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Archive for June, 2014

New report places Louisiana at the top of public corruption list—and only the most politically naïve should be surprised

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Coastal Erosion, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Transparency on June 10, 2014| 8 Comments »

Another survey is out that ranks Louisiana as number one in the nation but it’s not very likely that the results will appear on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s feel-good blog and perhaps not on the web page of his biggest cheerleader, the Baton Rouge Business Report.

Liz Farmer and Kevin Tidmarsh, writing for Governing magazine penned an eye-opening story which we apparently failed to properly attribute. Though we did make a point of including the link to their article, which we felt made it abundantly clear that we were not claiming the work as our own and were citing them—through inclusion of the link to their story—as our source, they nonetheless felt we should have done more to identify them as the authors. By simply including the link to Governing, we apparently did not go far enough in proper attribution and for that we apologize because they did a superb job in identifying the problem of money and politics.

In their story, they cited a report by the Public Administration Review that details states’ corruption risks, accountability practices and related laws puts Louisiana at the top of the list of states for public corruption. http://www.governing.com/blogs/by-the-numbers/state-public-corruption-convictions-data.html

The report, released on Monday (June 9), also shows that states with higher levels of corruption are able to shape budget allocations and that they have a propensity to spend more money on capital outlay projects than for health and education.

Construction projects provide greater opportunity for the misappropriation of public funds for personal gain than expenditures on health, education and welfare, the study says.

The report provides an in-depth review of how some states showed progress while others remain behind the curve in mitigating corruption. Louisiana, with 384 public corruption convictions between 2001 and 2010, is far ahead of the pack both in terms of convictions per 100,000 population (8.5), and convictions per 10,000 public employees (10.5).

By contrast, Oregon (1.2) and Kansas (1.3) had the lowest rates of convictions per 10,000 public employees.

And though Pennsylvania and New Jersey had more convictions (542 and 429, respectively), their rate of corruption convictions per 10,000 public employees was less than Louisiana (7.1 for Pennsylvania and 6.7 for New Jersey). Neither Pennsylvania nor New Jersey appeared among the worst 10 states for the number of convictions per 100,000 population, the report shows.

Louisiana’s 384 total convictions during the 10-year period ranked behind Texas (697), California (679), Florida (674), New York (589), Pennsylvania (542), Ohio (495) and New Jersey (429), but with a considerably smaller population base than those states, Louisiana’s conviction rate was much higher.

“If levels of convictions are high, that’s a sample of the climate of the state, said Indiana University’s John Mikesell, who co-authored the report with Cheol Liu of the University of Hong Kong. “The convictions are just the ones who got caught. If there’re a lot of convictions, there’re probably a bunch that haven’t been caught.”

Among the higher profile convictions in Louisiana during the first decade of this century were former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, former Sen. William Jefferson, former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, and Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price.

In what should have been of particular embarrassment to the state, in December of 2010, the U.S. Senate closed out the decade by convicting Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of Federal District Court in Louisiana on four articles of impeachment and removed him from the bench, the first time the Senate has ousted a federal judge in more than two decades.

 Judge Porteous, the eighth federal judge to be removed from office in this manner, was impeached by the House in March on four articles stemming from charges that he received cash and favors from lawyers who had dealings in his court, used a false name to elude creditors and intentionally misled the Senate during his confirmation proceedings.

Additionally, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan announced his resignation in November of 2007 after what one observer called “almost five insufferable years in office.”  His resignation ended a tenure marked by a perceived failure to prosecute violent criminals, a jury verdict ruling that he racially discriminated against white employees, a seizure of the office’s assets and disruption of his staff’s salaries—all capped off when a robbery suspect fled to Jordan’s Algiers house only to then become a suspect in the shooting of a New Orleans police officer. http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/10/sources_talks_underway_for_jor.html

U.S. Sen. David Vitter dropped out of the 2003 gubernatorial race after reports surfaced of a relationship with a prostitute. He was elected to the Senate two years later but in 2007, his number appeared on telephone records belonging to Deborah Jeane Palfrey who was convicted in 2008 for running a high-end prostitution ring. He is an announced candidate for governor in the 2015 race.

And then there is Mr. Clean himself, Gov. Bobby Jindal, who attracted huge monetary contributions for a foundation run by his wife, Supriya Jindal, many of those from oil and gas companies.

Those investments—and make no mistake, political campaign  contributions are just that: investments—paid off in spades last week when Jindal signed SB 469, pushed by another recipient of mega-contributions from oil and gas interests, Sen. Robert Adley (R-Benton). SB 469 killed a lawsuit by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) that sought to force 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies to restore the damage they inflicted on Louisiana’s wetlands through decades of abuse to the Louisiana coastal lands.

Farmer and Tidmarsh interviewed several sources for their story that says what we all know but which too often goes unreported.

“Legal corruption” they wrote, is even greater, according to Chuck Thies, a Washington, D.C., political consultant who said the “wink, wink, nod, nod” culture of campaign finance often runs right up to the line of bribery. http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-corruption-politics-spending-study.html

Thies said an example of that would be a contractor who is lobbying a politician for approval of his project. The politician, who is running for reelection, approaches the contractor to ask for a campaign contribution.

“It’s that simple,” Thies said. “It happens all the time. The savvy person knows not to say, ‘If I do my ($5,000), will you authorize my (contract)?’ But (both) know exactly that’s what just transpired.”

When one follows the money into the campaign coffers of Louisiana’s most powerful politicians, it becomes a simple matter to understand in unmistakable terms just how much money runs—indeed, corrupts—the political process. The $10 and $25 contributor has little chance in being heard over the roar of the $5 million that oil and gas companies poured into the campaigns of the state’s 144 legislators and another $1 million that was funneled to Jindal.

Easily available campaign contributions allow legislators to enjoy the perks of eating at the finest restaurants, buy gasoline for personal vehicles, hiring family members as campaign “workers,” and purchasing luxury boxes at LSU, Saints, and Pelicans games, ostensibly for “entertaining” constituents.

So when those contributors come calling, as they most surely will, what legislator—or governor—is going to stand up to the special interests?

When lobbyists outnumber legislators by a 5-1 ratio, it becomes difficult for John Q. Citizen to squeeze his way into the conversation.

It all comes down to who our elected officials really represent, and the answer is obvious—and not pretty.

Louisiana fits the profile perfectly in that it killed Medicaid expansion that would have provided expanded health care access to the state’s indigent citizens while the legislature passed a $5.6 billion construction budget that includes sports complexes, golf courses, local road projects, fish hatcheries, and non-government agencies—all at a time when the state is in dire financial straits.

The classic shakedown can also encourage the culture of corruption while discouraging those who attempt to play by the rules.

A north Louisiana contractor has a lawsuit pending against the State of Louisiana and the Department of Transportation and Development for just such an alleged shakedown attempt by state employees that he said ultimately put him out of business because he refused to go along with the efforts to extract payoffs from him.

And there’s no incentive in spending time and money on a bid when the winning bidder has already bought political sufficient influence to “win” the contract or when the bid specifications have been written in such a way as to qualify a single bidder.

Several years ago in north Louisiana, a parish police jury wanted to purchase a used bulldozer. But not just any used bulldozer; police jury members had already spotted the one they wanted. The answer? The police jury advertised for bids in its legal journal, the local newspaper. Included in the bid specifications along with the make, year and horsepower was….the serial number.

It’s all part of the process that we call Louisiana politics.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Coastal Erosion, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Notable Quotables on June 9, 2014| 4 Comments »

“The signing of SB 469 is a huge victory for the oil and gas industry as well as the economy for the state of Louisiana…” 

—Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, commenting on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signing of SB 469 which effective kills the lawsuit by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies.

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Did Jindal tell us his brother’s law firm represents BP before signing SB 469? We didn’t get the memo from press office

Posted in Business, Campaign Contributions, Coastal Erosion, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Louisiana Purchase, Politicians, Transparency on June 9, 2014| 22 Comments »

1974 Louisiana Constitution-Declaration of Rights

§22. Access to Courts

Section 22. “All courts shall be open, and every person shall have an adequate remedy by due process of law and justice, administered without denial, partiality, or unreasonable delay, for injury to him in his person, property, reputation, or other rights.”

(Special thanks to Tony Guarisco for researching this provision of the State Constitution.)

 

 

This is about yet two more examples of how Gov. Bobby Jindal conveniently manages to look the other way instead of being up front when confronted with issues that most might believe could present a conflict of interest

When Jindal signed SB 469 into law on Friday he not only killed the pending lawsuit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) but he also placed in extreme jeopardy the claims by dozens of South Louisiana municipalities and parish governments from the disastrous 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill that killed 11 men and discharged 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, spoiling beaches and killing fish and wildlife.

By now, most people who have followed the bill authored by Sen. Bret Allain (R-Franklin) but inspired by Sen. Robert Adley (R-Benton) know that big oil poured money and thousands of lobbying man hours into efforts to pass the bill with its accompanying amendment that makes the prohibition against such lawsuits retroactive to ensure that the SLPFA-E effort was thwarted.

Most followers of the legislature and of the lawsuit also know that up to 70 legal scholars, along with Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, strongly advised Jindal to veto the law because of the threat to the pending BP litigation.

Altogether, the 144 current legislators received more than $5 million and Jindal himself received more than $1 million from oil and gas interests. Allain received $30,000 from the oil lobby and Adley an eye-popping $600,000.

So, when BP lobbyists began swarming around the Capitol like blow flies buzzing around a bloated carcass, the assumption was that BP somehow had a stake in the passage of SB 469 and that infamous amendment making the bill retroactive.

John Barry, a former SLFPA-E who was given the Jindal Teague Treatment but who stuck around to pursue the lawsuit, said, “During the last few days of the session, we were very well aware that the BP lobbyists were extraordinarily active. They were all over the place. We all assumed there was definitely something it in for them.”

Something in it for them indeed.

Russel Honore said it another way, observing wryly that the Exxon flag still flies over the State Capitol.

Blogger Lamar White, Jr. observed that former Gov. Edwin Edwards spent eight years in a federal prison for accepting payments from hopeful casino operators for his assistance in obtaining licenses—all after he left office. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was similarly convicted of using his position to steer business to a family-owned company and taking free vacations meals and cell phones from people attempting to score contracts or incentives from the city.

So what is the difference between what they did and the ton of contributions received by Adley and Jindal? To paraphrase my favorite playwright Billy Wayne Shakespeare, a payoff by any other name smells just as rank.

And while big oil money flowed like liquor at the State Capitol (figuratively of course; it’s illegal to make or accept campaign contributions during the legislative session), what many may not know is that Jindal may have had an ulterior motive when he signed the bill into law against sound legal advice not to do so, thus protecting the interests of big oil over the welfare of Louisiana citizens who have seen frightening erosion of the state’s shoreline and freshwater marshes.

The Washington, D.C., law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is one of the firms that represented BP in negotiating a $4.5 billion settlement that ended criminal charges against the company. Included in that settlement amount was a $1.26 billion criminal fine to be paid over five years.

An associate of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who has defended clients in government audit cases and in several whistleblower cases is one Nikesh Jindal.

He also is assigned to the division handling the BP case.

Nikesh Jindal is the younger brother of Gov. Piyush, aka Bobby Jindal.

Suddenly, John Barry’s words take on a little more significance: “We all assumed there was definitely something it in for them.”

Something in it for them indeed.

And that’s not the only instance in which Jindal neglected to be completely candid about connections between him and his brother.

In yet another of his increasingly frequent op-ed columns, this one for the Washington Examiner, prolific writer and part time governor Jindal staked out his position of support of for-profit colleges in their battle against the Obama administration.

A 2012 report by the Senate Committee on Health, Labor and Pensions said that between 2008 and 2009, more than a million students attended schools owned by for-profit companies and by 2010, 54 percent of those had left school without a degree or certificate.

The committee also found that associate degree and certificate programs cost an average of four times the cost of degree program at comparable community colleges. Moreover, bachelor’s degree programs at for-profit colleges cost 20 percent more than flagship public universities.

Jindal disputed proposed U.S. Department of Education “gainful employment” rules that would tie federal aid at for-profit and public and private vocational and certificate programs to their success in preparing students for gainful employment.

“The message from this administration couldn’t be clearer,” Jindal wrote in suggesting that the Obama administration policies are tantamount to “redlining educational opportunities” for low-income and minority youths. “If you want to attend an elite professional school you could end up having tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt forgiven by your school and the federal government. But if you’re a struggling African-American single mother relying on a certificate program at a for-profit school or a community college and you like your current education plan—under this administration, you have about as much chance of keeping it as you do your health plan.”

Critics of the for-profit institutions, however, claim that the schools recruit vulnerable students, some of whom do not even possess a high school diploma, charge exorbitant tuition and encourage students to take out huge student loans they will never be able to repay.

Once again, it was what went unsaid that is significant.

Nikesh Jindal, it turns out, has represented the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), in an earlier legal battle with the Obama administration.

Nikesh Jindal “historically has been part of the team representing APSCU in litigation,” said Noah Black, APSCU spokesman, and was listed as one of the attorneys for the association in its successful challenge to a Department of Education rule that colleges must become certified in each state in which they enroll students.

For a man of repeated claims of transparency, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s lack of candor is awfully opaque.

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Jindal, not content with just attacking Washington, goes international with unsolicited advice to French President

Posted in Economy, Governor's Office, Jobs on June 8, 2014| 23 Comments »

Have you ever wondered why Gov. Bobby Jindal writes all those op-ed pieces for the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Heritage Foundation, and Politico and not for Louisiana publications?

Could it be for the same reason that he doesn’t hold press conferences that aren’t tightly managed and/or staged? Could it be because the ones who read those publications are, for the most part, not from Louisiana so he can get away with his half-truths and outright prevarications (a polite word for lies)? What he says in those publications would simply never fly in Louisiana and he knows it—because we know him.

His ruminations can best be described as the artful practice of creative license because his ideas rarely are grounded in reality. They are more suited to one of those inane, shallow plots from The Brady Bunch, from which, coincidentally, he took his first name Bobby.

But now, in his ubiquitous quest for the presidency, he is taking his unsolicited opinions global and the powers at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are probably quaking in their boots.

Our governor, who, in his six years in office, has yet to present an executive budget that wasn’t held together with Bondo, baling wire and duct tape, has offered President Barrack Obama and French President Francois Holande the benefit of his vast economic knowledge in his latest op-ed for The Heritage Foundation. And he even managed to invoke the memory of D-Day in doing so.

Perhaps we subconsciously plagiarized Jindal who in his op-ed piece criticized Obama and Hollande for their “pretensions to economic knowledge vastly exceed their capacity to make smart policy choices.”

Would that be smart choices like your school voucher plan? Or like your ill-fated state retirement reform plan? Or would it be more like your income tax reform plan of last year that was dead on arrival? Or perhaps it was your visionary plan to build those $250 million disappearing berms to stem the flow of oil from the BP spill? What about your rejection of an $80 million federal grant to provide Broadband internet services to the state’s rural areas? Or even your inspirational plan to trick the feds into matching its own federal funds with more federal funds in your infamous hospital privatization plan through advance lease payments? Or maybe the health insurance premium reduction that resulted in that historic drawdown of the Office of Group Benefits reserve fund from half-a-billion dollars to something like $60 million or so? And there’s that $5 million contract with Alvarez & Marsal to cut state spending by, among other things, cutting Medicaid fraud and having Medicaid Mamas birth their babies at home. But then it could be your going against the advice of a dozen or so legal scholars and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to sign SB 469 that kills the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) lawsuit against those 97 oil companies that wrecked our coastline and marshes but which contains language that might also kill ongoing claims by local governments for damages inflicted by that BP spill. It’s not, after all, like his own legal counsel is batting a thousand in these matters.

No matter. We can readily see there is a plethora of examples of stellar economic wisdom flowing from the fourth floor of the State Capitol.

Why, you are so full of wonderful economic ideas that you even supported the rejection of Senate Concurrent Resolution 142 by Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston).

I mean, let’s be reasonable. Gallot wanted to pass a resolution asking that the Department of Revenue to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that all oil and gas severance taxes due the state from oil companies is paid in accordance with state law.

Gallot, in his frenzied call for heavy-handed governmental control, actually wanted the Department of Revenue and the Legislative Auditor to work together to determine the accuracy of self-reported (as in no oversight) data from oil and gas companies to determine the amount of severance taxes owed as well as the accuracy of tax refunds claimed on those severance taxes.

Gallot also wanted to take the oppressive hand of state government even further by having the two state agencies “review and conduct yearly audits of all who may owe mineral royalties to ensure that the state receives complete, accurate, and timely payments.”

Really? We wouldn’t just want to continue to take the word of the oil and gas companies?

The State Senate, apparently caught unaware of Gallot’s Gestapo-like tactics, approved the resolution by a 35-0 vote with four absences (Conrad Appel, A.G. Crowe, Jack Donahue and Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb) but the House, much more alert to threats to members’ generous campaign contributors, defeated the measure by a 48-44 vote with 12 absences—22 votes short of the required two-thirds needed.

Here is the House vote on SCR 142:

YEAS

Anders

Arnold

Badon

Barrow

Billiot

Broadwater

Burns, H.

Burrell

Chaney

Connick

Cox

Dixon

Edwards

Fannin

Franklin

Gaines

Gisclair

Guillory

Harrison

Hazel

Hill

Honore

Hunter

Jackson

James

Jefferson

Johnson

Jones

Landry, T.

LeBas

Leger

Montoucet

Moreno

Morris, Jay

Norton

Ortego

Pierre

Ponti

Price

Reynolds

Richard

Ritchie

Shadoin

Smith

Thierry

Williams, A.

Williams, P.

Woodruff

TOTAL: 48

 

NAYS

Adams

Barras

Berthelot

Bishop, S.

Burford

Burns, T.

Carmody

Carter

Champagne

Danahay

Dove

Foil

Garofalo

Guinn

Harris

Havard

Henry

Hodges

Hoffmann

Hollis

Howard

Huval

Ivey

Lambert

Landry, N.

Leopold

Lopinto

Lorusso

Mack

Miller

Pope

Pugh

Pylant

Robideaux

Schexnayder

Seabaugh

Simon

St. Germain

Stokes

Talbot

Thibaut

Thompson

Whitney

Willmott

Total – 44

 

ABSENT

Mr. Speaker

Abramson

Armes

Bishop, W.

Brown

Cromer

Geymann

Greene

Hensgens

Morris, Jim

Pearson

Schroder

TOTAL–12

 

After all, who needs another layer of government bureaucracy to ensure that the state receives the money due from the oil and gas companies? They already have folks on staff to make certain that the ordinary citizen pays his taxes so why do we need to duplicate that effort with the oil and gas companies? After all, we killed that pesky lawsuit against the oil companies.

And now Jindal, the financial wizard of Louisiana, writes an essay critical of…France’s revenue shortfall.

While saying America’s labor force participation rate is at a 36-year low (could be because American corporations ship jobs overseas for cheap labor, thus robbing Americans of decent jobs?), Jindal claims that Obama’s proposed minimum wage increase could cause as many as a million Americans to lose their jobs. Apparently, he would prefer that we revert to the dollar-an-hour minimum wage of the ‘60s and McDonald’s would love nothing better than to outsource its hamburger flipping jobs to Bangladesh if it could find a way to do so.

Jindal also was critical of France’s 11 percent unemployment rate, contrasting it with Louisiana’s 4.3 percent jobless rate.

But as Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate reporter Mark Ballard, quoting Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, pointed out, France’s unemployment is the result of the country’s practice of giving government aid to students to help them complete their education as opposed to American students who work, but at low-paying jobs to pay their way through school. At the same time, Ballard, again citing Krugman, said that French adults “in their prime working years…are substantially more likely to have jobs than their American counterparts.”

But here’s the kicker: Jindal, with his smoke and mirrors economic policy, believes dealing out tax breaks, exemptions and other incentives to rich corporations like so much Halloween candy leads to employment for the poor. It’s a classic example of misdirection and precisely the reason he prefers to write for publications outside the borders of Louisiana.

“But in Louisiana,” he writes for The Heritage Foundation, “we’ve tried to show that there is a better way—one that leads to quality jobs and robust economic growth.” That growth, it should be obvious to those forced to sling burgers for a living, is why our tax base continues to shrink instead of expanding, his sage advice to the French president notwithstanding.

“While Obama raised federal taxes by more than $1 trillion, we passed the largest income tax cut in state history,” he writes. “As a Democratic Congress rammed through trillions in new spending for Obamacare, we cut the state budget by 26 percent. And even as the EPA proposes new regulations that could decimate critical portions of our energy sector, we’ve worked to create a more predictable legal environment for energy companies in the state,” he said.

Well, there is certainly no disputing that last statement as witness the Jindal-led successful effort to kill the lawsuit by the SLFPA-E litigation.

But we do have a question: how is it that our governor can spend more time writing his self-serving op-ed pieces for the national publications than he spends at the job for which he is paid? Perhaps someone will ask him that if he ever holds a real press conference in Louisiana.

 

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Lawsuit claims State got cart ahead of the horse in closure of Huey P. Long Hospital in Pineville, layoff of 100+ employees

Posted in Civil Service, DHH, Health Care, House, Senate, Lawsuits, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization on June 7, 2014| 9 Comments »

Did the Jindal administration get the cart ahead of the horse when it announced the layoff of more than 100 state employees at a state hospital in central Louisiana?

As if Gov. Bobby Jindal did not have enough on his plate with his attempts to gain approval form the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for his hospital privatization plan, now the battle over the closure of one hospital has moved into the courts.

Brad Ott of New Orleans and Ed Parker of East Feliciana Parish have named the Louisiana State Senate, the State of Louisiana and the LSU Board of Supervisors in their lawsuit filed in 19th Judicial Court in Baton Rouge.

Their petition claims that the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare violated the state’s open meetings law in approving the closure of Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville.

Moreover, the petition says that while more than 100 classified employees are due to receive layoff notices effective June 30, the State Civil Service Commission is not scheduled to consider the LSU layoff plan until early July.

Wait. What?

Did the LSU Board of Stuporvisors really notify 100-plus employees that they no longer had jobs—before getting formal approval of the layoff plan from Civil Service?

Surely not.

The Rules of Order of the Senate, Rule 13.73, entitled “Notice of committee meetings during session,” provides in part: “Such notices shall be posted for each meeting as soon as practicable, but not later than 1 p.m. of the day preceding the meeting day.”

Rule 13.75, entitled “Meetings prohibited without notice,” provides in part: “No meeting of a committee, regularly scheduled or otherwise, shall be held unless there is full compliance with the requirements of Louisiana Senate Rule 13.73…”

The lawsuit says the notice for the April 2, 2014, meeting of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare was revised on April 1 at 4:04 p.m. to add the consideration of SCR 48 by Sen. Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches).

SCR 48 was the Senate Concurrent Resolution that called for the closure of Huey P. Long. The resolution passed in the House Health and Welfare Committee by a 10-8 vote after nearly three hours of debate. By contrast, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee took only 10 minutes for unanimous passage.

Both petitioners say they had planned to testify in opposition to the resolution before the committee but that they were not notified that the committee would be taking up SCR 48 on April 2 because of the last minute revision to the notice of the meeting. “Consequently, both of the petitioners were effectively prevented from observing the deliberations…and expressing their concerns,” the petition said.

Wait. What?

Would a Louisiana Senate committee really do an end run around opponents to a controversial resolution in violation of the open meetings law in order to slip the resolution through?

Surely not.

But with the administration desperate to ram its hospital privatization through despite questionable funding methods, anything is possible. Jindal, in fact, has clearly demonstrated that he will go to any length to move his agenda along.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys J. Arthur Smith and Adrienne Rachel are seeking a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief subject to the state’s open meetings law, an injunction prohibiting the state from implementing provision of SCR 48, monetary damages for violations of the state’s open meetings law, and attorney’s fees.

Smith is a relative newcomer in litigation against the state but he has sent out notice that the old ways of doing business may be changing. He has already won one battle with the Department of Education over the department’s reluctance to comply with the state’s public records laws and currently has other suits pending against the Department of Agriculture and the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.

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