Louisiana Voice

A bill by State Rep. Les Farnum (R-Sulphur) raises several questions:

• Does the good senator have something to hide that he is afraid might become public?
• Or does he just want to curry favor with Jeff Landry?
• Or is his head where only his proctologist can find it?

I don’t mean to go out of my way to insult Farnum; I’ve never met the man.

But to introduce a bill (HB768) that would remove all personal liability from a public records custodian for refusing to comply with a public records request is just plain…what’s the word I’m groping for? Oh, yeah…stupid.

Even more disappointing – and frustrating – is the overwhelming support this piece of garbage received, passing by a 35-0 vote in the SENATE (with four not voting) and a whopping 92-1 vote in the HOUSE. Rep. Michael Bayham (R-Chalmette) was the lone nay vote. Twelve others did not bother to vote

And of course, Jeff Landry just couldn’t wait to sign the bill into law.

So, what was so awful about the bill, you ask? Well, until Landry signed the bill, the law provided a penalty of $100 per day plus attorney fees for any custodian of the record who refused to comply with a public records request.

Landry’s signature, likely executed in a pool of drool from an elated governor, takes away that penalty.

That’s right: a law with no teeth whatsoever. Now any custodian can simply ignore a public records request with no fear of reprisals. No accountability. No consequences.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already done that. They enacted their own set of ethics but failed to provide for penalties for violations of those ethics. Nice. And these guys are supposed to be the final say for the entire country on all matters legal.

Do we see a patter emerging here?

A law with no teeth. Here’s an idea: let’s do the same with traffic violations. Speed, run red lights, drive impaired; it doesn’t matter. We’re gonna remove all the penalties for those offenses. But hey, let’s go a step further. Let’s abolish the penalties for burglary, assault, armed robbery and other felonies. They’ll still be against the law, but at least no one will be punished for violating them.

And the Repugnantcans want to blame Democrats for being soft on crime.

Landry wanted to scrub the public records law altogether. This is the next best thing. Now, good luck to anyone seeking records about possible underhanded dealings by a public official, body cam footage of state police beating a man to death and later saying he died from a car wreck, information about questionable expenditures of taxpayer dollars. Contracts that reveal back room deals? Fuhgeddaboudit.

I don’t want to go too far out on a limb, but it would not surprise me one iota if the next move would be to seal off access to campaign contributions that at least for now are public records. I mean, who’s business is it about who gives how much to which elected official?

Without access to stacks of public records from Louisiana State Police, Mike Edmonson might well still be LSP commander.

We’re already witnessing a blitzkrieg attack on public education, higher education, conviction appeals, unemployment benefits, civil service, ethics laws, local control over industrial tax exemptions and state boards’ governing structure. And he tried, though unsuccessfully, to re-write the state constitution over a period of a couple of weeks without allowing for public discourse. Yes, he failed, but don’t think for a nano-second he won’t be back next year – if not before.

Remember when Bobby Jindal gutted state ethics laws after the ethics board penalized him for an infraction? Well, looky here, Landry was also given a slap on the wrist for campaign violations by the ethics board and what was his response? Why, he went after the makeup of the ethics board.

Folks, this governor is not about transparency. He’s not about good government. He never has been.

He’s about advancing his own personal agenda.

I’ll say it again, unequivocally: We’re going to long for the days of Bobby Jindal before Landry is finished.