Bobby Jindal as a reform governor in favor of transparency, accountability, integrity, honesty, and ethics, is a joke. A cruel joke.
There, we’ve said it. The man is a chameleon. If you threw him into a big box of crayons, he would explode from system overload.
He says he is for transparency but then he hides behind the deliberative process that he pushed through the legislature shortly after taking office.
Apparently, he also is now hiding behind Troy Hebert, director of the Alcohol and Tobacco Control Agency.
Jindal claims he will not tolerate any compromise of ethics.
To put it bluntly, he lies.
Take House Bill 387 by Rep. John Schroder (R-Covington) for example.
It passed the House unanimously, 100-0 with five members not voting.
On Wednesday, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee unceremoniously deferred the bill without objection and with virtually no discussion.
All HB 387 would have done was protect state whistleblowers from reprisals.
The bill said, in part:
• Any public employee who provides information to a legislator or to a legislative committee upon request of a legislator or legislative committee shall be free from discipline, reprisal or threats of discipline or reprisal by the public employer for providing such information;
• No public employee with authority to hire, fire, or discipline employees, supervisor, agency head, nor any elected official shall subject to reprisal or threaten to subject to reprisal any public employee because of the employee’s disclosure of information to a legislator or legislative committee upon request of a legislator or legislative committee;
• If any public employee is suspended, demoted, dismissed, or threatened with suspension, demotion, or dismissal as an act of reprisal in violation of this Section, such employee shall report such action to the Board (of Governmental Ethics);
• An employee who is wrongfully suspended, demoted, or dismissed shall be entitled to reinstatement of his employment and entitled to receive any lost income and benefits for the period of any suspension, demotion, or dismissal;
The bill also provided for punishment of any supervisor who attempted to discipline, demote or fire a whistleblower.
The Jindal administration had opposed the bill as being “too broad,” claiming it could create “unintended consequences” that would inhibit the ability of agency leaders to manage their departments.
The bill was introduced after some state officials who disagreed with the Jindal administration lost their positions (“teagued”) and lawmakers subsequently experienced difficulty in obtaining information from agencies.
Perhaps it was “unintended consequences” that Jindal feared last year when he vetoed Senate Bill 629 by Sen. Ronnie Johns (R-Lake Charles).
SB 629, for those of you who don’t remember, would have provided “’transparency’ reporting to the legislature by the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) concerning the Louisiana Medicaid Bayou Health program and the Louisiana Behavioral Health Partnership and Coordinated System of Care programs.”
SB 629 was approved unanimously in the House, by a 102-0 vote with three absences. Then it went to the Senate where is was again approved unanimously, 38-0 with one absence.
Jindal promptly vetoed the bill.
Fast forward six months and the FBI issues a subpoena for all records in the possession of the Division of Administration relative to the $184 million CNSI contract with DHH.
Bruce Greenstein, who was DHH secretary at the time the contract was awarded, had once worked for CNSI and it was learned that he had tweaked the bid requirements in order that CNSI might qualify as a bidder on the contract.
Embarrassed, Jindal cancelled the CNSI contract and Greenstein resigned.
In an unrelated incident, Greenstein eliminated the position of internal auditor at DHH and some months later, a DHH employee was arrested for embezzling funds from the agency. With no internal auditor, how was it that the employee was discovered?
A private investigator.
That’s right, a private investigator. That’s indictment enough of this administration, but to allow the continued intimidation of state employees who know of illegal or unethical activity is to encourage the continued abuse of power by supervisory personnel even as the state treasury is looted.
But Jindal vetoed SB 629 as being unnecessary, perhaps even burdensome.
So now, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, at the urging of Hebert, deferred without objection HB 387.
Sen. Bob Kostelka (R-Monroe), who sits on the committee, said Hebert had contacted every member of the committee to convey the message that the administration was opposed to the bill.
So why is Hebert carrying the water for Jindal? He has enough troubles running his own agency.
Who knows? Perhaps he fancies himself as Jindal’s heir apparent. He has about as much chance of achieving that objective as Jindal has of becoming president.
Kostelka described Schroder as “pissed” at the Senate committee’s deferral of his bill. “I see what’s happening here,” he was quoted by Kostelka as saying as he got up from the witness table to exit the committee room.
So now Jindal has won his version of transparency, accountability, integrity, honesty, and ethics. State employees may now continue to fear leaking information to legislators or the media. Only the bravest will dare come forward now and then only with total confidence that their names will never be divulged—a standing guarantee from LouisianaVoice.
Kostelka said he did not object to the motion by Shreveport Democrat Greg Tarver to defer the bill “because I saw the handwriting on the wall. The governor had gotten to the committee members through Hebert.”
Here are the other Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee members and their email addresses:
• Jody Amedee (R-Gonzales, chairman): amedeej@legis.la.gov
• Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe, vice-chairman): walsworthm@legis.la.gov
• Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville): donahuej@legis.la.gov
• Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans): morrelljp@legis.la.gov
• Ed Murray (D-New Orleans): murraye@legis.la.gov
• Jonathan Perry (R-Kaplan): perryj@legis.la.gov
• Neil Riser (R-Columbia): risern@legis.la.gov
• Greg Tarver (D-Shreveport): tarverg@legis.la.gov
If you are predisposed to do so, shoot them an email and ask 1): what they’re trying to hide; 2): why they knuckle under to a lame duck, dishonest, self-absorbed, politically ambitious excuse of a governor, and 3): if they always check their manhood at the door.
The time is long past for the electorate of this state to stand together and call an end to politicians pimping out the state’s resources and contracts to political cronies and campaign contributors.
The only reason to send errand boys like Troy Hebert to massage legislators is to ensure that state government works only for the perpetuation of political corruption and not for the benefit of the governed.
Kostelka described Schroder as “pissed” at the Senate committee’s deferral of his bill.
That’s good Rep. Schroder. Keep that “pissed” feeling and remember who was behind what happened to your bill.
I don’t understand. With unanimous votes, no veto overrides? Please explain.
Unamious in the house. The senate committee is different.
I believe that tls0 speaks of SB629 that His Majesty vetoed last year. Why WASN’T this veto overridden? Had they lost their cojones (again) after a brief moment of independence?
To “Bob in BR”: I may be cynical but I believe some of these votes are cast with the full knowledge that the bill will be vetoed. It provides the legislators’ coverage with constituents (“See my vote; I’m for xyz.”) without any concern that the bill will actually become law.
The law of unintended consequences of term limits: these legislators term out of elected positions and then get appointed by some buddy to six-figure salaries heading up some agency or other (e.g., Jane Smith, Troy Hebert). Five years in one of these positions, and they got themselves a really nice pension package, much better than rank and file state employees who actually work for 30 years.
For what it’s worth: Veto overrides are exceptionally rare things in Louisiana. Since the new constitution was adopted in 1974, that has only happened twice: Once to Buddy Roemer, who had pretty much lost control of the legislature by that point; and once to Edwin Edwards, who had vetoed a bill at the request of the then-Attorney General that the governor was actually comfortable with. He telegraphed his comfort with the bill to the legislature, who then felt it was safe to override the veto.
Part of the problem is that if the veto occurs after the session adjourns, it only takes a simple majority of either chamber to block the automatic veto session provided for overrides. The governor can always round up 20 votes in the Senate to do that, meaning that it matters not a whit how angry all the rest of the legislature is about particular vetoes.
Just how “pissed” is he? Is he “pissed” enough to contact media for an interview & is he pissed off enough to ask his constituents to march on down to BR as a group and demand that Senate committee do the right thing. He needs to rally the troops. Every member of that legislature should follow suit. Not everyone knows about Louisiana Voice. I tell as many people as i can. I need a quick Civics lesson review about who and when a bill can be introduced, committee rules, VETO RULES, etc. Googling that now.
I hear there is a private investigator in Lafayette that needs work. Hope he is not the PI hired by BJ. LOL. Not that any of this is something to laugh about. I am pissed also.
Is that our new state motto: Come to Beautiful Louisiana……get pissed!
Thank you, Tom, for the service you provide to our state. You do the hard work of serving the legislature up with a huge helping of information, and then they willfully walk away from the table with an empty stomach. What our state needs now is a good community organizer to get citizens to stay in the face of every pathetic legislator that kowtows to the governor. Corruption of public education alone should be enough to land some officials in prison.
[…] via Troy Hebert resurfaces as Jindal bag man in successful effort to defeat Rep. John Schroder’s whist…. […]
“No good deed goes unpunished”, is where Rep. Schroder should start! Remember the good old days when Rep. Schroder rushed to Governor Jindals side to change civil service rules in the legislature! My my, what a win for Jindal at Schroder’s expense! Many employees who were vested, lost their jobs because of Schroder’s mile marker! You see, vested employees no longer had job security. As for Schroeders whistle blowing bill, a state employee would need to be careful who they blew their whistle on. Case in point: I blew the whistle on my supervisor for coming in to work with a hangover wreaking of alcohol! Big mistake!!! My supervisor was a St. Tammanite just as Rep. Schroder is ! This supervisor now resides in Tangipahoa Parish, and yes, she still works at the local university! Long story short, I was terminated after 12 years, compared to this supervisors 5 years. Even the director had to help me get her up off the floor when we discovered her passed out and wreaking of alcohol! Not only did I blow the whistle to the director, but I alerted civil service, the Governor’s office, and the Feds! No one cared! All of her indiscretions were swept under the rug, and to this day, she still holds her job! There is much more to this story that meets the eye! But for now, Rep. Schroder needs to know when Governor Jindal calls on him to pass legislation that will cause good people their livelihoods, he may want to think before he acts!!!!!
Great job Troy Hebert forget about all the Haters keep doing what you do best.
And what job is that? Run a gov’t agency without any idea of what’s going on and intimidating and threatening his staff???
Yepper, What he did was wrong and will never be forgoten…
How in the HECK are we to get this state staight for the future and our children, does everyone in Politics on the Hill plan on leaving this state before facing the Voters back home, or do they really care.We are given the right to vote in America, but only in America where many voices mean nothing, we are Free to vote, but not expected to get answers when we question issues as they come up.
Only in America,Free to vote,but not Free to Speak. I for sure did not read in the Constitution that we have SELECTIVE FREEDOMS.
Free means Free, after all we do remember that part where it says we are Free, so do we teach the students to think, but do not try and speak even when you are right. What a Lesson. What about what is Best for the All of Louisiana?