State Rep. Kellee Hennessy Dickerson of Livingston Parish, a former TV news personality who surely knows the value of good photo-op PR, poses with a group of students from Live Oak Middle School on the floor of the Louisiana House. Was it a coincidence that she is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit to remind librarians that she wants to toss them in jail? Talk about cold vindictiveness, she even had the audacity to put this photo on her Facebook page:
State Rep. Kellee Hennessee Dickerson wanted to toss librarians in jail who spend library funds for membership in the American Library Association or who attend any ALA continuing education functions on public funds. But after catching much-deserved heat for advocating jail time for any librarian who used library funds for purposes of strengthening and improving libraries, she has amended out the prison sentence provision the bill originally included. Oh, good. That should make everything okey-dokey.
Her bill, HB 777, was referred to the House Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs Committee which has yet to hear testimony on this lunacy-inspired bill.
In crafting her bill, Dickerson is obviously taking her marching orders from one Michael Lunsford of St. Martinville, head of something called Citizens for a New Louisiana. Lunsford, in an interview, even suggested that the jail stipulation would be removed, which raises the obvious question of did Dickerson not have enough originality beneath her blonde hair to come up with something on her own without coaching from a crackpot such as Lunsford or at least perhaps offer something a little less brittle and a bit more constructive instead of attacking librarians as if they were some sort of criminal enterprise?
But here’s the real kicker: The House Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs Committee which will consider the bill has 19 members, 21 counting ex-official members House Speaker Mike Johnson (no, not that one, but a Republican nonetheless, from Pineville) and Phillip DeVillier, a Republican from Eunice.
Of those 21 members, 11 accounted for the expenditure of $52,807.42 of your taxpayer dollars (wait for it…) mostly on attending 18 out-of-state conferences and meetings in just the past three years. And that figure doesn’t even include registration fees for attending those 18 conferences, some of which cost as much as $500.
Rep. Barbara Freiberg, a Baton Rouge Republican, was the sweepstakes winner, racking up $13,256.89 for taxpayer-funded trips to conferences in Charleston, S.C., Indianapolis, Orlando, Denver and Tampa. She was followed loosely by Rep. Candace Newell, a New Orleans Democrat, who spent $11,078.88 on taxpayer-funded trips to Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Denver, Las Vegas and Indianapolis.
And get this, not only did Louisiana taxpayers pick up the tab for her airfare, registration fees for meetings, hotel lodging, meals and ground transportation, but the 11 committee members were also paid per diem ranging between $168 and $175 per day, depending on the rate for the years that they attending.
And even though the state did not pay for their early arrivals (most arrived for the meetings a day before the events actually began), they still received their per diem payments even though there was no state business to conduct.
All that’s over and above their $16,800 salaries, office rental, office telephone, clerical pay and $175 per diem for each day they are in Baton Rouge.
But yeah, let’s come down hard on those librarians who waste precious state dollars on things like ALA memberships.
Here are the committee’s frequent flyers:
Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge: $13,256.89
Candace Newell, D- New Orleans: $11,078.88
Rodney Lyons, D-Marrero: $8,709.80C.
C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge: $4,725.74
Foy Gadberry, R-Monroe: $3,095.74*
*(Amount does not include $608.40 for a guest, most likely his wife, for whom it’s assumed he paid out of personal funds during his one out-of-state trip to Salt Lake City)
Les Farnum, R-Sulphur: $2,283.40
Patricia Moore, D-Monroe: $2,276.77 (all in-state)
Matthew Willard, D-New Orleans: $2,809.30 (all in-state)
Rashid Young, D-Homer: $332 (for 2 days’ in-state)
Steven Jackson, D-Shreveport: $332 (for 2 days’ in-state)
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, ex-officio member: $3,721.90
But yeah, let’s come down hard on those subversive librarians for wasting precious state dollars on things like ALA memberships.
This session just keeps getting worse, and it’s there’s plenty more left. As shown by her questioning and positions on the anti-LGBT+ bills, at least representative Freiberg isn’t one of the crazies in the majority, but this news is discouraging.
Kellee, not Kayee.
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Correction made. Thanks.