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Archive for the ‘Campaign Contributions’ Category

Jindal on fool’s mission riding Perry’s frayed coattails

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office on December 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—In light of all the claims of political savvy bestowed upon Gov. Bobby Jindal, one has to wonder at his continued devotion to Texas Gov. Rick (“I only open my mouth to change feet”) Perry.

Jindal’s office announced on Tuesday that Jindal was off and running on yet another out-of-state fundraiser. This one, however, was not for his own re-election but for the presidential campaign of Perry whose numbers, to borrow a phrase from Dan Rather (who probably stole it from someone else), have sunk “lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.”

Jindal made the tactical error of throwing his support to Perry far too early and now he is stuck with his decision. Of course it could be just plain old loyalty, a commodity so rare in politics. Perhaps that is why he traveled this week to Houston and Corpus Christi and pledged to go on to Iowa with Perry.

But when Jindal made his commitment to Perry, the Texas governor was riding high in the polls. He had just formally announced his candidacy and was the early odds-on favorite in an unimpressive Republican field that grows more unimpressive with each passing day. The problem for Jindal at that stage was that Perry had yet to participate in one of the endless succession of Republican debates.

Perry has shown himself to be the lightest of lightweights among all the GOP candidates, trailing Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul and barely edging out Michele Bachmann (remember her giving a shout out “Happy Birthday” to Elvis in South Carolina on the Aug. 16 anniversary of his death?)

To illustrate just how bad it really is for Perry, consider this: On Tuesday, a Rasmussen poll indicated that a “generic Republican candidate” holds an eight-point advantage over President Obama. That same poll, however, shows that Obama would beat Perry head-to-head by a 46-34 percent margin.

Jindal, nevertheless, doggedly sticks to his guns. “Bottom line is, I think Rick has got a great record to run on, a great story to tell,” he said, adding, “We’re not going to have the best debater, the most polished speaker.”

Well, he should know about that. Remember his GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union speech in February of 2009? Republicans and Democrats alike panned that performance, calling it “amateurish” and “laughable.” His performance even prompted one viewer, admittedly a Democrat, to say he’d pay a lot of money “to be back watching a (Sarah) Palin speech.”

Bachmann once pointed out that Perry’s former chief of staff was a lobbyist for the drug maker Merck at the time that Perry signed an executive order in 2007 mandating that Texas schoolgirls receive a vaccine against HPV, the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. The vaccine that Perry ordered used was one that only Merck produced.

Bachmann’s charge prompted an indignant response from Perry: “…it was a $5,000 contribution that I received from them. I raise about $30 million and if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

That ill-advised outburst seemed to imply that Perry, who has presided over a well-oiled pay-to-play system in Texas and, like our own Gov. Jindal, has shrouded his office in a cloak of secrecy, has a much higher price tag on his influence.

Like maybe $28,500. That is the actual amount of contributions from Merck’s political action committee to Perry between 2002 and 2010.

Records show that Merck made contributions to Jindal’s congressional campaign of $1,500 on June 29, 2005, and $1,000 on June 27; 2006, and contributions of $3,000 on Nov. 1, 2007, and $1,000 on Oct. 8, 2008, to his gubernatorial campaign.

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Hold on: Jindal gets another chance to lose federal money; this time it’s $390 million more in FEMA money–maybe

Posted in Broadband, Internet, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Contract, Contracts, Education, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Privatization, Transparency on November 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu says Gov. Jindal “fumbled” on two grants that cost the state $140 million but in fairness to Jindal, he now has a chance to dwarf those losses by blowing an additional $390 million in FEMA money to mitigate damage caused by two major hurricanes in 2005.

The word out of Baton Rouge this week is that the state will receive an additional $389.6 million from FEMA for flood prevention of homes, levees and public buildings.

But don’t hold your breath.

The state has received $1.4 billion in hazard mitigation money already after FEMA assessed damages from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The state might yet receive the money, however, despite the loss of two earlier federal grants of $60 million and $80 million. That’s because this money was secured through the efforts of the state’s congressional delegation and was not hampered by the Jindal administration.

The additional hazard mitigation money can be used by property owners to elevate or retrofit homes with additions such as hurricane-proof windows and storm shutters and local governments may use the money to repair levees, improve drainage and strengthen school buildings and other public facilities.

Most of that money is expected to be used in the parishes of Cameron, St. Bernard and Orleans, areas especially hard-hit by Katrina and Rita in 2005.

“As we did after Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike, we are sending these dollars directly to parishes because local leaders know how to best protect our communities from future losses in the event of another natural disaster,” Jindal said.

That would represent something of a departure for the Jindal administration which has thus far fought, at least publicly, to resist federal funding but has never shied away from taking credit when he passes out checks during Sunday morning visits to north Louisiana protestant churches.

Jindal no doubt hopes the $390 million bonus will help him save face after his rumblin’, bumblin’, stumblin’ performances with two other grants.

The first, $60 million in early childhood education funding was lost when the administration simply decided not to apply for the money.

The second was an $80 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to fund a project to install 900 miles of cable to bring broadband internet connection to 21 rural parishes.

The $60 million grant would have been the third round of Race to the Top dollars and was to have been used to improve the quality of early learning and closing the achievement gap for children with high needs resulting largely from poverty.

Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater called U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s criticism of Jindal “disappointing.” Rainwater once worked with Landrieu but now is the mouthpiece of the administration. He said the state punted on the $60 million because the state studied the grant and decided that it would not have expanded early childhood education but rather would have targeted programs the state has already been addressing. He neglected to say what those programs were.

Rainwater also said the money would have had strings attached that would have meant more federal control over the education system.

The state, of course, is far above that. No control over local school systems by the state with this administration. Just pull funding from the public school systems and divert it into charter schools. No control there. All the local systems have to do to compensate for the lost funds is layoff teachers. What control?

Landrieu disagreed. “All the federal government is doing is offering them money with virtually no strings attached except for basic accountability,” she said.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between the two positions, but so what? If you borrow money from the bank, there are usually strings attached, such as for what purpose the money will be used and how it will be repaid. That’s life.

Basic accountability is something the state has found lacking in some areas, most notably with payment for the $239 million Jindal sand berms built at the governor’s insistence as an effort to stem the flow of oil from the April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent blowout. That failed effort was monumental in scope. Not only did the berms wash away but so too did the heavy dredging equipment brought in to construct the berms—all swallowed up in the Gulf waters.

That was bad enough but then along came the Legislative Auditor’s office that issued a report earlier this month that the state overpaid Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure, Inc. by nearly $495,000 to build the oh-so-temporary and oh-so-useless berms.

It’s not the first time Shaw’s name has surfaced in questionable costs.

Immediately after Katrina devastated New Orleans, Shaw was awarded a no-bid contract to cover storm-damaged roofs across New Orleans with those familiar blue tarps. Each tarp covered 100 square feet, meaning the average home would require 15 tarps to fully protect its roof. There were literally tens of thousands of those homes in and around New Orleans.

Shaw’s contract called for it to receive $175 per square (one tarp, or 100 square feet). That did not include the cost of the tarps because they were provided by FEMA. The $175 was just for labor. (That, by the way, comes to about $2,600 per house—not much below what it would cost to simply re-roof the home.)

Shaw promptly hired a subcontractor to install the tarps at $75 per square. That meant Shaw would net $100 per square for doing absolutely nothing. Multiply that by 15 per house ($1,500 net per house) times the thousands of houses getting the tarps and well, you get the picture.

The subcontractor then found his own subcontractor and paid him $35 per square, leaving the first subcontractor with a neat profit of $40 per square, or roughly $600 per house for doing zilch.

The second subcontractor then found laborers who actually installed the tarps—at $2 per square. Is this what they meant by trickle-down economics?

But back to the grants.

When the Public Service Commission demanded answers it got the typical bureaucratic shuffle from Rainwater and Board of Regents President Jim Purcell.

The blame, they said, lay alternatively with the legislature which took too long to approve spending, a contractor whom they said was late with his work (the contractor denies that) and the Obama administration, which Rainwater said “wants to run the car companies, the banks, our entire health care system, and now they want to take over the broadband business.

“We won’t stand for that in Louisiana,” he sniffed.

That little bit of defiance resurrected echoes of Leander Perez in his efforts to defy the federal government’s insistence on school desegregation more than a half-century ago. At the time, Gov. Earl K. Long reminded Perez in not-so-gentle terms of the realities of the day when he bellowed to the arch-segregationist, “What you gonna do now, Leander? The feds have the A-bomb!”

Probably Jindal’s frittering away the $80 million has more to do with campaign contributors than any philosophical differences over federal influence.

The broadband project would have connected to the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI), a 1,600-mile fiber-optic network that connects Louisiana and Mississippi research universities to National LambdaRail and Internet2, which would connect 100,00 households, 15,000 businesses and 150 schools, libraries and hospitals.

A Jindal campaign contributor whom the governor appointed to the Board of Regents, Ed Antie of Carencro, was forced to resign earlier this year amid revelations during Senate confirmation hearings that he had a $531,000 contract with the Regents through one of his companies to provide fiber-optic cables to LONI, which is overseen by the Regents.

“Straight baloney,” said Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell of Rainwater’s contention that the broadband internet project would result in unfair competition with private providers.

“We’ve been begging the private providers to build broadband infrastructure in the rural areas of the Delta and they won’t do it,” Campbell said. “I don’t give a damn if the companies object. If they won’t do it on their own, then does that mean we should just sacrifice these poor parishes’ and people’s chance to be connected?”

Campbell said he wants the state’s major telecoms, Rainwater and Purcell to attend the next PSC meeting. “I want to know the providers who objected,” he said.

At one point in the hearings, Campbell, whose position is not appointive but elective, found it necessary to remind Rainwater, “I don’t work for you.”

That must have come as quite a shock to both Jindal and Rainwater who, without Timmy Teepell to hold their hand, were probably unable to locate a copy of the State Constitution that would verify Campbell’s unexpected revelation.

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Rule 1 in Politics: Follow the Money. Rule 2: See Rule 1

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Prison, Privatization, Transparency on November 9, 2011| 2 Comments »

Follow the money.

It’s an axiom as old as politics itself and it is clearly evident in the examination of efforts to privatize various segments of state government in Louisiana.

Take state prisons and public education as two cases in point. The Jindal administration is pushing for both against stiff opposition. But outside influence is being brought to bear that would seem to tilt the scales heavily in the favor of the administration.

Take the organization once known as All Children Matter, headed up by one Elizabeth DeVos. The organization changed its name to the American Federation for Children after All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million for campaign money violations in 2006.

All Children Matter made 56 campaign contributions totaling more than $67,000 between November 2003 and January 2010. Those 56 contributions ranged from as little as $500 to as much as $2,000 to a host of Louisiana candidates, including $1,000 in 2007 to Lt. Gov. Jay Darden, then running for secretary of state; five donations totaling $6,500 to State Sen. Ann Duplessis. Duplessis was rejected in June of this year by the Louisiana Senate as Jindal’s nominee to serve on the LSU System Board of Supervisors.

While All Children Matter did not contribute directly to Jindal’s three gubernatorial campaigns, Elizabeth DeVos and husband Richard made six individual contributions to Jindal totaling $16,000 between June of 2003 and August of 2008.

Elizabeth DeVos’s brother Erik Prince heads up Xe Corp., formerly Blackwater, a firm that gained considerable notoriety for privatizing warfare as the largest supplier of mercenary soldiers in the world.

The Walton family, long a proponent of charter schools, also contributed $13,500 to Jindal from June of 2003 to September of 2007.

K12 contributed $5,000 to the Jindal campaign in September of 2007 and in October of 2011, gave $1,000 to the campaign of State Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans) and $500 to Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) candidate Holly Boffy (R-Lafayette).

K12, Inc., based in Reston, VA., is funded by the Milken Family Foundation and is run by Lowell Milken. It is the brainchild of Lowell Milken’s brother Michael Milken, the Wall Street “junk bond king,” who was jailed for violation of U.S. securities laws.

Students First of Baton Rouge contributed $5,000 to the campaign of BESE member Chas Roemer in September of this year. The founder and national CEO of Students First is Michelle Rhee, better known as the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system where suspiciously high test-score gains in 41 Washington schools while she was chancellor led to revelations of a high rate of erasures by teachers. In one class, 97 percent of erasures were from wrong answers to correct ones.

With prison privatization, things are pretty much the same.

A private operation of prisons is a high-dollar enterprise worth millions to the private owners. States and the federal government each pay private operators to house prisoners and private prison owners are clamoring for the business, thanks to legislation successfully pushed by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In addition to charging the state and federal governments on a per diem basis, private-run prisons also make money in other ways.

In Florida, minimum security inmates produce tons of beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE) at 20 cents per hour for re-sale to schools to feed students–at considerable mark-ups.

ALEC has worked diligently to pass state laws to benefit two of its major corporate sponsors, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group. One of those laws was SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law that helps keep CCA prisons filled to capacity with immigrant detainees.

The Prison Industries Enhancement (PIE) Certification Program has allowed the State of Florida to pay minimum wage to prisoners for PIE-certified work. But 40 percent is taken out of their accounts for room and board—the rent of cell space to offset the costs of incarceration, a requirement not too many would object to. They are, after, all prisoners serving time for crimes.

But the regulations specifically forbade the shipment of prisoner-made goods such as furniture, solar panels, and even guided missile parts across state lines.

The Prison Industries Act changed that by allowing a third-party company to set up a local address in a state that makes prison goods, buy the products from a prison factor, sell them locally or surreptitiously ship them across state lines.

Texas State Rep. and ALEC member Ray Allen drafted the Prison Industries Act in that state. Soon after, the PIE program was transferred from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to the National Correctional Industries Association (NICA).

NICA is a private trade organization that just happened to be represented by Ray Allen’s lobbying firm, Service House, Inc. In 2003, Allen was appointed Chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee and began pushing the Prison Industries Act and other legislation beneficial to CCA and GEO Group, such as the Private Correctional Facilities Act, nationally. Soon after that, Allen became Chairman of ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Force (now ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force). In 2006, Allen resigned from the state legislature while still under investigation for unethical lobbying practices.

He was hired soon after that as a lobbyist for the GEO Group.

Jindal tried this year and will likely repeat efforts to privatize at least three state prisons to placate campaign contributors.

Two of those prisons, in Allen and Winn parishes are already leased to private operations—GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida (Allen) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) of Nashville, Tennessee (Winn).

Another local company, LaSalle Southwest Corrections of Ruston, would like a piece of that action. LaSalle already operates 12 facilities in Louisiana and Texas.

LaSalle contributed $12,000 to Jindal in four separate transactions between December of 2005 and November of 2008 and also contributed $1,500 to former Gov. Kathleen Blanco in November of 2004. LaSalle also contributed $500 to state senate candidate Rep. Richard Gallot of Ruston in July of this year.

In all, LaSalle gave $20,500 in 11 separate campaign contributions between December of 2006 and July of 2011. Others included:

• State Rep. Charles Chaney (R-Rayville), $1,000 in July of 2011;

• Jason Bullock (R-Ruston), who is in a runoff in House District 12;

• Ken Bailey, a Democrat who won the race for Claiborne Parish sheriff;

• James Paxton, district attorney for the Sixth Judicial District, $1,000 in June of 2008;

• Leah Sumrall, candidate for Ouachita Parish Clerk of Court who finished fourth, $2,500 in July of 2011.

Those contributions were dwarfed, however, by the political contributions of GEO and CCA.

CCA gave $5,000 in two separate contributions to Jindal in November of 2008 and in November of 2009. CCA also contributed $1,000 to Blanco in November of 2003.

Other CCA contributions included:

• Sen. Robert Kostelka (R-Monroe) in December 2009;

• State Sen. Lydia Jackson (D-Shreveport), $500 in November of 2010;

• State Sen. Robert Adley (R-Benton), $500 in January of 2010;

• State Rep. James Armes, III (D-Leesville), two contributions of $500 each in September 2010;

• State Rep. Billy R. Chandler (R-Dry Prong), three contributions of $500 each in January and September of 2010 and October of 2011;

• State Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville), $500 in January 2010;

• State Rep. Eddie Lambert (R-Gonzales), two contributions of $500 each in December 2009 and September 2010;

• Former State Sen. Kenneth M. (Mike) Smith (D-Winnfield), three separate contributions of $500 each in October of 2003, November of 2004, and April of 2005);

• House Speaker James W. “Jim” Tucker (R-Terrytown), $500 in December 2010.

GEO gave $10,000 in two separate $5,000 contributions to Jindal in June of 2007 and August of 2008 and $5,000 in September of 2004 and $1,000 in February 2007 to Blanco.

GEO, looking further into the political structure, also gave $1,000 to State Treasurer John Kennedy in November of 2005. Kennedy, as state treasurer, oversees the State Bond Commission which approves bonds to finance state construction projects, including prisons. The bond commission also could issue bonds to finance private construction as well.

GEO also made the following contributions:

• House Appropriations Committee Chairman James Fannin (D-Jonesboro), two separate contributions of $500 each in March of 2010 and March of 2011;

• Former Sen. James David Cain (R-Dry Creek), three separate contributions of $2,500 each in June of 2006 and November of 2007 (Cain was a candidate to return to his Senate seat this year and is in a runoff);

• Rep. Patrick Cortez (R-Lafayette), $500 in March of 2008;

• Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell), two contributions of $1,000 each, both in October of 2007;

• Former Sen. Ann D. Duplessis (D-New Orleans), $1,000 in October 2007;

• State Rep. and ALEC President Noble Ellington (R-Winnsboro), $500 in March of 2010;

• Sen Francis Heitmeier (D-New Orleans), $1,000 in August 2006;

• Rep. Dorothy Sue Hill (D-Dry Creek), four separate contributions of $1,000, all on October 21, 2011, and two separate contributions of $500, both on Feb. 16, 2009;

• Sen. Eric LaFleur (D-Ville Platte), $1,000 in April of 2009;

• Sen. Gerald Long (R-Winnfield), two contributions of $1,000 each, both in October 2007;

• Sen. Daniel Martiny (R-Metairie), five contributions of $1,000 each, two on Oct. 19, 2007 and one each in April 2008, April 2009, and February of 2011, and one $500 contribution in March 2010;

• Sen. Mike Michot (R-Lafayette), $1,000 in November of 2007;

• Sen. Ed Murray (D-New Orleans), nine separate contributions, including two of $1,000 each on Oct. 20, 2007, and seven of $1,000 each on Nov. 5, 2007. (The cumulative $9,000 contributed to Murray over a 16-day period would appear to violate the $5,000 contribution limitation.);

• Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette), $500 in March 2008;

• Rep. Ernest Wooton (I-Belle Chase), two contributions of $500 in March 2008 and March 2010;

• Congressman Steve Scalise (R-Jefferson Parish), two $1,000 contributions, both on Oct. 18, 2007;

• V.J. St. Pierre, parish present of St. Charles Parish, $500 in March 2010.

GEO hedged its bets by two contributions of $5,000 each to the Republican Party of Louisiana in March and May of 2009, another $1,000 in September 2009 and $2,500 in December 2010 ($13,500 total), and then had one contribution of $2,500 in May 2006 to the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee of Louisiana and three more of $3,000 each in May 2009, June 2010, and May 2011. In addition, Geo contributed $3,000 in June 2011 to the House Democratic Campaign Committee of Louisiana, bringing the total contributed to the Democratic Party to $14,500.

Interestingly, 13 of the legislators receiving contributions from LaSalle, GEO and CCA are members of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget–the body which must approve any contracts between the Department of Corrections and these companies.

Those committee members include Chairman Fannin, Vice Chairman Michot, Chaney, Lydia Jackson, Armes, Donahue, Lambert, Tucker, Cortez, Ellington, LaFleur, Long and Murray.

Follow the money.

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Got change? Jindal wants your spare $100K for BESE race

Posted in BESE, Campaign Contributions, Education, Governor's Office, Transparency, Uncategorized on November 2, 2011| 1 Comment »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Gov. Bobby Jindal is at it again and this time it’s for really big bucks—as in solicitations of $100,000 a pop.

Let that sink in: he is asking for individual contributions of up to $100,000.

And just what does he want to do with that money? He wants at least $200,000 to finance the re-election of Chas Roemer to the BESE seat from Baton Rouge.

Let that sink in, folks. Gov. Bobby Jindal wants to purchase the District 6 BESE seat for $200,000.

We recently wrote about the big fundraiser in his behalf that was held at the L’Auberge du Lac Resort in Lake Charles. That little event, hosted by the Louisiana Association of Self-Insured Employers (LASIE) was asking contributors to become Gold or Silver sponsors by giving $5,000 or $2,500, respectively.

That fundraiser was for a governor who won re-election without breaking a sweat or making a significant dent in his $9 million campaign fund balance. Yet he wanted more. For what purpose we really don’t know. He won re-election and he’s term-limited now, so why does he need the money?

We reminded you then and we remind you again that this is the governor who loved to boast that 90 percent of his donors gave $100 or less.

Ah, but that 10 percent was what he didn’t talk about. Those were the fat cats who not only gave the $5,000 maximum allowable under law, but got their wives, their children, and any corporations they controlled to give up to $5,000 each. And there were plenty of those.

Take the owners of Chouest Offshore and C-Logistics, both in Lafourche Parish and both run by the Chouest family. The two corporations and 12 separate family members made 17 campaign contributions totaling $90,000 between December of 2006 and December of 2008.

To a lesser extent, Hunt Guillot & Associates (HGA), Trott Hunt, and Alex Hunt of Ruston teamed up to give $11,750 to Jindal between February of 2007 and September of 2010.

The Chouest companies benefitted from Jindal’s decision to invest $10 million into the Port of Terrebonne to accommodate LaShip, another Chouest subsidiary.

Hunt-Guillot, of course, has those four state contracts worth nearly $17 million.

Oh, did we mention that Jay Guillot, one of the principals of Hunt-Guillot, won the BESE seat in District 5 on Oct. 22?

But all that, it seems, was just penny-ante stuff. Now Jindal has rolled out the big guns and he’s got Donald Songy in his crosshairs because Songy had the temerity to force Republican Chas Roemer into a runoff for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) District 6 seat.

Jindal campaign finance director Allee Bautsch has sent out a blanket email to “Friends of Bobby Jindal” in which she is seeking to wring still more money out of Republican supporters in an all-out effort to defeat Songy.

Here is the text of that email:

Dear _____________________,

Thanks so much for all of your help throughout the years. With your help, we were able to secure the Governor not only a second term, but a historic victory. The Governor not only won all 64 parishes, but was elected with the highest percentage of the vote ever won by a candidate since Louisiana instituted the open primary system. The Governor was humbled by the overwhelming support on election day, and is hugely appreciative of your continued friendship and support.

As you know, the Governor was heavily involved in races for the State House, State Senate, and the BESE Board. In total, 87 candidates endorsed by the Governor have been elected, but we’ve also got nine more advancing to run-off elections in November – and that’s why I’m contacting to you today.

In addition to making sure that LA continues to outpace the national and Southern averages when it comes to economic development wins and job creation, the Governor is prepared to lead the charge on education reform. We need conservative reformers in the Legislature and especially on the BESE board so we can ensure that parents have more options, our schools are accountable, and every Louisiana child has the opportunity for an excellent education.

Already we have had tremendous success this election cycle in Legislative races and we are on our way to a reform majority on the BESE board with 3 big wins last Saturday.

But we have one more BESE race left to be decided.

Chas Roemer ran first in the primary, but fell just short of the 50%, necessary to avoid a runoff. This is a must win race. We will need to raise $200k quickly to wage a strong campaign for Chas and provide him the support he needs to win election in 4 weeks. Winning this last BESE race will give us a pro-reform majority on the BESE board, giving the Governor and strong partner in reforming our education system so every child can attend a good school and receive a great education.

You have already been very generous with your support of the Governor and the Victory effort, but the battle is not over and we can not rest until the last vote is cast on election day. The Governor would like for you to consider contributing to the Victory fund to help get these candidates across the finish line with a win on election day.

I have attached the information here on contributing to the Victory fund, please consider helping us get a team elected to aide the Governor over the course of the next four years.

Most Sincerely,
Allee Bautsch

Friends of Bobby Jindal
bautsch@gmail.com
(o) 225-389-1180
(f) 225-389-1182

PO Box 4168
Baton Rouge, LA 70821

Then came the reply card to the 2011 Republican Victory Fund—the real nuts and bolts of the email—complete with disclaimer:

Reply Card to the 2011 Republican Victory Fund

____ I will become a Governor’s Council Member. Enclosed is my contribution of $100,000.
____ I will become a Pelican Cabinet Member. Enclosed is my contribution of $50,000.
____ I will become a member of the Committee for Louisiana’s Future. Enclosed is my
contribution of $25,000.
____ I will become a Bobby’s Club Member. Enclosed is my contribution of $10,000.
____ I will become an Elephant Sponsor. Enclosed is my contribution of $5,000.

Names:________________________________________________
Company:_____________________________________________________________________
Address:______________________________________________________________________
City:_________________________________ State: _______ Zip:___________
Phone:______________________ Email:________________________________
Make checks payable to: Republican Victory Fund of Louisiana: PO Box 3557, Baton Rouge, LA 70821
If you wish to pay by credit card please provide the following information:
Type of Credit Card: { } Master Card { } Visa { } American Express { } Discover
{ } Diner’s Club International
Amount: ________________ Card #:_______________________________
Expiration Date: ________________Security Code:________________
Name as it appears on card:_____________________________________
Signature:_________________________________________

Contributions to the Republican Victory Fund of Louisiana are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Contributions may be corporate, union, PAC or personal funds. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Contributions will be deposited into the RPL’s state account. All contributions are solely for the use of the Republican Party of Louisiana. Contributions from foreign nationals are prohibited.
Paid for by the Republican Party of Louisiana.

If you like brass bands, at least Jindal has the brass.

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Losers and statistics: picking apart the election results

Posted in BESE, Campaign Contributions, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on October 28, 2011| 4 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—While the media was busy gushing over the “overwhelming,” “record-setting” landslide re-election victory by Gov. Bobby Jindal Saturday night and on into Sunday, they overlooked a couple of pretty important points.

Someone once said statistics are for losers. Okay, so let’s look at the statistics while we lick our wounds.

Sure, Jindal pulled down a whopping 65.8 percent of the vote. But he had a $9 million campaign budget. If you lived in Louisiana and you have a phone, you received no less than a dozen pre-recorded messages from him. Those cost money, but he had plenty.

His opponent? Well, Haynesville school teacher Tara Hollis had a campaign budget in the neighborhood of $50,000. Most of that was in the form of in-kind contributions. In actual monetary expenditures, the total was more like $18,000, so give Jindal a 500-1 advantage in available bucks. Still, she managed to account for 17.8 percent of the vote.

The official numbers show that Jindal, with a four-year track record and that $10 million war chest, tallied 673,155 votes to Hollis’s 182,808. In all, 1,022,770 people cast votes.

But let’s look back at the last two gubernatorial elections.

Four years ago, when nearly 1.3 million people voted, Jindal got 699,275 votes. But in 2003, when 1.4 million voted, he got only 676,484. That means that Jindal has basically been a standstill candidate at best, incapable of drawing more than 700,000 votes from some three million registered voters.

That’s hardly a mandate by any measure. A mandate would have been reflected in a much larger turnout than the dismal 33 percent of registered voters who cast ballots last Saturday.

A mandate would seem to dictate that he would have received more votes in this election than he did in 2003—when he lost. But he didn’t.

If he were as great as the media makes him out to be it seems he would have gained substantial strength over the past eight years. Instead, he is held to 65.8 percent of the vote against an opponent with a mere fraction of his financial resources.

In 2003, in a head-to-head contest with Kathleen Blanco, those 1.4 million voters gave Blanco 52 percent to Jindal’s 48 percent. And Blanco was no Edwin Edwards.

Let’s look at 2007 a little more closely.

Four years ago he had two candidates who poured money into their campaigns. John Georges spent $9 million (roughly the same amount as Jindal spent this year) and got 14.4 percent of the vote. Walter Boasso spent $5 million and received 17.4 percent.

Did we mention that Tara Hollis spent $18,000 this year and got 17.8 percent?

That begs the question of what might the numbers have looked like had the Democratic Party run a candidate with greater name recognition—and a larger campaign war chest.

Jindal, knowing he was a lock for re-election, was not content to merely run for governor; he threw his support—and campaign money—behind 86 legislative candidates and five candidates for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

But, it turned out much of that support—and money—was more style than substance, designed to make Jindal appear to be a wizard at handicapping elections. All one has to do is look at the track record of candidates endorsed by him in the past. A hint: he has a worse winning percentage in backing candidates than David Vitter. Ouch.

Of the 86 legislative candidates whom he endorsed, 54, or 63 percent, were unopposed. It’s pretty easy to back a winner that way. Of the remaining 32, He picked 18 winners outright (56 percent) and lost six. The remaining eight are headed for Nov. 19 runoffs.

Even more significantly, none of the incumbents targeted for defeat by Jindal lost. Repeat, none. These include Sen. Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa), Rep. Bernard LeBas (D-Ville Platte), Rep. Robert Johnson (D-Marksville) and about a half-dozen others.

With the exception of districts in which incumbents were pitted against each other because of reapportionment, not a single statewide official or legislator running re-election was defeated. That says more for voter apathy than it does for Jindal’s ability to influence an election.

When the new legislature convenes next spring, Jindal will have 24 Republicans in the 39 Senate seats and, depending on the outcome of the November runoffs, between 54 and 62 in the House.

That means he will have a majority in both houses—but significantly, not the super (two-thirds) majority needed for him to push through certain of the major proposals he has planned for his new term.

Easy to overlook, however, is the one area in which Jindal did score major victories—BESE.

Education is at the top of Jindal’s to-do list and to that end he contributed $5,000 each to five favored BESE candidates (The legislative candidates he backed got only $2,500 each). Three of those won, another lost, and the fifth, District 6 incumbent Chas Roemer, is in a surprise runoff with Democrat Donald Songy.

Jindal was successful in BESE District 5 where Jay Guillot of Ruston unseated incumbent Keith Guice of Monroe, thanks in part to an influx of Jindal cash and a vicious attack campaign by Guillot. Guillot, it should be noted is a principal in the Ruston engineering firm Hunt Guillot & Assoc. (HGA) that has contracts with the state totaling nearly $17 million. The firm, along with partner Trott Hunt, was a major contributor to Jindal’s campaign.

Guillot has said he will seek a ruling from the State Board of Ethics on whether or not he can serve on BESE and contract with the state. He had ample opportunity to seek such an opinion in the months leading up to the election, but did not avail himself of that opportunity.

Roemer has his own ethics issues because of his repeated votes on matters involving charter schools. His sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. She has already been directed by the ethics board not to participate in discussions of charter school matters coming before BESE because of her relationship with Chas Roemer. That, however, has not deterred him from voting on those same matters.

Republican Jim Garvey of Metairie, a Jindal endorsement, won the District 1 BESE seat as did another Jindal endorsement, Holly Boffy, a Republican from Youngsville, who easily won in District 7.

Ironically, Glenny Lee C. Buquet, the only Democrat whom Jindal backed financially for a BESE seat, lost to Republican Lottie Polozola Beebe.

If Roemer wins his runoff with Songy, Jindal will be all but unstoppable in his efforts to establish a statewide system of for-profit charter schools that will in all probability have selective enrollment of only the best and brightest students while at the same time providing a financial windfall for the charter operators.

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