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Archive for June, 2011

Much of Jindal campaign cash goes to out-of-state firms

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, Transparency on June 29, 2011| 4 Comments »

Much has been written about the efficient fundraising capabilities of Gov. Bobby Jindal, and rightly so.

He has traveled to the four corners of the nation soliciting campaign funds ostensibly for this year’s re-election campaign and has raised, depending on whose figures one chooses to use, between $9 million and $12 million.

Virtually unmentioned in all the coverage of his numerous trips and his weekly visits to Protestant churches for the purposes of either direct fundraising or building a base for future solicitations is his propensity to spend his money with out-of-state vendors in efforts to further his political career.

Since 2003, Jindal has spent an estimated $16.5 million on polling, political advertising, printing, direct mail, telephone banks, office rent, fundraising expenses, and campaign staff.

Of that amount, $6.2 million, or 37.6 percent of the total, has gone to pay out-of-state companies for such services as direct mail, polling, printing, and for automated telephone calling—businesses one might justifiably expect to find operating in Louisiana.

That could emit a hollow ring to his oft-repeated lament of the state’s losing its “best and brightest” young people to other states that offer better employment opportunities.

One of his favorite vendors is a company called Olsen & Shuvalov of Austin, Texas. He paid that firm $827,400 in 30 separate transactions between April of 2007 and March of this year for printing and mailing expenses. The payments ranged from a low of $6,353.86 last August to a high of $94,432.30 in June of 2007.

That amount, however, pales in comparison to the money paid to two separate firms in Alexandria, Virginia. His campaign, in fact, seems to favor Virginia companies.

The Jindal campaign paid Todd & Castellanos Creative Group nearly $2.7 million in 24 separate payments for media advertising buys, all during 2003 in his unsuccessful first run at the governor’s office. He didn’t use the firm during his 2007 campaign.

His campaign paid Onmessage, Inc., more than $1.3 million in 30 payments between March 2007 and February of this year for research, advertising, production, and consulting expenses.

A partial list of other out-of-state Jindal campaign expenditures includes:

• The Anderson Group of Bowie, Maryland—$300,000 in 13 payments between May 2003 and March 2004 for polling, consulting and statewide surveys;

• National Media of Alexandria, Virginia—$176,600 in 19 payments, all in August, September, and October of 2007, for advertising expenses;

• FLS-DCI of Phoenix, Arizona—$122,500 in seven payments between February 2004 and October 2007 for telephone bank costs and fundraising expenses;

• Mary Kate Johnson of Bethesda, Maryland—$99,000 in 22 payments between August 2008 and January 2010 for fundraising expenses;

• Stormo & Associates of Caledonia, Michigan—$86,600 in 11 payments for research and consulting from February 2007 through January 2008;

• Advanced Mailing Services of Woodbridge, Virginia—$84,400 in eight payments from October 2009 through February 2010 for mailing expenses;

• Political Solutions of Washington, D.C.—$81,500 in three payments for printing expenses, in July, September and October of 2007;

• National Cable Communications of New York, New York—$75,200 in two payments in September 2003 for television advertising;

• Southwest Publishing and Mailing Corp. of Topeka, Kansas—$69,400 in seven payments for mailing expenses from March of 2010 through January of this year;

• Aristotle International of Washington, D.C.—$65,300 in 30 payments from December 2006 through January of this year for office expenses, “E-donation fees,” and computer software;

• Strategic Direction.com of Tallahassee, Florida—$53,000 in three payments for automated calling and campaign consulting in October and November of 2003 and February 2004;

• Nova List, LLC, of Herndon, Virginia—$41,600 in five payments from September 2009 and March 2010 for mailing expenses;

• The McIntosh Company, Inc., of Dallas, Texas—$29,600 in six payments from June of 2009 through February of this year for fundraising expenses;

• Response America of Arlington, Virginia—$23,900 in five payments for mailing expenses from April of 2010 through January of this year;

• Praxis List Co. of Austin, Texas—$16,100 for mailing expenses in January and March of this year.

Given the fact that 47 payments totaling $581,700 were made to out-of-state firms for mailing expenses from August 22, 2008—about seven months after he took office—through March 31 of this year, one has to wonder what those mail-outs were for. His campaign for re-election has barely gotten underway and there doesn’t seem to have been an unusually large number of Jindal campaign mail-outs in Louisiana residents’ mail boxes over the past three years.

One must also be wondering if there are no Louisiana firms capable of handling telephone banks, polling, printing, political consulting, and mail-outs.

Or does the governor feel that he needs the business and political resources in other states just in case he should one day decide he does not have the job he wants, after all?

There must be scores of Louisiana printing companies, political consultants, direct mail services, advertising agencies, and polling and phone bank services wondering the same thing.

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Exorcising with Bobby Jindal and Protestant anarchists

Posted in Governor's Office, tagged , on June 26, 2011| 4 Comments »

This column is almost certain to produce a firestorm of righteously indignant protests from supporters of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

It did four years ago, so why should this year be any different?

Well, for one, when TV ads about Jindal’s religion ran four years ago, they were political ads paid for by the Louisiana Democratic Party.

This is no TV ad, however. This is about a governor, our governor, who would one day be president and who is on record—his own written record, no less—of (1) conducting an exorcism at the tender age of 19 and (2) his claim that Catholicism is the superior religion and all others merely lead to “anarchy and heresy.”

As to the second part, it would be most interesting to hear the governor reconcile his view of Catholicism as the superior denomination with his frequent testimonials at all those north Louisiana Protestant churches. It would be even more interesting to hear his Protestant supporters make that same reconciliation.

Certainly, this is not to say that it’s impossible, but a 19-year-old new convert to Catholicism performing an exorcism would seem somewhat akin to a squirrel trying to land a 747. At night. In a driving monsoon. On caffeine.

Jindal wrote in 1994 about the exorcism of a friend he called Susan while both were students at Brown University.

In his lengthy narrative, he relates how, when Susan was supposedly being possessed, he promised her he’d “stand by her forever” and “to be the rock against which she could lean.”

So what did he do when she began spouting “guttural sounds” and fell to the floor, “thrashing about?”

“I refused to budge from my position and froze in horror,” he said. “I was beginning to doubt that I had the capacity for feeling. I was the only one present who remained silent and apart from the group.”

After retreating to the opposite side of the room, Jindal wrote, he suddenly remembered attending a charismatic church once, “out of curiosity, but (I) had merely seen a congregation dance wildly, pray enthusiastically, and speak in a language that sounded like gibberish.” (Remember: these are his words, not ours).

A member of University Christian Fellowship (UCF) at Brown, he took another shot at Protestants in describing the incident with Susan. “UCF had turned to a rival campus Christian group for spiritual tactics. (Rival group? Apparently there are rivals within Christianity. With spiritual tactics, no less.)

“The preacher had denied our request for assistance and recommended that we not confront the demon; his suggestion was a little late,” Jindal wrote. “I still wonder if the good preacher was too settled to be roused from bed, or if this supposed expert doubted his own ability to confront whatever harassed Susan.”

Further into his essay, Jindal again revealed his key role in the exorcism.

“I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back,” he said. “Thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace with myself.”

When the ordeal of Susan’s possession and exorcism was finally ended, Jindal said Susan’s sister thought it best that Susan stay in the house of a missionary “with experience in spiritual warfare in foreign countries.”

This was because, Jindal wrote, “Susan’s roommate, the daughter of a Hmong faith healer, had decorated the room with supposedly pagan influences.”

Moreover, he said, Susan’s mother “had once worshipped and offered a sacrifice at a pagan alter in the Far East for her husband’s health (and) though he had been healed, she had been warned not to repeat such practices, but had returned to that same altar in the Far East upon hearing of Susan’s illness.”

Susan, he said, thought her “intense flirting with guys and straying away from God” had led to her punishment.

He said Susan, “despite her vicious attacks against the Church while in her trance and despite her sister’s staunch opposition,” became an active member of the Catholic Church.

All this is not to belittle or disparage anyone’s faith. A person’s religious beliefs are his own and they are personal and private. But to denounce Protestants as he did and then to put those beliefs aside today as he hops from Baptist to Methodist to Pentecostal church in a state police helicopter—paid for by tax dollars—for the purpose of testifying to his deep and abiding faith to Protestant congregations is the very definition of hypocrisy.

He wrote of the experience of Susan’s exorcism that he was beginning to doubt that he had the capacity for feeling.

At least some things never change.

Just ask any state civil service employee.

In 1996, Jindal wrote:

“The same Catholic Church which infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their ‘utterly depraved’ minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their selfish desires, and other effects of original sin. The choice is between Catholicism’s authoritative Magisterium and subjective interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy.”

“Selfish desires?” “Utterly depraved minds?” “Subjective interpretation? “Anarchy?” “Heresy?” Does that sound like something he’d say to the adoring congregation at the East Shongaloo First Baptist Brotherhood Apostolic Church?

In a somewhat twisted attack on intellectualism and political correctness, Jindal took one more indirect shot at Protestants in that same 1996 article. He said that the “educated elite” equate all religious beliefs with the “seemingly intolerant attitude of Fundamentalists.”

Wonder how all those quotes by our governor and presidential wannabe would play at the Dry Prong Full Gospel Tabernacle of Faith?

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Sen. Gautreaux takes personal privilege to thank Gov. Jindal

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits on June 22, 2011| 15 Comments »

Following is a speech deliverd on the floor of the Louisiana Senate on Wednesday by Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D-Morgan City), who will be leaving office at the end of his current term:

Bobby Jindal has been led our state now for approximately three-and-one-half years and I think it is time to acknowledge some of the most notable achievements of his first term as governor of the Great State of Louisiana.

Governor Jindal, the most traveled governor in Louisiana history, has logged well over a thousand hours in State Police helicopters, spending Sundays campaigning in churches mostly in north Louisiana. Additionally, he has logged hundreds of hours in Army National Guard helicopters traveling to the coast after Hurricane Gustav and Ike and the BP oil spill in an effort to point out that President Obama wasn’t there and that the Federal government was doing nothing.

And, while the State of Louisiana struggles with the national recession and while experiencing unprecedented unemployment, Governor Jindal crisscrosses the United States delivering the curious good news of business growth and job creation under his leadership. Of course all the while Jindal’s pointing out that Washington is out of control and that he is prepared to bring his principles of success in on-hands management to our nation—that is once he is back in Louisiana for a visit.

For the wisdom he delivered, millions of dollars were bestowed upon him by his adoring followers for his re-election campaign.

Who can forget Gov. Jindal’s adamant and very public refusal to accept the millions of stimulus dollars from Washington? And who can forget the very generous six foot by two foot presentation checks delivered to each and every parish of the State from the special checking account of Governor Bobby Jindal along with the same inspiring speech, except for the “insert parish name here” part?

I know how special I felt as we accepted the checks in the five parishes I serve. Some were trying to cast dispersions on those special occasions saying that the money doled out was Federal stimulus money, but we know the governor refused those dollars.

Let’s not forget the encouragement Gov. Jindal has given to our eldest military veterans—pinning their medals on them during his interrupted out-of-state campaign travel.

And of course, let’s not overlook the encouragement given to the young people of Louisiana. Among those is the opportunity to pay more for an education in state universities while losing courses of study and outstanding professors as more and more budget cuts were imposed.

Graduates have much more job opportunities today; out-of-state jobs that is. And special thanks should be given to Gov. Jindal for his attempt to make smoking more affordable.

And for special friends of the governor, great business opportunities have been provided int he form of lucrative tax breaks, adding big dollars to their bottom lines.

Another example that comes to mind is the opportunity afforded to Vantage Health to participate in writing the RFP and then being awarded the contract for an unprecedented awarding of a book of business away from the Office of Group Benefits.

In a meeting in Timmy Teepell’s office attended by the cmmissioner of administration, the governor’s chief of staff, Timmy Teepell, and three executives from Vantage Health, OGB CEO Tommy Teague was given the instructions and language to provide a book of business for Vantage Health. How’s that for transparency?

Next we have CNSI, a company with offices in India and the former employer of our newest Department of Health and Hospitals secretary. CNSI had the RFP re-written so that they could be eligible for the $34 million-per-year award for handling the Medicare billings and administration. This again was done by administrative act, bypassing the legislative oversight. We want to point out that those Louisiana jobs will now headed to points unknown in a continuing Jindal effort on job growth–just not for Louisiana residents.

And now it is my understanding Bobby Jindal will be saving the State of Louisiana $10 million by firing 149 employees at the Office of Group Benefits as soon as I get my butt away from Baton Rouge.

Of course the flip side of this significant savings is that it will cost twice the amount saved in additional costs to the State by placing the PPO plan in the hands of some favored private insurance company as evidenced by the Chaffe Report steadfastly kept under the shield of new transparency by Gov. Jindal.

The real and yet unreleased final report is more critical of this deal than the draft we saw. The cost of that deal within the Governor’s office will be borne by all Louisiana taxpayers.

While resolutions from the Legislature, District Judges Association, The Office of Group Benefits Board of Trustees and numerous state retiree organizations have been sent to Gov. Jindal in opposition to placing OGB in private hands, the Governor has seen fit to ignore all such petitions.

I would be remiss if I did not offer my sincere gratitude to the governor for one thing that has stood out this year; it has been a long time since Republicans and Democrats have courageously stood together and in opposition to Bobby Jindal’s efforts to denigrate and devalue the contributions of State employees and retirees. Nor should we overlook other administration efforts not in the best interest of Louisiana.

Thank you.

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Rainwater to be confirmed by Senate, Brady out; no word on Regents’ Ed Antie or DHH’s Bruce Greenstein confirmations

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Transparency on June 21, 2011| 10 Comments »

Paul Rainwater is in, Mark Brady is out.

That’s the word out of Baton Rouge after a series of confirmation hearings on the commissioner of administration and his deputy commissioner, respectively.

The Senate and Governmental Affairs (S&GA) Committee has been holding confirmation hearings for several weeks for appointees by Gov. Bobby Jindal, including Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals Bruce Greenstein and Board of Regents for Higher Education member Ed Antie.

The hearings have not gone well for any of the four men. Sources indicate that senators apparently are peeved at the perceived arrogance of Rainwater and Brady and the lack of candor on the part of Greenstein and Antie.

There has been no word on the fates of Greenstein and Antie, but the word coming out of the legislature Tuesday was that Rainwater would be given a pass and confirmed as commissioner of administration while Brady, who was brought into the Jindal administration from New Hampshire by Jindal, will not.

Brady is perceived by many in the legislature and in DOA as a hatchet man brought in by Jindal for the specific purpose of ramming the governor’s privatization agenda through the legislature.

Jindal’s plans for selling three state prisons fell through under heavy opposition from legislators and prison employees. The sale of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) has encountered similar opposition from retired state employees, retired teachers, legislators, and even state district judges but rumors circulating in Baton Rouge Tuesday said that Jindal will move forward with the sale of that agency as soon as the legislature leaves town after Thursday’s adjournment.

Greenstein refused for more than an hour to reveal the name of the winner of a $300 million, multi-year contract for DHH before finally revealing that the winner was CNSI of Gaithersburg, MD., a company by whom he previously was employed.

Antie, of Carencro, and founder of Central Telephone, denied that he had any contracts with the state or specifically, the Board of Regents. It turns out, as was revealed in the hearings, that one of Central Telephone’s subsidiaries, Sun America, has a $531,000 contract with the Board of Regents for the lease of fiber optics for the Regents’ Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, a state-of-the-art fiber optics network that connects eight major research universities in the state.

No specific reason was given for the prediction that Brady would not be confirmed but he sat through several particularly grueling confirmation sessions with members of the S&GA Committee, mostly over the pending sale of OGB as well as DOA denials of access to a financial report done on that agency by Chaffe & Associates of New Orleans.

The committee elicited a promise from Rainwater to make a copy of the Chaffe report available to committee member Sen. Karen Peterson (D-New Orleans) but Brady later ordered OGB CEO Scott Kipper not to provide the report to anyone, including legislators.

That prompted Kipper, who had been on the job only six weeks, to tender his resignation. His last day on the job is Friday.

When a copy of the report was finally made available, it was done only after senators were required to sign a confidentiality agreement which was promptly broken when a senator leaked the report to the Baton Rouge Advocate.

It now turns out that the leaked report may not have been authentic.

Rainwater and DOA legal counsel each had said on different dates that the report was received by DOA on May 25 but Chaffe officials signed off on the legislators’ copy of the report on June 3. Moreover, that report, published by the Advocate on its web blog, contained no date stamps, a requirement for all incoming documents at DOA, including all mail, brochures, and reports.

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Jindal planning OGB sale as soon as legislature leaves town; Administration a model of efficiency, deceit, and subterfuge

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Transparency on June 21, 2011| 8 Comments »

Sen. Butch Gautreaux dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he revealed that he had learned that Gov. Bobby Jindal planned to proceed with the sale of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) within days after the legislature leaves town upon adjournment of the current session.

The OGB privatization controversy has been swirling since Wall Street banking firm Goldman Sachs was brought in to the Division of Administration (DOA) last fall to begin preparation of a request for proposals (RFP) for a financial advisor to conduct a market value analysis of OGB and to then market the agency to potential buyers.

Goldman Sachs subsequently was the only company to submit a proposal but withdrew after negotiations broke down over the firm’s demand that the state indemnify it from future litigation.

In hearings before the Senate Retirement Committee and the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater flip-flopped on whether the agency was to be sold or simply have its operations taken over by a contracted third party administrator (TPA).

The initial RFP specifically referred to the agency’s being sold but Rainwater at one time said the agency was not for sale during testimony before the Senate Retirement Committee, chaired by Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D-Morgan City), who also is a member of the OGB board of directors.

A second RFP was issued with a deadline for June 6 for the submission of proposals and a “probable” date for naming a contractor of June 15. DOA officials appeared at OGB on June 6 and took possession of the submitted proposals and no one from OGB has ever seen the actual proposals.

It was learned, however, that Goldman Sachs was one of three firms to submit proposals on the second RFP.

On June 17, LouisianaVoice asked the identity of the financial analyst but DOA Chief of Staff Dirk Thibodeaux said no one had been selected.

If Thibodeaux was accurate in his answer, that would mean that DOA had less than a week in which to select a financial analyst to conduct an in-depth financial analysis of the billion-dollar agency, have the analyst market the agency to the private sector, and to agree to terms with a buyer, a scenario virtually impossible to execute.

“My understanding is that Jindal will act on the sale Friday or Monday,” Gautreaux said in an email on Tuesday. “The deal is supposedly done. I am still fighting and will be making a statement in the Senate tomorrow.”

An earlier financial report performed by Chaffe & Associates of New Orleans reportedly said the only advantage in privatizing OGB would be if a buyer was able to keep the agency’s $500 million surplus.

A copy of that report was supposedly leaked to the Baton Rouge Advocate last week but that report contained no such wording.

The leaked report, however, was dated June 3 by the two Chaffe & Associates staff members who authored the report. Rainwater testified on May 31that his office had received the report on May 25, nine days before the June 3 date on the Chaffe report. DOA attorney Paul Holmes, in an email to LouisianaVoice on May 27 also said the report was received on May 25.

Adding to the mystery of the discrepancy in the dates was the fact that the report leaked to the Advocate had no date stamps on any of its 42 pages. DOA policy is that every document, including letters and documents, must be stamped in with the time and date of receipt.

A DOA spokesman said that there were reports within DOA that the Jindal administration was planning to move forward with the privatization of the agency.

If Jindal does proceed with the sale of the agency, it would go against the wishes of the Retired State Employees Association, active state employees, the Retired Teachers Association, and the Louisiana District Judges Association. The Louisiana District Judges Association in March approved a unanimous resolution in opposition to the proposed privatization.

There has been some talk of the possibility of a class action lawsuit by one or more of the associations in an attempt to block any privatization move.

If a move to block the OGB privatization is successful, it would be the second major setback to Jindal. He was earlier stymied in his efforts to sale three state prisons in Allen, Winn, and Avoyelles parishes.

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