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Archive for April, 2012

Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on April 18, 2012| 10 Comments »

“We are not and will not be defined by ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the states.”

–Ron Scheberle, Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), in a press release lamenting what he described as a “coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of ALEC.

“It has been brought to my attention that there have been meetings and/or activities with ALEC staff members within the state of Louisiana that I have not been privy to. As a courtesy I believe I should have been notified as to any activities that ALEC staff were expected to participate in within the state of Louisiana.”

–State Rep. Greg Cromer (R-Slidell), State ALEC Chairman since 2010, in his letter informing legislative colleagues of his resignation from ALEC in protest of his being left out of the loop in secret discussions between ALEC representatives and House and Senate Retirement Committee Chairmen Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) and Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas), respectively.

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First it was corporations bailing out; now the parade of Louisiana Legislators exiting ALEC membership begins

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Taxes on April 18, 2012| 13 Comments »

At least one member of the Louisiana Legislature has seen enough of the inner workings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Even as ALEC Executive Director Ron Scheberle bemoans what he calls a “coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of the organization,” State Rep. Greg Cromer (R-Slidell) has announced that he is resigning from the organization after serving as its State Chairman since 2010.

Cromer emailed his resignation on Tuesday to Laura Elliott, ALEC’s director of state programs

ALEC, by the way, has now officially abandoned social issues in favor of stressing economic programs as a result of national criticism of the “Stand Your Ground” law following national backlash over the shooting death of Travon Martin by a community watch volunteer.

ALEC, that crowning citadel of corporatocracy, extends its tentacles much further into the bowels of state legislatures than just the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida that led to Martin’s shooting death.

More recently, it marshaled its forces behind the chairmen of the House and Senate retirement committees to plan an all-out assault on state employees’ retirement plans that opponents insist are unconstitutional.

A secret meeting with the two chairmen prompted Cromer to resign from ALEC in protest to being left out of the discussions.

The organization, comprised of some 300 major corporations and about a third of all state legislators in the U.S., writes legislation covering a multitude of issues. Those bills are then spoon-fed to the legislators to take back home and to push through their respective legislatures and state assemblies.

State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) for example, is pushing his bill to make it legal to carry firearms to school, to churches and on college campuses. That could be one of the last ALEC-sponsored social issues to be considered anywhere in the U.S.

As we have said here on numerous occasions, ALEC writes legislation to promote privatization of state programs such as health care, prisons, schools and other agencies. It also pushes the approval of school charters, school vouchers and a general reduction in the size of government.

ALEC also bestowed its coveted Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award for “outstanding public service” upon Gov. Bobby Jindal at last August’s annual meeting in New Orleans.

But one of its premier programs is its concerted effort to offer generous tax breaks to its corporate members which in turn creates budget crises like that being faced by the State of Louisiana today.

Tax breaks in Louisiana over the past five years have combined to cost the state $18.7 billion, according to figures provided by the Louisiana Department of Revenue.

That’s $400 million more than the $18.3 unfunded accrued liability (UAL) of the state’s four retirement systems.

The primary complaint of ALEC members is the high tax rate to which businesses are subjected—a tax rate that ALEC says drives many U.S. corporations overseas in search of friendlier business climates (read: cheap, sweatshop labor).

But just how severe is the tax burden to corporate America? Really?

To answer that, let’s restrict the results to ALEC members as we take a look at three things: profits and taxes from 2008-2010, and political contributions from 1989-2012. A minus sign under the column headed taxes signifies a tax return as opposed to taxes paid.

And just for fun, we’ll also throw in total tax subsidies enjoyed by a few cureent or immediate past members of ALEC

To borrow a phrase from a beer commercial, here we go:

• General Electric—$44 billion income, $4.7 billion tax refund (-11%), $8.4 billion in tax breaks, $21.2 million in campaign contributions;

• Eli Lilly—$10.6 billion income, $214 million paid in taxes (2%), $10 million in campaign contributions;

• Verizon—$27.8billion income, $951 million tax refund (-3%), $12.3 billion in tax breaks, $21 million in campaign contributions;

• AT&T—$32.2 billion income, $4.3 billion in taxes (13%), $14.5 billion in tax breaks, $48.2 million in campaign contributions;

• Boeing—$10.2 billion income, $75 million tax refund (-1%), $3.6 billion in tax breaks, $17.2 million in campaign contributions;

• Coca-Cola—$30.7 billion income, $1.7 billion in taxes (5%), $2.5 billion in tax breaks;

• Merck—$26.9 billion income, $1.4 billion in taxes (5%), $2.9 billion in tax breaks;

• Wal-Mart—$63.1 billion income, $15.7 billion in taxes (25%), $2.5 billion in tax breaks, $11 million in campaign contributions;

• Chevron—$93.6 billion income, $4.5 billion in taxes (5%), $12.2 million in campaign contributions;

• IBM—$54.6 billion income, $1 billion in taxes (3%), $8.3 billion in tax breaks;

• Altria Group—$15.4 billion income, $4.4 billion in taxes (29%), $25.8 million in campaign contributions;

• Dow Chemical—$4.5 billion income, $508 million tax refund (-11%).

Of the 12 corporations listed here, nine had tax rates of 5 percent or less. Only two, Altria and Wal-Mart had tax rates comparable to individual wage earners in America.

Even in the face of these figures, Scheberle insists on wringing his hands over the “coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign” against corporate members of the organization.

“ALEC is an organization that supports pro-growth, pro-jobs policies and the vigorous exchange of ideas between the public and private sector to develop state-based solutions,” he said. “Today, we find ourselves the focus of a well-funded, expertly-coordinated intimidation campaign.

“Our members join ALEC because we connect state legislators with other state legislators and with job creators in their states,” he said. “They join because we support pro-business policies that promote innovation and spur local and national competitiveness. They’re ALEC members because they’re more interested in solutions than rhetoric.”

Apparently, they resign from ALEC for that same reason.

Cromer announced on Tuesday that he is resigning from the organization after learning that he was left out of the loop in a pre-session meeting between ALEC staff members and House Retirement Chairman Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) and Senate Retirement Chairman Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas).

“It has been brought to my attention that there have been meetings and/or activities with ALEC staff members within the state of Louisiana that I have not been privy to,” Cromer wrote in his resignation letter that went out as an email to key lawmakers and staffers.

Jeremy Alford, a Baton Rouge writer, said in New Orleans’ Gambit and The Independent of Lafayette:

“Representatives from ALEC and State Budget Solutions, a conservative-leaning non-profit, urged them (Pearson and Guillory) to model their attack plan after the successful (retirement) reform efforts launched in Utah in 2010. Legislators there moved the Utah system closer to defined contribution and hybrid plans. They also passed laws that changed how retirees can return to work.”

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Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in Uncategorized on April 17, 2012| 6 Comments »

“We have big challenges and need to have a substantive debate about the issues. It’s unfortunate and surprising that someone would stoop this low to try and win.”

–Gov. Jindal’s Communications Director Kyle Plotkin, commenting on the Facebook identity theft of Jindal’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristy Nichols, though he may well have applied those words to tactics employed by the administration regarding SB51, the retirement bill that requires employees to work to age 67.

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Piyush up to political chicanery as SB51 omitted from Senate calendar on Tuesday; are contents being hidden from public?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, Transparency on April 17, 2012| 14 Comments »

Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show once drawled, “Ohhh, there’s mischief afoot. Yeah, mischief afoot.”

That well may be the case with Senate Bill 51 that raises the state employee retirement age.

First, a little background.

The Senate Retirement Committee was originally scheduled to meet Monday at 9:30 a.m. As opponents gathered in the committee room and overflowed into the hallway, however, word came down that the meeting would be delayed because of a lack of a quorum.

In contemporary American Politic, that normally translates to the administration does not have the necessary votes to get the bill out of committee.

But this committee was wrapped and packaged by Gov. Bobby Jindal, so that explanation wouldn’t seem to hold water. After all, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Jindal had combined to contribute more than $102,000 to five of the seven committee members.

That fact alone should offer sufficient evidence that the fix was in. It’s already been shown to work for education bills and prison sales.

So, why the delay?

Apparently, there were some glitches with the bill despite assurances from the administration that provisions of the bill—and companion bills that change the final average compensation (SB47) and SB52 that increases most rank and file contributions by 3 percent—are constitutional.

For two hours committee members met with administrative officials to tweak SB51, coordinating retirement ages with time of service ostensibly so as to adversely affect as few state employees as possible.

In reality, the administration was drafting a more palatable substitute bill so as to neutralize criticism of Jindal’s retirement package by the Legislative Auditor and Gary Lawson of Strasburger Law Firm of Dallas. State Auditor Daryl Purpera retained the firm to conduct an analysis of the proposed retirement bills.

The Strasburger 38-page report opined that most of the retirement package would be ruled unconstitutional if subjected to a legal challenge.

Publicly, the administration pooh-poohed the Strasburger report but the two-hour delay Monday said proponents were having second thoughts.

Lawson, contacted as he prepared to return to Dallas, said he had no opportunity to review the substitute bill and the amendments before being called to testify in opposition to the bill.

“Nobody knows what’s in the bill,” he said, “least of all the committee members themselves.”

That didn’t stop committee members, heavily indebted to ALEC and Jindal for generous campaign contributions from one or both, from rubber-stamping their approval of the bill.

Then on Tuesday things began to take a strange turn on the Senate floor.

The Senate divides daily proceedings into the “Morning Hour,” and “Regular Order.” It is during the “Morning Hour” that Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp reads into the record the reports from each committee meeting of the day before.

This is the official report on which bills have been amended and moved favorably by the respective committees. Koepp also reads reports from several committees.

This is an important technical step in the process because it officially gets the bill out of committee and back on the Senate calendar. When this is done, the amendments are posted online. The amendments remained “proposed” until the following day when they are adopted by the body (in this case, the full Senate) and the bill is passed to Second Reading.

The report from the Retirement Committee, however, was not included during Tuesday’s “Morning Hour.”

Then, on Tuesday evening, after the Senate completed its calendar for the day, the body “reverted” to the “Morning Hour,” a normal procedure that allows Koepp to read communications from the House or from the governor.

It was at this point that Koepp suddenly read into the record the report from the Senate Retirement Committee from Monday. He reported SB33, SB47, SB52 and SB740, all “favorably as amended.”

SB51, the most controversial of the lot, the one that raises the retirement age to 67, was not among those reported by Koepp.

That means that the bill is technically still in committee and more importantly (and more ominously), it means that the substitute bill and its mystery amendments are still unavailable to the public.

More than 24 hours after the committee voted out a bill that not one member of the committee had read, the public still has no idea what the substitute bill is, what it says or what it does.

Frank Jobert, executive director of the Louisiana Retired Employees Association, expressed his puzzlement at the omission of SB51 in Koepp’s report.

“Perhaps they (the administration) don’t have the votes on the (Senate) floor,” he said. “I believe even the committee members don’t know what they voted for and are hesitant to go further down this road until they know what they passed out of committee merely to please the governor.”

Jobert added that he had heard that the 3 percent employee contribution increase might yet be ruled a tax or a fee by the Senate leadership “which could cause them to start over in the House or stymie the measure because it is a non-fiscal session. This remains to be seen.”

The Louisiana Constitution prohibits consideration of taxes in even-numbered years and last year, when Jindal attempted a similar move, then-House Speaker Jim Tucker said any increase in contributions imposed on state employees would constitute a tax.

Jindal has consistently rejected efforts to increase taxes—at least on his corporate supporters. He had no problem with forcing college tuition increases and apparently has no compunctions about imposing the 3 percent increase on employees’ contributions.

While the reasons for omitting SB51 from the report remain unclear, one thing is for certain: the action was intentional on the part of the administration.

The bill has to be made public at some point in time, so why the parliamentary chicanery? The only possible explanation is to keep the contents of the bill away from public scrutiny for another day or so in order to allow less time for opponents to react.

Jindal Communications Director Kyle Plotkin earlier Tuesday issued a statement about a fake Facebook posting in which someone impersonated the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristy Nichols as telling state employees, “We are watching you.”

In that statement, Plotkin said, “We have big challenges and need to have a substantive debate about the issues. These underhanded attacks distract from the issues. It’s unfortunate and surprising that someone would stoop this low to try and win.”

Substitute “tactics” for “attacks” and we couldn’t agree more.

Just another day in the Piyush transparent, ethical and accountable administration.

Michief afoot, indeed.

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As if the Jindal team needed help looking bad, fake Facebook message posted following Senate Retirement Committee vote

Posted in Governor's Office on April 17, 2012| 12 Comments »

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristy Nichols was briefly the victim of an internet hoax that had a handful of state employees up in arms before a bogus Facebook page was taken down.

The apparent identity theft came on the heels of the Senate Retirement Committee’s hasty unanimous approval of SB 51 which increases employee contributions, changes the way in which retirement benefits are calculated and forces most employees to work longer before qualifying for retirement.

The amended version of the bill did not appear before the committee until shortly before noon on Monday and opponents had no time to review its contents before it was rushed through committee.

At one point, while attempting to respond to a question by Sen. Barrow Peacock about the breakdown of benefits, Nichols became agitated when some in the audience snickered. “This isn’t double talk,” she snapped. “This is designed to be straight talk.”

On Tuesday, a Facebook page called LA Pension 2012 appeared.

In one exchange, a writer, presumably a state employee wrote: “Morals, fairness. You’re kidding, right? These people (the administration) are bankrupt when it comes to both.”

Twenty-two minutes later a response purporting to be from Nichols appeared. “I notice many of you have expressed your opposition to the Governor’s retirement changes,” it said. “I can assure you that this retirement is a lot better than being unemployed.

“Remember, we are watching you.”

Another person said he had posted on the page “and got a pretty rude response from the governor’s assistant Kristy Nichols. I was not explicitly called out, but it was immediately after my post hit,” he said.

His post said in part:

“The state government is here to provide service. They (administration officials) are attacking the state workers as the problem, so they want to get rid of us and replace with more expensive private workers. If the public understood that the private counterparts are more expensive, then public support would shift.”

The wording of the response to his post varied slightly from the first:

“I notice a lot of you disagree with the Governor’s reform, but rest assured it will be a lot better than being unemployed. We are watching you.”

The second posting unleashed a quick barrage of outrage before the post was removed.

One reader, believing he was writing to Nichols said, “I hope you are not implying that those people who are state workers who openly disagree about the proposed pension reform will be fired from their jobs.”

Another asked, “Have you ever held a job that wasn’t political?”

Nichols did not respond to an email inquiry but Kyle Plotkin, Jindal’s communications director, was quick to say that the facebook page was bogus.

“I want to be very clear. A fake facebook page was created in Kristy’s name,” he said. “It is not her. Someone is misrepresenting her.”

Plotkin said the comment not only did not come from Nichols, but she was unaware that anyone had created a fake Facebook profile until people who had read the comments began calling the governor’s office.

“It’s very disturbing that someone would steal Kristy’s only identity,” he said. “It’s unfortunate…that someone would stoop this low.”

He said the governor’s office contacted Facebook which immediately deleted the fake profile.

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