatives overlooked to note it on the next filing due in June. In August, they were alerted to it and amended their previous form in September. However, this was too late to escape a fine which will be levied in the next few months. Democrat Chairman Chris Whittington, with so little for his party to crow about last fall, took the opportunity to ask that Jindal’s chief of staff Timmy Teepell resign over the matter, prompting Jindal’s communications director Melissa Sellers to describe the request as “silly” and that the process that led to the complaint was a “political stunt.” Whittington, who normally apparently is not easily offended by remarks or actions made by politicians in the area of ethics – as long as they are Democrats (witness his remaining silent over the years on ethics abuses committed by Democrat ex-state Sen. Charles Jones nor objected to Jones’ leading the committee in charge of ethics in the Senate, culminating with Jones’ recent indictment for corrupt practices while in office) – suddenly took offense to this characterization. So did the opinion page of The Advocate, huffily opining “if it’s going to be dismissed as partisanship when a Democrat raises an issue, or escape attention at all unless mentioned in the media, we don’t know how to define the administration’s operating principle. Transparent when caught?” But The Advocate itself in the piece deliberately tries to mislead on the nature of the complaint. It refers to the complaint as “from a Democrat.” True enough – but from the former head of the Tulane College Democrats who continues to play an active role in the party. The way The Advocate implies it, some concerned citizen with no agenda whatsoever accidentally one day stumbled upon the discrepancy, his pastime being reading thousands of pages of campaign finance reports. No, it was somebody whose motivation could not be only to champion politics pure as the driven snow, but somebody fact-checking with the express purpose of trying to find damaging information that could be used in a partisan fashion. In other words, does The Advocate seriously believe that this guy would have been doing this without any partisan motivation? (If so, I’ve got a great deal for them on land in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward next to the Industrial Canal.) And why wouldn’t they state the exact position of this guy? In trying to …
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Jindal grants limited hiring freeze exception Gov. Bobby Jindal has bent, slightly, in his order to freeze hiring of essentially all unfilled positions in state government. The move to allow a blanket waiver for all health care positions in direct contact with patients, after at first saying there would be no blanket waivers, represents only a small tactical shift in a larger strategy. Some wondered when as one of his first official acts Jindal implemented the freeze by executive order. After all, promises of budget surpluses rung, on top of recent surpluses, so why was it that Jindal seemed so concerned about saving $25 million? There are three reasons why. First, it was campaign promise of sorts. Jindal had long and loudly complained about an expanding government. Even if most of the recent increase came as a result of recovery monies from outside the state, there still was some government spending growth at a time the state actually had fewer people to service. On top of that, Jindal had expressed annoyance that the state not only continued to keep hundreds of jobs unfilled for years running, but that these open slots got pay raises in 2007. The freeze was a way to make good on this campaign issue. Second, one of the great con jobs of last year by the Kathleen Blanco Administration and Democrat legislative leadership was the creation of programs and redistribution into them of monies coming from temporary sources (even if technically these funds were classified as eligible for spending on recurring items), as well as their ignoring of the false economy created by recovery spending which resulted in increased but in part temporary revenues. The Jindal Administration recognizes this fully as a ticking time bomb and one way to deal with it is cutting back basically unneeded personnel spending. Third, the freeze helps Jindal in his quest to reform certain areas of government. For example, the current indigent care system rewards state institutions to be less efficient by dropping a sum of money in their laps rather than tying their rewards to performances on indicators – which is how the non-government sector must work compelled by market forces. Even if only a few million dollars can be pulled from the existing charity system, it reduces its size and frees the money to be used to implement a money-follows-the-person regime that eventually will force the charity system to perform more efficiently. Jindal was correct that blanket exemptions as a whole would detract from the basic goal of his administration – hinging on another campaign promise – that is tied into the reform idea: it’s not the savings of money that is as important, but that agencies use the opportunity to justify its use as the first step towards a more performance-based attitude reigning in agency budgeting and operation. Jindal and Republicans like House Speaker Jim Tucker have insisted that fat still remains in the …
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Unofficial caucus results released Just as at the national political level there are attempts to define victory in Iraq in a way to withdraw U.S. forces without actual victory in place, here in Louisiana a battle rages to declare victory for Republican candidates in the party’s recently-conducted caucuses. As far as any one candidate goes, the edge seems to be held by Sen. John McCain, a situation trumpeted by a pro-McCain news aggregator website. But in real terms, the victory likely will go to former Gov. Mitt Romney – but “likely” for now for two reasons. One is that the actual winner – both plurality and majority – of the delegates statewide appears to have been an uncommitted slate termed the “Pro-life/Pro-family” delegation. They seem to have captured a smashing 86 of the 105 slots, while the McCain slate looks to have gotten fewer than 10. (These numbers might change a little as the party is still verifying provisional ballots.) Given these candidate's records of the issues the uncommitted delegates signal are important ot them, it would appear that the bulk of the uncommitted delegates will swing Romney’s way if given that chance, in addition to the handful of Romney delegates by name winning. The other reason it's not set in stone is because Louisiana Republicans can moot this. The week after the Feb. 9 caucuses comes the state convention where the actual delegates to attend the national convention will be selected. If state GOP voters give any candidate an absolute majority, that candidate gets pledged to him all of the convention delegates apportioned in this manner – 20 delegates. If no candidate does, these and 24 other delegates are up for grabs on Feb. 16. It seems unlikely any candidate will win an absolute majority. While inexact at to claim to know the intent of all the uncommitted delegates, probably enough of them backing Romney will control the convention to decide who gets 44 of the GOP's 47 available. Thus, claims that McCain had the best outcome of all candidates running ring very hollow. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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Odom projects drained pest funds, ag chief says If anybody unfamiliar with traditional politics in Louisiana needs any instruction into how dysfunctional the situation has been, one need look only at the mess created over pest control in the state’s Department of Agriculture and draw lessons from there on how to change it. Former commissioner Bob Odom diverted funds dedicated to fighting boll weevils, in part paid for by cotton farmers for that very purpose, to projects that, if they had any connection to agriculture at all, were money-losers to the state as a whole. Now it seems the so-called dedicated funds to the project won’t be enough to cover the expenses needed to maintain progress on the eradication. The trouble began years ago when Odom first got the state Legislature to pass a law apportioning as much as $12 million a year culled from slot machines at race tracks to fight the pest. Initially, the money went for that purpose but as the program became more successful needing less money to keep progress going, Odom began to find these creative outlets to finance other ventures. The check on this was supposed to be the State Bond Commission, needed to approve attaching this revenue stream to pay off these projects. But most of its membership was made up of good old boy-and-girl Democrats put there by the Democrat-controlled Legislature and, from 2004 until days ago, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and they saw nothing wrong with taking the people’s money sequestered for one thing and spending it on something much different. As a result, most of the money now legally is attached to paying off long term debt for dubious items that do the state little good. To prevent further abuse (as advocated in the space years ago), the Legislature needs to revoke this dedication and reconfigure the financing to make the outstanding debt come out of capital outlay funds (a waste, but unfortunately made necessary). It then on an annual basis can appropriate money for weevil control. Gov. Bobby Jindal and new commissioner Mike Strain need to back this in front of the Legislature which not only makes excellent fiscal sense, but also demonstrates in a very symbolic way they and others like them really do mean to change politics in the state to emphasize less special interests and to bring more benefits to the people as a whole. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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GOP to kick off LA state caucus Within the hour Republicans will gather at statewide caucuses to select delegates to attend in about a month a state convention to pick delegates to the party’s national convention. Not only will this affect the outcome of a GOP nomination for president still very much in flux, but may also shed light into competition and the eventual nominee for the House Sixth District for Congress for the party. Courtesy of a web site that shills for former Gov. Buddy Roemer, e-mail was sent to drum up support for Sen. John McCain. In the note, Roemer argued that McCain was the only candidate that could defeat front-runner for the Democratic nomination Sen. Hillary Clinton – a highly mistaken notion, given Clinton’s negatives are so high that any GOP nominee would enter the contest at worst even odds against Clinton. In fact, because McCain would discourage the conservative base of the GOP who would be likely to take the attitude that the inevitable failure of a Clinton presidency would strengthen the conservative cause more than the as-inevitable failure of a Clinton-lite (McCain) presidency, McCain would be the least likely of the major Republican candidates to beat her. Despite his mistaken analysis, Roemer’s endorsement and placement on a ticket to support McCain firmly places him ideologically within the state GOP, reducing his chances of wining nomination for the 6th District seat. With the advent of closed primaries for federal elections, conservatives will have the greatest say in determining Republican nominees (as will liberals for Democrats). Roemer has more recently dismissed rumors that he will run for the seat of resigning Rep. Richard Baker and instead his son Chas (who appears on the McCain ticket as well) has expressed interest in the seat. The younger Roemer in essence has made the same signal by being on the McCain ticket, reducing his chances of nomination despite his unopposed win for the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education which was determined by a blanket primary. Therefore, today’s caucus results will be interesting in demonstrating just how realistic moderates’ chances in the GOP are of winning nominations. If this ticket doesn’t win in the Sixth District, it may signal trouble for any Roemer’s ambition Conservative activists have not let the challenge go unmet. Consultant Charlie Davis (publisher of the PoliticsLA website) has compiled a delegate ticket of staunch conservatives who pledge if no candidate wins the Feb. 9 primary outright to vote for a candidate at the state convention a week later who has solid conservative credential. With the departure of former Sen. Fred Thompson from the contest today, that seems to be a shorthand for support for former Gov. Mitt Romney. If Republicans want the best shot at winning the White House in November, the most conservative candidate in the field should get their votes. This means the Davis ticket would …
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State law requiring reporting of traffic stop data has no muscle Maybe it’s because it appears to have dropped quite a chunk of change on getting the data for the stories. Or maybe it wanted to make a big splash for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Whatever the motivation, the Shreveport Times produced a series on “racial profiling” riddled with muddled thinking, inappropriate insinuation, and harmful public policy prescriptions. The Times studied traffic citation data and found that black drivers were receiving perhaps twice as many citations – usually for minor offenses – as were white drivers in both Shreveport and Bossier City given population levels. On this alone, it concluded there must be something “troubling” about this outcome, without ever spelling out exactly what that is. But instead of providing a fair and balanced analysis of the issue (the closest it ever came was one quote from my colleague at LSUS who pointed out the many factors that go into decisions made by police about traffic stops and admonished it to “do a little more work” before making any conclusion), instead it made the elementary mistake, intentionally or otherwise, about which I warned my statistics students on many occasions to avoid, treating association as if it were causation. As an example of this error, suppose you observe that the larger a fire is, the more firemen there are that show up to fight it. As a result, you conclude firemen cause fires: where there are no fires there are no firemen, and the size of the fire grows directly with the number of firemen present. What you have done is erroneously posited a relationship between to things based solely on the evidence that they covary. They are associated, but that does not then imply they must have a causal relationship. Without paying close attention to plausible theory, any causal conclusions are recklessly made. Causation is demonstrated only when there is theory that most plausibly explains why there must be a relationship and what affects what. On this issue, The Times and a number of “experts” (with the exception of an academician all vocal politically liberal elected officials or activists) used the association of race determining probability of ticketing and grabbed their ideological biases to give an immediate, unreflective, erroneous conclusion (that, again, they are reluctant to state unambiguously no doubt because it would sensitize readers to that bias and lead them to dismiss their argument): blacks are disproportionately ticketed because local police departments refuse to change irredeemably racist institutionalized policies and to punish racist behavior. This is despite the fact that local departments (including Shreveport’s black police chief) steadfastly maintain that “hard” profiling (with race being the only standard being used to decide whether to make a stop) is forbidden. It is despite the fact that policies are in place to prevent hard profiling (which is dismissed by The Times and the consensus …
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GOP hopeful Paul plans visit to state The very first time I voted I did so for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for that office. Tomorrow he comes to a large city near you in Louisiana hunting for votes for the Feb. 9 Republican presidential preference primary – one of the very rare stops by a GOP candidate in the state this cycle. But I will not be voting for him on that date. Dr. Paul is an excellent candidate for the presidency on many issues. Best among the candidates he understands the necessity of limited government, of smaller government, and of how all in society are better off by cutting taxes and spending. If you wanted one guy in the White House that you could be sure would promote domestic policies to maximize individual liberty and to reduce the chances of government tyranny while making sure those disadvantaged not by their own fault are supported, in this year’s field Paul would be your man. However, he squanders and utterly defaults on all of this in his mistaken beliefs about the War on Terror. He generally has favored U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but not in Iraq, arguing the latter was impermissible adventurism that does not directly deal with the terrorist threat. Unfortunately, he cannot see that the two are inextricably linked in a larger picture, and the isolationism that he prizes is a luxury the free world no longer can afford. Many do not understand the source of terrorism as it exists in today’s world. It’s not about who has what land, it’s not about this religion or that, nor about class and economic conflicts. It’s about a small group of people regrettably with power much beyond their numbers who have concluded that certain civilizations and the ideas behind them are incompatible with their own, and for their own survival these rivals must be destroyed. The fanatics come from pre-modern societies that devalue individual autonomy, that are so rigid and unforgiving in provision of opportunity for individual advancement and self-governance that radical Islam appears to be the only alternative. Paul (and all the Democrat candidates) cannot (or will not) looks past the symptom to understand the disease: it’s not that, as he argues the U.S. “destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them,” it’s that they already were there and would have come about anyway and still would hate the U.S. and all free societies precisely because we are free societies. Thus, for our own protection, the environment from which these opponents of Western civilization must be altered, and this is done in two ways. First, the penalty for this behavior must be increased, and that is part of the reason to intervene in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Second, and far more importantly, the nature of the environment must become one where individual autonomy, leading to increased ability of the individual to …
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Tax plan folly Recently I heard my new boss of bosses Louisiana State University President John Lombardi give the commencement speech at LSUS and was pretty good as far as those things go -- brief, to the point, and actually of some use to a graduate. If only he had brought comparable ability to his criticism of the idea of utilizing transportation-related revenues to fund only transportation-building expenses – both in the exposition of his argument and in its political consequences. The idea initially broached previous to last year’s legislative session was projected to shift somewhere between $300-350 million from the state’s general fund (which represented about $8 billion in revenues this past budget year) to transportation needs – about the rate of one year growth of the general fund. Because of higher gas prices, the most recent estimate puts the amount at over $450 million. Lombardi is perturbed at this idea of dedication of funds, which if accomplished would eat away at the $14 billion backlog in transportation needs in about 30 years, because he thinks it would take away funds from higher education. He notes that discretionary spending from the general fund (almost half of it) would bear all of the “reduction” and with education as a whole making up about half of that, higher education would lose a significant portion of funding. Of course, he makes a telling assumption here – that necessarily all of the diverted money, pumped up by high oil prices, necessarily must be spent on the same items and in the same proportion as they have been in the past. In other words, Lombardi is unwilling to take a fresh look at the real needs and priorities of this state and maybe conclude not all of this money need go to these items. He just simplistically wants higher education’s “cut” without making real effort to determine actual priorities. He also mistakenly makes a zero-sum game of it all. Lombardi seems to think rigidly that cuts cannot be made in other parts of discretionary general fund spending and/or in low priority areas. Former university system president and current Gov. Bobby Jindal set him right when, told of Lombardi’s complaint, said “My bottom line is you don’t have to choose between good schools and good roads. I think it’s a false choice.” Jindal grasps that there are many areas of cost savings in Louisiana government regarding items in and out of the general fund; just to name some courtesy of decisions made last session, by redacting such foolish choices as the state giving income tax “refunds” to people who don’t pay any income taxes, funding redundant positions in an already-bloated state bureaucracy, and then giving these vacant positions raises. But there are two specific items under his purview that Lombardi himself could support that together would save money for the state that could make up, in whole or part, a “shortfall” with higher priority being given to …
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Jindal advisers urge ban on free tickets for legislators Although Gov. Bobby Jindal called the report released by his ethics advisory panel a “good start” and that it was not “set in stone,” he should give serious consideration to pushing legislation that is at least as stringent as the recommendations, if not more so. Especially valuable is the extension of disclosure requirements to all state Cabinet appointees and elected officials even at the local level (except for offices of municipalities of fewer that 5,000). The prevailing philosophy seems to be if you are elected or have a full-time state appointive job at the highest level you should be subject to annual disclosure requirements of income divided into five categories. But it would be better to go a little further. All administrative (but not those solely designated as policy-making assistants) appointed full-time employees at the state level should be included. Legislation also should empower local governments to apply those same standards to their full-time, appointive administrative personnel. Having such standards at the state level will be controversial but given the attention to the issue and that a large portion of the new Legislature committed to a similar agenda through Blueprint Louisiana’s pre-election efforts, if Jindal accepts these recommendations they ought to go through. Much more controversial is the extension to local officials, on which Jindal did not specifically campaign and was the reason a combined bill despite overwhelming legislative majorities got sidetracked last session. Jindal has indicated he would support a separate local bill which makes political sense in that objections to it would not derail automatically a statewide version. Of course, that means it makes it easier to defeat a bill addressing local officials. When about a couple of dozen other states already have such laws covering local officials there’s no reason Louisiana shouldn’t as well, especially with the 5,000 population exception, and hopefully Jindal will push as strongly for this as for a law dealing with state offices. Entering into state contracts by legislators and their families also will provoke serious opposition among some lawmakers. Some will argue it would discourage quality potential legislators from wanting to run, and might especially be constraining regarding lightly-populated areas where few providers of a service exist to contract with the state. However a law like this already exists, dealing with hurricane recovery contracts and its presence hasn’t seemed to have damaged the state. Moreover, Jindal has justified a ban of this nature with a very compelling argument: elected office to serve the people is a privilege, not a right, and so one must choose whether to gain access to it by meeting certain requirements. If you want to serve but you have a potential conflict under such a law, you either must decline the opportunity, or change your career and/or job to do so. Nobody is being forced to run for public office at the expense of his …
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Jindal imposes partial hiring freeze, meets with Cabinet The right way to do things by executive fiat Gov. Bobby Jindal delivered today in executive orders that force beginning next year from Louisiana cabinet members financial disclosure and compels their resignation henceforth if indicted, public listing by state website of what entities get state contracts and grants and for what purposes, and freezing hiring in most parts of Louisiana government (excepting essentially the Legislature and judiciary) and requiring the responsible officers to demonstrate the savings achieved (but also allowing them to ask for exceptions to be made) at risk of losing their salaries. Hopefully, these actions will begin to put to rest the fiction, embraced by some in the state despite so much overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that we don’t know what Jindal is going to do as governor and/or he’s being too vague with his agenda. As of his first full day in office, he’s doing exactly the specific things he generally promised way before, during, and after his campaign – bringing more transparency and efficiency to government. Now it is only the first day, these aren’t that far-reaching of policy changes, and the true cynics included in the deluded described above will say they are for show. But the fact is he did these things that could have been done just as easily by the likes of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Yet she chose not to take even these easy, elementary steps while Jindal delivered. The wrong way to do things by executive power, by great contrast, comes as a suggestion from former Gov. Dave Treen – to commute the sentence of felon ex-Gov. Edwin Edwards. To do so would signal that if you are slick enough to avoid being caught until and/or commit felonies in your later years against the people of the state from a position of their trust, you’ll get a reduced sentence. That’s a message hopefully Pres. George W. Bush will not want to send despite pleadings potentially from his father and Treen. Unlike Jindal’s approach, that won’t reduce the temptation for public officials to do mischief in the state. Jindal’s off to a good start that, especially with the contracts and grants order that will show exactly what organizations are getting what, will anger members of the existing power structure in the state who have shuttled in the shadows money to certain beneficiaries of these contracts and grants. Let’s hope he keeps it up. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)
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