Louisiana Voice

Is it possible that by letting his national aspirations get in the way of the public will Gov. Bobby Jindal has betrayed the citizens of the State of Louisiana?

Is it possible that he ignored his own words written 14 years ago because he was blinded by the lights of a bigger and more alluring playing field?

Is it possible that the siren song of higher office may have drowned out the governor’s ability to hear his own constituents?

Is it possible that Jindal’s rhetoric about no new taxes coupled with his obsession with privatizing state agencies in exchange for a financial quick fix could have caused him to turn his back on $48 million in revenue for the state treasury?

Sadly, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Is it also possible that the 11 House members who switched their votes on the attempt to override the governor’s veto of the cigarette tax renewal represented politics as usual in Louisiana?

Add one more shameful yes.

On the vote to renew the tax, there were 70 yeas, 30 nays, and five no-shows.

On the vote to override the governor’s veto of the tax renewal, only 58 displayed sufficient courage to stand up to Jindal–12 votes short of the necessary two-thirds needed.

Let’s take a look at the voting on the veto override:

Of the five no-shows in the original vote, two voted in favor of the override. They were James Armes (D-Leesville), and Barbara Norton (D-Shreveport).

Billy Chandler (R-Dry Prong), George Cromer (R-Slidell), and Noble Ellington (R-Winnsboro) were also absent on the first vote but came back to vote against overriding Jindal’s veto.

For the most gutless act, we turn to Mickey Guillory (D-Eunice), Clifton Richardson (R-Baton Rouge), and Charmaine Sitaes (D-New Orleans). Each of the three voted to renew the tax but wilted under pressure, choosing to take a walk on the override vote when they were really needed. Can you say spineless?

Of the 11 members who originally voted to renew the tax but switched their votes to help kill the override two were Democrats: Robert Billiot of Westwego and Jim Fannin of Jonesboro. The others were all Republicans: Stephen Carter and Hunter Greene, both of Baton Rouge, Nancy Landry and Joel Robideaux, both of Lafayette, Charles Chaney of Rayville, Frank Hoffman of West Monroe, Kay Katz of Monroe, Tom McVea of Jackson, and Thomas Willmott of Kenner.

You think that’s bad? As the TV commercials say, “Wait. There’s more.”

Just where was the Louisiana Baptist Convention in the days leading up to the override vote?

Good question.

Apparently all those trips in the state helicopter to Protestant churches scattered across the north Louisiana landscape has paid huge political dividends for the governor.

Good move, Guv. Apparently it’s not enough that congregation members can set themselves up for future campaign solicitations by obligingly providing their names, phone numbers, and email and mailing addresses when you pass around your clipboard at those church services.

But now Jindal’s staff chooses to lobby the Louisiana Baptist Convention into submission only weeks after the organization joined with other faith leaders to call for tripling the state’s cigarette tax to 36 cents. The state’s cigarette tax currently is one of the lowest in the nation.

Jindal’s Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell claims he offered no tradeoffs and that his meeting with Rev. John Yeats, director of communications for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, was simply a “gentlemen’s meeting,” with no pressure applied. He said he just wanted to meet with officials of the organization so he could explain the administration’s anti-tax increase position.

Yeah, right. And Rep. Ernest Wooton (I-Belle Chasse) confided to his fellow House members prior to the vote that he hoped there was a Santa Claus.

So how would Teepell, or Rev. Yeats, for that matter, explain how the Louisiana Baptist Convention went from advocating that the state’s cigarette tax be tripled to going strangely quiet on the override vote—after the “Come to Jesus” meeting with Teepell?

Jindal insisted that the renewal of the 4-cent-per-pack tax, scheduled to expire in 2012, was a new tax. That took a huge leap of faith, bad pun intended. Moreover, the governor didn’t even attempt to reconcile his position to veto the renewal of an existing tax with his support of increased tuition at state colleges and universities.

Nor did he distinguish that position from his advocacy of a 3 percent increase in state employee contributions to their retirement contributions—money not earmarked to pay down the unfunded liability of the retirement fund, but instead to help close a $1.6 billion state budget deficit.

When is a new tax not a new tax? Apparently when it’s a fee increase.

Here’s what some of Wooton’s colleagues had to say in support of the override in the hours leading up to the failed effort:

• Juan LaFonta (D-New Orleans)—“You cannot threaten or intimidate somebody who stands for what is right and stands up as a leader.”

• Eddie Lambert (R-Gonzales)—“I’m a Republican, a fiscal conservative, but this (override) is the right thing to do.”

• Sam Jones (D-Franklin)—“It seems we have no problem in taxing the dreams of our kids by raising tuition over and over.”

• Elton Aubert (D-Vacherie)—“I ask you today if nobody lobbied you on this bill and you had to make a conscious decision on what you know to be right, how would you vote?”

• Hollis Downs (R-Ruston)—“There’s a time for politics and a time for principle. This time, principle trumps politics.”

• H. Bernard LeBas (D-Ville Platte)—“Be the voice of the people back home and not the voice of the people in the back of the chamber.” (Teepell and other members of the governor’s staff observed the vote from the rear of the chamber.)

• Barbara Norton (D-Shreveport)—“We have an opportunity to let our light shine throughout the state. Let’s stand as a full body.”

• Thomas Carmody, Jr. (R-Shreveport)—“My seatmate has said repeatedly, ‘Is no one going to go down and defend the governor on this?’ Damn, y’all, I can’t! Why? Because this does not make common sense.”

• Jerome Richard (I-Thibodaux)—“I’m not voting for a tax increase, but this is not an increase. I voted for a renewal and I’m gonna stick by it.”

• House Speaker Jim Tucker (R-Terrytown)—“I don’t like objecting to a position my governor has taken. When two men agree on everything, only one man is thinking. That’s the case today. I have to vote to override to maintain my integrity. I urge all of you to maintain your integrity today so you’ll sleep well tonight.”

• HB 591 author Harold Richie (D-Bogalusa)—“There’s nothing I can take away from you, nothing that I can give you except the opportunity to vote your convictions and vote for your people back home.”

• Walt Leger (D-New Orleans)—“ If you vote against (the override) you will be initiating a tax. You will be creating a $50 million hole in the budget. Think about what was said to you when you were asked not to override the veto.”

• John Bel Edwards (D-Amite)—“ It takes a lot of courage to take on the governor, especially when he is demonstratively and egregiously wrong.”

• Joe Harrison (R-Gray)—“There’s one way to avoid the tax: stop smoking.”

• Wooton—“Man up.”

• Jeffery Arnold (D-New Orleans)—“I told my mother this morning that I didn’t know if we had the votes to override. Her response was, ‘That’s stupid.’”

• Ricky Hardy (D-Lafayette)—“Our governor raised the price of education and lowered the price of cigarettes. What’s wrong with this picture?”

But for the best, most revealing quotes of all, we need only go directly to the source of all the controversy—Gov. Jindal himself.

It was 14 years ago, 1997, when the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospital, a 26-year whiz-kid named Bobby Jindal authored a 10-page paper entitled “Choice-Sensitive Health Costs.”

Here, then, are excerpts of that paper, in the governor’s own words:

• “Smoking is blamed for more deaths than all cancers not caused by tobacco combined.”

• “….Smoking causes 7.3 percent of the nation’s health care costs. Inflated to $21.2 billion in 1983 dollars, this corresponds to $87 per American or $393 per adult smoker.”

• “It is unfair to others without these habits to take resources away from them to cover the health care expenses of risk-takers.”

• “The enormous health care costs generated by unhealthy lifestyle choices cannot be ignored as society attempts to frame a health care system which is both just and efficient.”

• “….Studies cited document billions of dollars in health care costs and millions of years lost to premature deaths caused by smoking.”

• “Some non-smokers are beginning to question why they should subsidize the health expenditures of others.”

• “Though cigarette prices have been rising 6 percent to 19 percent every year since 1980, federal excise taxes stayed constant at 16 cents a pack from 1983 until the 1990 budget crisis.”

• “Reducing cigarette consumption would dramatically improve Americans’ health status and lower expenditures.”

• “Currently, the 24-cent-per-pack federal tax raises $5.2 billion annually.”

• “Raising the tax would also reduce the incidence of smoking; every 10 percent increase in cigarette prices reduces adult demand by 4 percent and teenage demand by 12 percent to 14 percent.”

Wait. What? Did he really say that increasing taxes on cigarettes would reduce the incidence of smoking?

Yep.

Anyone see a potential TV ad for a Democratic opponent?