Remember THIS STORY as Bobby Jindal moved into the governor’s office in 2008?
That was in 2008. Fast forward to May 16, 2019 and we have a thoroughly-researched and informative story by Baton Rouge Advocate reporter ANDREA GALLO in partnership with ProPublica, a leading investigative journalism website that details just how impotent, inept, and dysfunctional the Louisiana State Board of Ethics has become, thanks to Jindal’s “Gold Standard of Ethics,” passed in 2009, immediately after he assumed the office of governor.
In the 10 years since Jindal literally gutted the State Ethics Board of any enforcement powers, the board has become the antithesis of bodies like the State Board of Dentistry and the State Board of Medical Examiners which have the unbridled power to impose draconian penalties against dentists and doctors in order to support their exorbitant budgets.
Both extremes are classic examples of how political considerations trump due process and fairness in state government.
One bankrupts professionals who must accept coercion and extortion or face financial ruin while the other currently has more than $1 million in uncollected campaign violation fines dating back to (ahem) 2008, the year Jindal was elected.
Campaign finance report enforcement is all but non-existent, if the Louisiana Ethics Administration’s list of delinquent fines is any indication.
The administration’s WEBSITE lists 62 pages totaling about 700 uncollected fines dating back 11 years and totaling nearly $1.1 million, a testament to inefficiency and waste.
Moreover, the dental and medical boards, as well as other regulatory boards, have broad power to initiate their own investigations, something the ethics commission lacks. It can only investigate alleged ethics violations if it receives an official complaint.
But wait. Only elected or appointed officials may file a complaint; your average Louisiana citizen “has no standing” to file a complaint.
In other words, those not subject to an ethics complaint unless said complaint is made by a state or local official include:
- A legislator who contracts with the state for hurricane debris removal (a real, not hypothetical case) is not subject to an ethics complaint unless said complaint is made by a state or local official.
- A legislator uses campaign funds to pay his federal income taxes (again, an actual case), there is no ethics violation without an official complaint.
- Another legislator using campaign funds to lease luxury vehicles for himself and members of his family and to purchase season tickets to Saints, Pelicans and LSU games.
- Or a former governor publishing a book and then using funds from his tax-exempt foundation to purchase thousands of copies of the book at a nice profit to himself.
Convenient, no?
Jindal’s good-government charade began as soon as he took office and as a result, ethics board members resigned en masse in protest.
But could Jindal have harbored ulterior motives in pushing for his “reforms”?
On January 25, 2008, right after he took office, he was hit with his own $2,500 FINE for failure to timely disclose more than $100,000 spent on his behalf by the state Republican Party. A month later, he opened his first SPECIAL SESSION of the legislature dedicated solely to ethics reform.
At the same time, the Jindal reform package, when passed, allowed pending ethics fines against political allies, including then-state representative but current Grambling State University President RICK GALLOT, disappear.
The same couldn’t be said for two CALCASIEU PARISH PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS who led unsuccessful recall efforts against Jindal and then-House Speaker Chuck Kleckley. The teachers found themselves facing fines of $1,000 each for failing to file timely campaign finance reports. You can bet that little transgression wasn’t overlooked by Jindal and his “Gold Standard” of ethics.
But it’s impossible to place all the blame on Jindal.
In July 2007, more than a year before Jindal’s election, the ethics board allowed its chief administrator, Gray Sexton, resign and then rehired him in a different capacity—all to AVOID A REQUIREMENT under a new ethics law that he disclose clients in his private law practice, a move that on its face, might appear unethical to many.
But it didn’t end there. Sexton has since retired but now represents defendants before his former employer. Among his clients::
- Lafayette developer Greg Gachassin;
- Tammany Assistant District Attorney Harry Pastuszek, Jr.;
- John the Baptist Parish Engineer C.J. Savoie and his company, C. J. Savoie Engineers;
- Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph;
- State Rep. Nancy Landry;
- John the Baptist Parish President William Hubbard;
- Former state senate candidate Shawn Barney;
- Shreveport businessman Bobby Jelks;
And as far back as 1986, a full 17 years before Jindal’s first campaign for governor, it was common for the ethics board to be used selectively to punish politicians or public servants who had fallen from favor.
That was the year that former LSU athletic director Bob Brodhead and Baton Rouge Advocate publisher Doug Manship were FOUND GUILTY by the ethics board in connection with a flight by Brodhead and his wife to Manship’s private club in LaPaz, Mexico, on Manship’s private plane.
Then-LSU President James Wharton used the ethics charges as leverage to oust Brodhead even though Wharton was aware of the trip and even encouraged the Brodheads to take the trip, according to Brodhead’s account in his book Sacked!
Strangely enough, no ethics violations investigations were ever initiated against Wharton and LSU Alumni Association President Charlie Roberts for accepting dove hunting trips from LSU Board of Supervisors member Sam Friedman, nor were ethics violation charges ever pursued against Friedman who owned a Holiday Inn hotel outside Gainesville, Florida, the hotel at which the LSU football team was quartered when it played in Gainesville.
Nor did the ethics board pursue charges against legislators who routinely accepted dove-hunting trips from lobbyists, choosing instead to “take no action.” In fact, a story in The Advocate said, “The Board’s staff attorney refused to say who the lawmakers were, when or why they took the trip.”
The time has long since past when the legislature reinstated the enforcement powers of the ethics board.
The alternative would be to admit the futility of any pretense at enforcement, or even the existence of, governmental ethics and simply shut down the agency as excess baggage.
We would probably never notice the difference.
As Tom Aswell is often quoted saying, “Follow the money.” One might also add “Power corrupts.”
[…] * This article was originally published here […]
It would appear ethics in Louisiana reflect reverse alchemy – what was presented as gold was really lead.
The oddest thing to me about ethics enforcement in Louisiana, among many oddities, was that R. Gray Sexton, in addition to finding a loophole for himself before exiting, has parlayed 40 years of ethics administration into a very successful law practice defending clients against ethics charges. If you had problems with the Board of Ethics, who would you hire? So the lead (or, perhaps, pewter) standard has the most qualified attorney in the state representing the few people actually charged with ethics violations. A cynic might wonder if his switching jerseys was part of the Jindal game plan to erode ethics enforcement while pretending to make it better – hey, I can think of somebody in a much higher office who routinely uses that ploy for a variety of things.
The problem with the old Ethics Board acting essentially as cop, judge, and jury could have been handled another way. If Jindal was not such a Brainiac, we could assume he might not have seen what would really happen – but I, for one am not buying it anymore than I would buy the argument he didn’t realize the destructive effect of his budget practices.
Given its ineffectiveness, maybe the Board of Ethics would be a good item for the chopping block when the budget gap reappears with expiration of the temporary sales taxes. One can only hope the media, including this blog, will be there to at least publicize unethical behavior so the voters can make a decision about whether they care at the polls.
But all this is typical Louisiana isn’t it? Makes me both sad and angry.
Oh, and in today’s Advocate (May 18, 2019) comes this: “Louisiana’s Ethics Board opened the door Friday for legislators to immediately take jobs at the state Capitol once their terms end, despite ethics provisions that mandate that other public servants wait two years before working for the agencies where they served.” And the rest of the article chronicles the abuses. Must read as a complement to this blog.