In case you’ve ever taken the time to wonder why our legislature has been unable—or unwilling—to effective address the looming fiscal crisis for the state, here’s a quick lesson in civics that may help you understand the real priorities of our elected officials and the forces that motivate them.
Members of Congress are advised to spend four hours per day FUNDRAISING, or on “call time.” That’s time to be spent on the telephone raising campaign contributions—if they want to be re-elected.
They are also told they should spend one to two hours on “constituent visits,” which often translates to meeting with lobbyists and campaign contributors. That leaves two hours for committee meetings and floor attendance, one hour for something called “strategic outreach,” or breakfasts, meet and greets, press interviews (read: Sen. John Kennedy), and one hour “recharge time.”
It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that we’re paying big salaries for these guys to actually work only about two hours per day for only part of the year.
Another way of putting it is we’re paying big bucks for them to spend twice as much time raising campaign contributions as actually doing the work of the people who, in theory at least, elected them.
That’s in theory only, of course. The truth is special interests such as banks, hedge funds, big oil, big pharma, the military-industrial complex, the NRA, and other major corporate interests—especially since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision—turn the gears of democracy while letting the American middle class delude itself into thinking we actually affect the outcome of elections.
Now, take that image and move it down to the state level and you have a microcosm of Congress.
The numbers are smaller, of course, given the smaller House and Senate districts from which candidates run but the model is the same.
And that is precisely the reason nothing gets done in regard to resolving the financial plight of the state.
Corporate tax breaks, tax exemptions, and tax credits have eroded the state budget until the onus now falls on the individual taxpayers while companies like Walmart enjoy Enterprise Zone tax credits for locating stores in upscale communities across the state.
Petro-chemical plans along the Mississippi River and in the southwestern part of the state enjoy millions of dollars in tax breaks for construction projects that produce few, if any, new permanent jobs.
And who is front and center in protecting the interests of these corporations?
That would be the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), first created with the intent of breaking the stranglehold of organized labor back in the 1970s and now focused on maintaining lucrative tax incentives for its membership.
LABI has four primary political action committees: East PAC, West PAC, North PAC, and South PAC.
LouisianaVoice has pulled the contributions of LABI, its four PACs.
For lagniappe, we’ve also thrown in contributions from pharmaceutical and oil and gas interests. The latter list offers a clear-cut explanation of why efforts to hold oil and gas companies accountable for damage to Louisiana’s coastal marshland have died early deaths.
You will notice in reviewing the reports that LABI, while making individual contributions, pours most of its money into its four PACs, which then make the direct contributions to the candidates.
Enjoy.
Louisiana Voice 
These contributions are legalized bribery. I know that public financing of campaigns would help with halting some of the bribery, but what should we do about this, Tom?
Thank you for exposing all this now it’s time for us citizens to run with the ball and stay on our politicians backs all the time about their consistently venal behavior.
Thanks, Tom- you are like a super sleuth hero for citizens and the things you dig up are mind boggling.
An instructive video about the king and Count de Monet, illustrating regard for the masses:
One of the all time greats. Wish our ledges had to fish for their money like that!
Has Louisiana finally been able to kick Cassidy off the LSU payroll giving him thousands for work not performed? Wonder why he wasn’t prosecuted for payroll fraud? Plenty of cases like this on the state and local level as well. Tom reveals these all the time but it falls on law enforcement to take care of business.
Meanwhile we keep calling costly special sessions to fix our budget but no one can push forth reinstalling the Stelly Bill, or the gorilla in the room that is increase the tax responsibility on industry, especially oil and gas, and abolish the giveaways like job creation bills that award millions to create nominal numbers of jobs. Elimination of a few hundred worthless boards and commissions wouldn’t hurt either. This alone would pretty much cure our problem but no one in the legislature will dare do it. Keep in mind this state used to be flush (can you say Kathleen Blanco) but the Jindalistas just can’t stand a balanced budget. The obvious solution is to replace the entire legislature, with a handful of exceptions, but the 15-20% of actual voters will never agree on that. Well, good luck to us.
Yes. The truth is out there. Our elected officials simply choose to ignore it – and they trust we won’t find it.
Unfortunately, the names and figures are at least two years out of date and several leges on the list are no longer in the legislature. I would love to see current names and figures, although I do not mean to denigrate the value of the information provided and am most grateful for the time and effort taken to make it readily available to the public. Thank you for all you do to keep us informed on so many important issues.
The figures aren’t out of date. I keyed in all contributions from Jan. 1, 2011, through today. I necessarily got contributions for officials who have left office but they were contributions nevertheless. The fact that an official has left office does not make the figures outdated.
To highlight the perceived importance (and monetary value) of privatizing public education, note the largest contributions ($10,000 @) went to BESE candidates in 2011/15. It’s no wonder so few people attempt to step into the political arena.