Louisiana Voice

Between speaking engagements in New York and New Jersey, something strange happened to one of the crown jewels in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s legislative.

The governor’s retirement bills are scheduled to be taken up for debate on the Senate floor on Wednesday and early indications are they are in trouble.

Jindal, flush from his education reform successes, couldn’t wait to dash off to an ill-advised keynote speaking engagement before the New York Republican state dinner. Next, he’s off to New Jersey next month to speak at the American Federation for Children’s national policy summit in Jersey City. More about that in due course.

In the interim, opposition, led by Cindy Rougeou, executive director of the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System (LASERS), has grown statewide to his sweeping state employee retirement reform package that not only slashes retirement benefits for state employees, but requires them to pay more and work longer to get them.

That’s right. Said another way, Piyush would require that state employees chip an additional 3 percent of their paychecks in order to qualify for fewer benefits—and to work longer to get them.

As if that were not bad enough, a Dallas law firm retained by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said everything about the retirement bills stinks. The bills are illegal, said the report by Strasburger Law Firm, because they break contracts with state employees, something expressly forbidden by the U.S. and Louisiana constitutions.

Not to be outdone, the administration promptly retained an outfit named Buck Consultants at a contract cost of $400,000 to counter the Strasburger report. To date, the contents of the Buck report have not been released.

That appears to follow a pattern. It was only a year ago that another somewhat cheaper ($49,999.99) report was ordered by the administration from Chaffe and Associates of New Orleans. That report was supposed to support the administration’s efforts to privatize the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

It practically took a triple dose of Ex-Lax for legislators to get the administration to (ahem) cough up a copy of the report.

Even while the Buck report was still pending, the administration began backtracking, amending, re-writing and tweaking its retirement bills.

Nothing like having your ducks in a row ahead of time. Another cliché, flying by the seat of your pants, comes to mind. So does FUBAR.

Probably one of the sleaziest tactics employed by Jindal (oh, where do you start when discussing the administration’s sleaze factor?) was his attempt to dump the entire $18.3 billion unfunded accrued liability (UAL) on LASERS. Of the four state retirement systems—state employees, teachers, school employees and state police—LASERS accounts for $6.3 billion of the total UAL. Yet, Jindal never opens his mouth about the remaining three retirement systems and his “reform” package does not include any of the other three. Only LASERS.

Said another way (the governor is not the only one who can wear out a phrase; we can play, too), John, Pete, Sam and Piyush each have bank loans. Sam owes $10,000; John $700, Pete $300 and Piyush owes $7,000. The bank decides to call in all the loans but instead of seeking a pro rata share from each debtor, it sends Piyush the bill for the entire $18,000.

Well, that certainly seems fair.

Such is life in the administration of Piyush Jindal. Up is down, left is right, in is out, and the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is sacrosanct.

So now, while his retirement bills appear to be headed toward a torturous death on the Senate floor, our globe-trotting governor prepares for yet another victorious appearance before a friendly audience.

Ever notice, by the way, that the guy absolutely, positively never appears anywhere where the crowd is not friendly—and controlled?

Ever notice that Piyush absotively, posilutely never puts himself in the position of having to answer tough, probing questions?

Give him an audience of ALEC members, LABI meetings, or chambers of commerce and you can’t shut him up (as witnessed by his performance last week in New York) but never will you catch him speaking to an audience of state employees or teachers. Prudent or cowardly? You decide.

So now Jindal is off to New Jersey where he will speak to the American Federation for Children, formerly called All Children Matter until it was fined $5.2 million in 2006 for funneling campaign money into Ohio through the organization’s various state networks. All Children Matter was also fined an unspecified amount for illegal political activity in Wisconsin.

The American Federation for Children, nee All Children Matter, is run by Betsy DeVos, former chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of Blackwater USA, the private security firm that made international headlines in 2007 when its guards killed Iraqi civilians and then attempted to bribe Iraqi officials to quell criticism of their actions.

Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, contributed $16,000 to Jindal’s first two gubernatorial campaigns in 2003 and 2007. Her husband owns Amway; Amway is a member of ALEC. The circle is now complete.

Betsy DeVos called Jindal one of the nation’s most committed education reformers. “The governor serves as an example of how strong leadership and a bipartisan approach can improve the lives of children, and we can’t wait to hear how he will inspire other governors across the country to stand up for children,” she gushed.

Perhaps he can serve as an inspiration of how not to reform state retirement.