Louisiana Voice

The Louisiana Legislature, beginning with the House today, is about to take one of the most hurried, most ill-conceived actions in its long and notorious history when it passes House Bills 974 (teacher tenure/due process) and 976 (school vouchers, charter schools).

The votes are in, both bills will pass with comfortable majorities—some say perhaps by as much as two-thirds.

There also will be a surprise for House members who don’t read the bill closely enough: there have been a few last minute surprise amendments that will pull the rug out from under the bills’ opponents if they’re caught off guard.

If you still think there’s a snowball’s chance of the bills being defeated, consider this: at least eight political action committees that have poured more than $800,000 into the campaign funds of at least 103 of the 144 members of the Legislature—including 32 of the 39 Senate members.

Each one of these PACs has a vested interest in the passage of Gov. Jindal’s education package. Besides the Louisiana Federation For Children (an affiliate of the American Federation of Children) and its predecessor, the scandal-tainted All Children Matter, there are four separate PACs run by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI). You do remember, don’t you, that Jindal unveiled his education reform package at the LABI’s annual convention? Finally, there is FuturePAC and LAMP, the latter being the lobbying arm of the Louisiana Manufacturers’ Association.

FuturePAC, LAMP and the four LABI PACS, EASTPAC, WESTPAC, SOUTHPAC AND NORTHPAC are all affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been tutoring and coaching legislators, including a double handful of Louisiana lawmakers, for a number of years now on how to pass legislation on privatization, state retirement reform, Medicaid reform and yes, education reform.

The votes are in. They have been for some time and it was evident at last week’s Senate and House Education committee meetings. With the exception of a few like Reps. Patricia Smith (D-Baton Rouge) and John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) and Sen. Eric LaFleur (D-Ville Platte), members were simply going through the motions of rubber-stamping Jindal’s rashly conceived idea of education reform.

There are those who defend Jindal’s reform package because, they say, the system is broken and needs fixing. We are willing to concede that point, but the way this plan is drawn up is, to use a very old adage, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are so many wrong-headed ideas being bandied about by the administration that it is impossible to pick a place to start.

But back to the here and now.

In House District 72, represented by Edwards and which encompasses all or parts of Tangipahoa, St. Helena and East Feliciana, the Louisiana Federation for Children has sent a slick mailer out to every household.

The mailer bears the headline, “John Bel Edwards is holding back our kids,” and it goes on to say the legislature “is proposing a scholarship (read: vouchers) program for children in grades k-12. This bill provides students in low-performing schools with scholarships to attend the school of their parents’ choice, including private and parochial schools.”

The flyer fails to address the results at a dozen Baton Rouge schools taken over as charter schools and promptly saw their test scores and grades plummet ever further than when they were run as public schools.

Not that details of that nature have ever stood in the way of this administration’s pressing forward with its agenda.

It wanted the Office of Risk Management privatized and it was. Today, it is being run by the third private company in just over a year and has yet to post its annual report on line—an annual report that normally comes out in September. Could it be that the privatization has not realized the savings it trumpeted to the legislature and the administration does not want anyone to know that?

But let’s get back to that Louisiana Federation for the Children. On the front of the flyer, in small print is the statement that “LFC is a special project of the American Federation for Children” and above that: “Paid for by American Federation of Children.”

But who is the American Federation of Children? To borrow a phrase from Gov. Jindal: short answer, it’s a re-creation of All Children Matter after All Children was fined $5.2 million for funneling campaign money into Ohio in 2006 through the organization’s various state networks. All Children Matter was also fined for political hanky panky in Wisconsin. A federal “527” organization, it changed its name to the American Federation for Children after its legal problems.

Who is American Federal for Children and who was All Children Matter?

Both organizations were and are run by Dick and Betsy DeVos. They started the organization in 2003 to recruit, train, and fund candidates who would promote vouchers across the country. Dick DeVos owns Amway.

Betsy DeVos is the former chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party. Her little brother, Erik D. Prince, is the founder of Blackwater USA, the private security firm that made international headlines in 2007 when its guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians and then tried to bribe Iraqi officials to quell criticism of their actions.

In 1997 she wrote an op-ed for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call: “I know a little something about soft money as my family is the largest single contributor of soft monty to the national Republican Party. I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect some things in return.”

These are the people who want to tell the citizens of Louisiana how to run education and our governor is eating out of their hands. He, in turn, is spoon-feeding pablum to legislators.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Let’s now take a look at some of the big money winners among the House and Senate members who will be deciding the fate of teachers and public education in a completely “impartial, pragmatic, and unbiased manner” in the days to come:

• Sen. Conrad Appel (R-Metairie and the author of SB 597 and SB 603 which are virtually identical to HB 974 and HB 976)—$22,000 in combined contributions;

• Sen. Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches)—$$25,000;

• Sen. Daniel Martiny (R-Metairie)—$10,500;

• Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Pearl River)—$9150;

• Sen. Jonathan Perry (R-Kaplan)—$$14,500;

• Sen. Bodi White (R-Central)—$4500;

• Sen. Ronnie Johns (R-Lake Charles)—$6500;

• Rep. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales)—$8000;

• Rep. Christopher Broadwater (R-Hammond)-$37,500;

• Rep. Timothy Burns (R-Mandeville)—$7500;

• Rep. Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge, Chairman of the House Education Committee and author of HB 974 and HB976)—$22,175;

• Rep. Simone Champagne (R-Erath)—$21,500;

• Rep. Patrick Connick (R-Marrero)—$7500;

• Rep. Gregory Cromer (R-Slidell)—$10,250;

• Rep. Raymond Garofalo (R-Chalmette)—$15,000;

• Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles)—$6000;

• Rep. Hunter Greene (R-Baton Rouge)—$12,000;

• Rep. Kenneth Havard (R-Jackson)—$32,500;

• Rep. Lowell Hazel (R-Pineville)—10,000;

• Rep. Frank Hoffman (R-West Monroe)—$8400;

• Rep. Paul Hollis (R-Covington)—10,000;

• Rep. Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles, House Speaker)—$13,000;

• Rep. Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette)—$4500;

• Rep. Christopher Leopold (R-Belle Chasse)—$7500;

• Rep. Gregory Miller (R-Norco)—$15,000;

• Rep. James Morris (R-Oil City)—$13,250;

• Rep. Erich Ponti (R-Baton Rouge)—$6000;

• Rep. Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula)—$6000;

• Rep. Clifton Richardson (R-Baton Rouge)—$17,000);

• Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette)—$$11,100;

• Rep. Clay Schexnayder (R-Sorrento)—$25,000;

• Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport)—$7000;

It must be more than a little frustrating to know PAC money roars like a lion in the House and Senate chambers while a $25 donation from a constituent who opposes the bills goes unheard and unappreciated.

There were many more who took lesser amounts from the PACs. But you can bet the donors and Jindal will be watching to see how each of the recipients of their money votes. And if past is prologue those who dare go against the governor will incur his wrath. Cherished committee seats will be lost and construction projects back home run the risk of the governor’s veto.

That’s the sordid, seamy side of politics and until something is done to rein in PACs, it’s never going to get better.

If this is accountability and transparency and the standard of good ethics, then Uncle Earl was correct when he said, “One of these days we gonna get good guvment and the people ain’t gonna like it.”