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Between beating guilty pleas, sexual harassment lawsuit and ethics complaint, Iberia Sheriff Louis Ackal has his plate full

Posted in Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Lawsuits, Politicians on March 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

The hiring of David “Spike” Boudoin by Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal to the newly-created position of director of community relations, while prompting an official complaint with the State Board of Ethics, would appear to be the least of Ackal’s problems.

Boudoin finished in third place behind Ackal and parish jail warden Roberta Boudreaux in the October 24 primary election and on Oct. 30 Boudoin was hired and simultaneously announced his endorsement for Ackal’s re-election.

And though Boudreaux fired off a three-page letter to the ethics commission in filing an official complaint of a possible felony in connection with the hiring/endorsement, Ackal has plenty other matters on his plate.

For starters, a half-dozen current and former Iberia Parish deputies recently entered guilty pleas to five felony charges and one misdemeanor in Western District Federal Court in Lafayette in connection with inmate beatings. http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/14969306-123/three-former-two-current-iberia-parish-sheriffs-employees-plead-guilty-in-beating-inmates-at-the-par

This, of course, was after a prisoner allegedly managed to shoot himself in the chest, according to a coroner’s report, as he sat in a sheriff’s department patrol car with his hands handcuffed behind his back.

Five of the six, former deputies Wade Bergeron, 40, of Milton, Wesley Hayes, 36, of St. Martinville, and Jesse James Hayes, 36, of St. Martinville and current employees Ben LaSalle, 34, of Erath, and Brett Broussard, 35, of Broussard, face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 each while former deputy Robert Burns, 46, of Youngsville, could be sentenced to up to a year in prison and fined $100,000.

Along with Boudreaux’s ethics complaint and the federal indictments and resulting guilty pleas, Ackal also has just been hit with a federal sexual harassment lawsuit by a former female employee who says one of Ackal’s protégés made repeated sexual advances even though Ackal was aware of the problem but did nothing to stop it.

In her ETHICS COMPLAINT, Boudreaux, who said she intends to seek the sheriff’s office again, cited a Louisiana statute which addresses election offenses involving bribery, threats or intimidation of election officials or candidates.

The section referenced by her says “No person shall knowingly, willfully, or intentionally:

“Give or offer to give, directly, or indirectly, any money or anything of apparent present or prospective value to any person who has withdrawn or who was eliminated prior or subsequent to the primary election as a candidate for public office, for the purpose of securing or giving his political support to any remaining candidate or candidates for public office in the primary or general election.

“When such person is a candidate for public office who has withdrawn or was eliminated prior to or subsequent to the primary election, accept(s) or offer(s) to accept directly or indirectly, any money, or anything of apparent present or prospective value that is given for the purpose of securing or giving his political support to any remaining candidate or candidates for public office in the primary or general election.

“Whoever violates any provision of this section shall be fined not more than $2000 or be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, or both, for the first offense. On a second offense, or any subsequent offense, the penalty shall be a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment at hard labor for not more than five years, or both.”

What makes this particularly knotty for Ackal is this is his second trip down that same road. The good news is no complaint was filed when he did the same thing four years ago. In the 2011 election, he hired third place finisher Bobby Jackson as an intelligence analyst but never gave him working space, equipment or any direction as to his duties, said Jackson, who quit after only two months on the job because he said he had no desire to walk around “with my thumb in my rear.” As for Ackal’s most recent hire of third-place finisher Boudoin, Jackson said he sees “history repeating itself.”

Boudreaux said she believes that Ackal violated the provisions she cited by offering Boudoin the captain’s position at a salary of $50,658 “in exchange for Mr. Boudoin’s endorsement in the Nov. 21, 2015, runoff election.

Boudoin signed his oath of office as Iberia Parish deputy on Nov. 2, 2015, only two weeks after the primary election and less than three weeks before the runoff, records show. DAVID BOUDOIN OATH OF OFFICE

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

            The SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT, filed by former employee Laurie Segura, said Bert Berry, Chief of the Criminal Department began in 2012 and lasted for 10 months. She said she attempted to avoid Berry when possible but did not report him for 10 months because she feared retaliation, a fear she said was realized once she did complain.

Segura, who began working at the sheriff’s office in July 2008, resigned in January 2015 when the work environment became intolerable, she said.

She says in her petition that Berry, who moved into her suit of offices in 2012, rubbed his hands and crotch against her body and that he would sneak up on her and kiss her and that he made “inappropriate inquiries” about her sex life. She said he talked “graphically about his fantasies of having sex with her, (tried) to convince her to engage in phone sex with him,” and that he simulated sex acts in her presence and talked about his penis.

She said he ignored her repeated requests that he leave her alone, so she began evasive tactics. “When the security cameras showed he was coming into the office, she immediately picked up the phone and pretended she was in the middle of a phone call,” her petition says.

“In order to intimidate her from taking action,” the suit says, “Berry constantly brought up his relationship with Sheriff Ackal and how the sheriff had practically raised him.”

After she finally reported him to Human Resources, “retaliation was swift and sustained,” the petition says. She said that Ackal “sanctioned” Berry’s behavior even though Berry admitted to Ackal that he had committed the harassment.

Instead of reprimanding Berry, Ackal instead met with the sheriff office’s legal counsel, Ackal’s chief deputy and Berry (by telephone), and prepared a letter of accusations against Segura in an effort to get her to drop her complaint.

Ackal met with Segura the following day, the petition says, and accused her of exposing her breasts in public and of bragging about her sexual activities. “Even though Segura had anticipated retaliation, she was shocked at this letter and asked who had made these false allegations,” the lawsuit says. While Ackal refused to reveal his source, he did tell her that he would communicate with Berry that she denied the allegations, “making clear that Berry was involved with the letter,” she said.

“Instead of taking action and dismissing a man who had admittedly engaged in egregious harassment, the sheriff tried to make Segura guilty for making the complaint,” the petition says. “He talked about how hard this situation was for him because he basically raised Berry. He would not even put a reprimand in Berry’s file after he learned it would be part of Berry’s public record.” She said Ackal refused to move Berry, claiming there was nowhere to put him, “which was absolutely untrue,” she said.

She says Ackal gave raises totaling $35,000 a year to three subordinates who immediately “tried in a variety of different ways to intimidate Segura into dropping her complaint” and that the sheriff’s legal counsel tried to pressure her to quit her job.

She said Ackal approached the situation not as her problem but one that might hurt his chances of re-election “and he needed four more years on the job.”

She said that Berry ordered an audit of her computer following her filing of an EEOC complaint against him.

After the retaliation reached the point of physical threats, she said, she finally left her job in January of 2015. “But even then the retaliation did not cease,” she said. Instead Ackal began “falsely accusing her of stealing his campaign funds.”

When Ackal failed to respond to her EEOC complaints, she finally resorted to her federal lawsuit.

 

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Iberia Sheriff’s life is hotter than Tabasco on a fever blister after beatings, deaths, political payoffs, fight with reporters

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Congress, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Jobs, Lawsuits, Media, Politicians, Prison, State Police on March 2, 2016| 3 Comments »

Though it is probably far too late, Louis Ackal would be wise to take the advice of an adage steeped in indisputable wisdom of the ages.

The sheriff of Iberia Parish, however, apparently has never heard the expression attributed to a host of well-known politicians, amateur philosophers and gifted writers: “Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

We’ll get to Ackal momentarily, but first a little background on that famous quote.

Mark Twain didn’t say it, though he is often cited as the one who coined the phrase. Neither was the quote original with publicist William Greener, Jr., as quoted in the September 28, 1978, Wall Street Journal.

The phrase of uncertain origin has also been attributed to the late Louisiana Congressman F. Edward Hebert, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1941 to 1977. A former newspaper reporter and editor for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Hebert, who died in 1979, covered the Louisiana Hayride scandals of 1939 that led to the convictions of Gov. Richard Leche and LSU President James Monroe Smith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Edward_H%C3%A9bert

Hebert, according to legend, added to the phrase when he said, “I never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the trainload.” (Emphasis added.)

The quote was intended to illustrate just how futile it is to pick a fight with a crusading newspaper. Some clarification is needed here for our younger readers: the term crusading newspaper is passé, long gone from the vernacular used to describe the style of journalism depicted in the classic movies The Front Page (the 1931 original starring Pat O’Brien and Mae Clark or the 1974 remake starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Susan Sarandon, Charles Durning, and Carol Burnett); 1940’s His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy; or of course, All the President’s Men, the 1976 movie about Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon, starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Hal Holbrook, Martin Balsam, Ned Beatty and Jane Alexander.

No, sadly, those days are long gone. Newspapers have felt the impact of the perfect storm of shrinking ad revenue and declining circulation along with waning influence as reflected in inverse proportion to the explosion of the Internet and the fourth estate. Once the epitome of independence, newspapers now find themselves subjected more to corporate pressure than to any need to inform its readership. The same gots for television news, of course, only if anything, to an even greater degree.

That famous and once chillingly accurate phrase could now be replaced by any one of several similar but equally relevant versions currently floating around out there in cyberspace:

  • Never pick a fight with someone who buys their bandwidth by the gigabyte.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who has a camera and a Twitter following.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who knows how to use the Internet better than you.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who has access to Google to prove you wrong immediately.
  • Never pick a fight with someone when your own video cameras or those of witnesses may contradict you.

To those might be added another pearl of wisdom: Never underestimate the intelligence of your constituency (the emergence of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz notwithstanding).

Ackal previously served as a Louisiana State Trooper where he served for awhile as a captain and Commander of Troop I. He retired abruptly in 1984 after being placed in charge of the narcotics squad of Region II which covered all of Southwest Louisiana.

He later resurfaced as a private investigator before running for High Sheriff of Iberia Parish in 2007. Now, not even four months from winning re-election sheriff, he seems not to have absorbed an iota of any of that advice about picking quarrels with those possessing generous supplies of ink and paper—and online access.

Even before he beat challenger Roberta Boudreaux last November in a runoff election, Ackal was already fighting a public relations disaster that culminated in his choosing to pick a fight with the Acadiana Advocate, sister publication of the Baton Rouge Advocate.

In March of 2014, a 22-year-old black man, Victor White, III, died after being shot while handcuffed in a sheriff’s department patrol car. Deputies said he pulled the gun and fired one round, striking himself in the back. The Iberia Parish coroner, however, ruled he was shot in the chest, immediately raising the question of how he could shoot himself in the chest with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The Iberia Parish district attorney, following a State Police report that the wound was self-inflicted, has declined to pursue criminal charges against deputies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/da-charges-handcuffed-man-police-car-shooting_us_56b8f75de4b08069c7a8548b

The U.S. Attorney’s office likewise concluded an investigation of more than a year with the announcement that it would not pursue charges against the sheriff’s office. http://www.iberianet.com/news/feds-no-charges/article_087eda70-9e8f-11e5-a1e6-03aa54a2fd19.html

None of those findings, however, kept the Advocate group from publishing a May 6, 2015, story revealing that eight prisoners had died in Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office custody over a 10-year period. http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/neworleansnews/12248374-123/8-die-in-custody-of

The family of one of the victims, Robert Sonnier, settled its resulting lawsuit with the sheriff for $450,900 and the family of Michael Jones was awarded $61,000 in his wrongful death. There were other incidents, all of which prompted U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond’s May 19, 2015 LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL LORETTA LYNCH requesting an investigation “into alleged civil rights violations of members of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

Moreover, incriminating video of beatings of and dog attacks on prisoners were reported on by the Acadiana Advocate https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/05/04/disturbing-video-surfaces-highlighting-pattern-of-abuse-and-death-in-louisiana-jail/

Easy to see why Ackal may not be too enamored with the Acadiana Advocate, but to declare the paper and its reporters as “persona non grata” is foolish at best. http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13886833-37/iberia-sheriff-mum-on-salary

It’s a war he can’t possibly win. As much adverse publicity as LouisianaVoice has given to the Louisiana State Police administration, Superintendent Mike Edmonson has never gone that far.

But, as those cheesy late-night TV commercials say: wait, there’s more.

First, there was his re-election campaign last fall.

He nearly won in the first primary, pulling in 47 percent of the vote. Parish Jail Warden Roberta Boudreaux got 25 percent and Spike Boudoin received 18 percent. Joe LeBlanc and Bobby Jackson won 7 and 3 percent, respectively.

That was on Oct. 24. On Oct 30, just six days later, Ackal hired Boudoin as something called director of community relations at a salary of $50,658 a year. http://theadvocate.com/news/14013818-123/iberia-sheriff-to-pay-defeated

Coincidentally, Boudoin announced at the same time his endorsement of Ackal in the runoff against Boudreaux. But other than the distribution of a news release announcing Boudoin’s hiring, Ackal said he would not entertain questions about the newly-created position.

Ackal won the runoff election on Nov. 21, receiving 56 percent of the vote against Boudreaux’s 44 percent.

To Jackson, it was déjà vu all over again. In 2007, he finished third with 11 percent of the vote behind Ackal and David Landry, both of whom got 42 percent. LeBlanc, who also ran in 2007, got the remaining 5 percent. After that primary, Jackson endorsed Ackal and was rewarded with a job as intelligence analyst, a role he had held in the U.S. Army. The difference with the sheriff’s department was he was denied working space, equipment and any direction as to his duties, all while being paid. He quit in disgust after little more than two months walking around “with my thumb in my rear,” he said, adding that he now sees “history repeating itself.”

Public servants are prohibited from using their positions to “compel or coerce any person or other public servant to engage in political activity,” according to the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics. Political activity is defined, in part, as “an effort to support or oppose the election of a candidate for political office in an election.”

It is also illegal for anyone to give money or anything of value “to any person who has withdrawn or who was eliminated prior or subsequent to the primary election as a candidate for public office, for the purpose of securing or giving his political support to any remaining candidate or candidates for public office in the primary or general election.” (Emphasis added.)

Robert Travis Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, told the Acadiana Advocate that Ackal’s simultaneous hiring and endorsement raises questions of whether taxpayer money, i.e. Boudoin’s salary, was used to secure an endorsement.

Tomorrow: ethics complaint, sexual harassment lawsuit and guilty pleas over beatings and dog attacks are beginning to clutter embattled Louis Ackal’s desk.

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State Troopers Association issues letter to its membership attacking LouisianaVoice and others who question activities

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Commissions, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Public Records, Senate, State Agencies, State Police on February 28, 2016| 14 Comments »

The Louisiana State Troopers Association (LSTA) has apparently declared war against LouisianaVoice and two of its own retirees who dared voice their objections to campaign contributions by the association that amounts to little more than money laundering.

On Saturday (Feb. 27) we received a copy of a LETTER TO LSTA MEMBERS which, among other things accuses me of “an abysmal lack of journalistic ethics. (I have redacted the names of the two retirees in order to prevent undue pressure on one in his current employment.) While it was not my intention to get into a verbal exchange with LSTA, I feel I must address certain issues raised in the letter.

First of all, and this is important: I did not choose to re-open the subject of training for Trooper Steven Vincent. Nor was it I who initially raised the issue, but a retired state trooper in a letter to Louisiana State Police (LSP) headquarters. I unwisely wrote about the letter but took down the post at the family’s request. Now it appears that LSTA wants to keep the issue alive which raises the question of just who is the insensitive party here. If LSTA wishes to continue the debate over that story, it will have to do so alone. Out of respect for the family’s wishes, I refuse to be drawn into any further discussion of the subject.

As for any “agenda” the LSTA claims I may have, I can only deduce the association is attempting to deflect attention away from its own actions via the time-worn ploy of going after the messenger. For the record, in 40 years of news reporting for several major daily newspapers, I have enjoyed a healthy and professional working relationship with Louisiana State Police—until July 2014. That seems to be when things started going south.

For those who may not remember, that was when Department of Public Safety (DPS) Deputy Secretary and State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, through his friend State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia), attempted to sneak through an amendment to an otherwise benign bill on the last day of the legislative session that would have given Edmonson a retirement income boost of about $55,000, something no other state employee has been allowed to do (except for a lone state trooper in Houma who coincidentally fell under the same qualifications as Edmonson). The bill passed and Edmonson seemed well on his way to enhanced retirement riches despite his having made an “irrevocable” decision years earlier to enter into the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which froze his retirement at his then-rank of captain.

Generous retirement benefit boost slipped into bill for State Police Col. Mike Edmonson on last day of legislative session

But a sharp-eyed observer tipped off LouisianaVoice to the deception and we broke the story which was quickly picked up by state and national news publications. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/16/law-change-boosts-pension-for-state-police-leader/

The letter, most likely written at the direction of State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, goes after two retired state troopers who had the audacity to request board minutes, checks, receipts, budgets and tax documents. Edmonson is not on the LSTA board but he nevertheless is closely involved in its activities through board members who work for him.

It is interesting to note that no one person signed off on the letter. It closes with “Respectfully, the LSTA Board of Directors.” So, presumably, every member of the board is a party to the letter which said the board respects the right of members “to question LSTA policies and practices.” At the same time, the letter admitted that the board “voted unanimously not to provide any further information” to the two.

It also said it has not seen a groundswell of support from LSTA membership for the two.

That should seem obvious to anyone who has not been in a coma for the past six months. There has been ample evidence on this blog that LSP administration, rather than addressing serious problems within its organization, has chosen to go after whistleblowers, even to the extent of conducting an audit of state-issued cell phones to determine who has been talking to LouisianaVoice. No active trooper in his right mind would lend vocal support to anyone who questioned activities of LSP or LSTA for fear of reprisals.

The biggest concern to the retirees who have challenged LSTA for its endorsement of John Bel Edwards for governor (the first such endorsement in LSTA’s history), Edmonson’s unsuccessful efforts to get LSTA to write a letter to Edwards after his election pushing for the Edmonson’s reappointment (Edwards did reappoint Edmonson to another term as superintendent, most likely at the urging of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association which endorsed him), and the funneling of more than $45,000 in political campaign contributions to several political candidates through LSTA Executive Director David T. Young, who wrote the checks for the contributions on his personal checking account and was later reimbursed by LSTA. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/12/09/more-than-45000-in-campaign-cash-is-funneled-through-executive-director-by-louisiana-state-troopers-association/

Of the more than $45,000 doled out to candidates, $10,500 went to Edwards in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Another $10,250 went to Bobby Jindal in 2003, 2007 and 2011. Edwards has since returned his contributions after his campaign deemed them inappropriate. Jindal has not returned his contributions.

And while the LSTA letter attempts to paint me as lacking in journalistic ethics and while I, as publisher of LouisianaVoice, did report on irregularities within LSP and LSTA, it is important to remember these points:

  • I am not the one who tried to manipulate an illegal increase in my retirement income by having an obscure amendment tacked onto a bill in the final hours of the 2014 legislative session.
  • I am not the one who secretly laundered campaign contributions through the LSTA executive director’s personal checking account only to “reimburse” him for expenses at a later date.
  • I am not the one who denied an accounting of those activities to LSTA members.
  • I am not the one who promoted a lieutenant to captain and commander of Troop F after that lieutenant sneaked an underage woman into a casino in Vicksburg and then tried to use his position as a state trooper to bargain his way out of trouble (it didn’t work; he was fined $600 by the Mississippi Gaming Commission).
  • I am not the one who chose to mete out only token punishment to a state trooper who was found to have twice had sex with a woman while on duty—once in the rear seat of his patrol car.
  • I am not the one who again handed out only a slap on the wrist and then promoted an LSP lieutenant to captain and named him commander of Troop D—after the lieutenant was found to be abusing prescription drugs while on duty and who admitted to flushing extra pills when he learned there was an active investigation into his addiction.
  • I am not the one who lied about the Troop D commander’s refusal to take a complaint about one of his troopers from a citizen; I merely posted a recording of his denial after LSP Internal Affairs exonerated the commander following an intensive “investigation.”
  • I am not the one who asked LSTA to write a letter of recommendation to Gov.-elect Edwards recommending that Edmonson be reappointed.
  • I am not the future State Police superintendent who was disciplined for padding his overtime expenses during a visit to New Orleans by the Pope.
  • I am not the one who refused to provide radio logs of a state trooper in LSP Troop D that revealed he was being paid for working when he was, in fact, asleep at home (I received the radio logs from an independent source but again, the records speak for themselves).
  • I am not the one who took an early retirement buyout of about $59,000 only to return to work for LSP the very next day—with a promotion.
  • Nor am I the one who ignored a directive from then-Commissioner of Administration Angéle Davis to repay the money, only to have the problem mysteriously go away when the daughter of Paul Rainwater, Davis’s successor, was given a job at LSP.
  • I am not the one who is responsible for that same retire/rehire having her son-in-law on LSP payroll as an employee of the State Police Oil Spill Commission—at the very time he was working offshore for a private firm.
  • I am not the one who hired Senate President John Alario’s wife who somehow manages to supervise LSP personnel in Baton Rouge—from her home in Westwego—at $56,300 per year.
  • Nor am I the one who hired Alario’s son, John W. Alario, as director of the DPS Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission at $95,000 per year.

No, I am not the one responsible for any of these things; I merely reported them. But the LSTA board must possess sufficient intelligence to understand that each of these things is a matter of public record and that I could never have carried out any vendetta, perceived or otherwise, against LSP unless what I wrote was accurate.

LSTA, in its letter to its membership, accuses me of taking “uncorroborated information at face value, never question the motivation of the source, and offer it for public consumption without ever seeking to determine its truthfulness.” They know better.

I invite the LSTA board to cite a single instance of my reporting anything that was “uncorroborated” either by public records or by interviews with multiple sources.

I also invite the actual author if the LSTA letter to come forward and identify himself and not hide behind the anonymous sobriquet of “LSTA Board of Directors.”

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More on that ‘independent poll’ for U.S. Senate and a little background on Rep. John Fleming who wants the promotion

Posted in Elections, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Senate, Transparency, Vitter on February 27, 2016| 16 Comments »

On Thursday (Feb. 25), we posted a story that contained several news developments. Those included the approval of the one-cent sales tax, Moody’s downgrade of the state’s credit and the announcement of Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell’s entry into the race for the U.S. Senate seat now held by retiring Sen. David Vitter.

Also mentioned in passing was the call we received from someone conducting a so-called “independent poll” about the upcoming Senate race.

We bracketed the term “independent poll” with quotation marks because it took only a few questions from the “pollster” to realize the questions were quite obviously written on behalf of—and possibly even by—U.S. Rep. John Fleming, the good doctor/UPS store/Subway sandwich shop/payday loan entrepreneur from Minden.

Unfortunately, that is the way virtually all polls commissioned by candidates are conducted: loaded questions intended to steer the respondent’s answers in a certain direction so as to enable the candidate to release the “results” that put him or her in a favorable light.

With Fleming, however, it is more than a little difficult to put him in a favorable light. He is just that repulsive and his candidacy for Senate could well be a blessing in disguise. Should he lose—and at the moment, State Treasurer John Kennedy would appear to be the clear favorite—then the state will be rid of what one blogger called “today’s most hateful Republican stooge.”

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/09/todays-most-hateful-republican-stooge.html

Should Kennedy or any of the other half-dozen or so candidates win, then Fleming can go back to selling foot-longs.

It’s bad enough that Fleming pulled down more than $5 million in 2008 the year he was first elected, but he did so while refusing to contribute to the health care of most of his 500 employees. The precious few who did qualify were forced to pay a $3,300 deductible.

A couple of years ago, Fleming was critical of LouisianaVoice for what he perceived as our position of favoring “redistribution of wealth.” We responded that the only “redistribution of wealth we were able to document was the upward flow of wealth to Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies and big oil and gas. It was at that point that Fleming did what he does best: he blocked us from further correspondence on Facebook. So much for public discourse and accountability to the electorate (yes, we are aware we don’t vote in his district, but he habitually does the same thing to his constituents).

We also wrote about his payday loan company. Payday loan companies, which, by the way, our wonderful legislature has refused to rein in, feed on low-income, unsophisticated citizens by charging impossibly high interest rates that only perpetuate the problem of recurring, increasingly high debt for those struggling to survive. (That same legislature has exacerbated the problem by repeatedly refusing to increase the minimum wage in Louisiana.)

It was at that point that his mouthpiece, aka public relations flak, contacted us, asking if we would print a retraction to the story about his payday loan company, which the mouthpiece claimed was a corporation set up solely for Fleming’s employees (that’s nice, pay low salaries and then take the money back via high interest loans).

Our response was that we would be happy to print a retraction if (a) he could prove the story was untrue and (b) he would reveal to us how many medical malpractice lawsuits had been filed against Fleming’s medical practice.

We never heard from him again.

But back to that poll:

The questions were couched in such a way as to make every other candidate (except for Campbell who at the time, had not announced as a candidate) look like some type of evil predator bent on devouring the livers of the electorate. For instance, were aware that John Kennedy was a Democrat who supported John Kerry for President (in 2004) but later switched to Republican?

Wow! That’s a real killer.

How do you feel about John Fleming, who despite humble beginnings, brought himself up by his bootstraps to become a successful businessman who founded several businesses and who was a successful physician?

Short answer: “He’s an idiot.”

And “even though there has never been a Supreme Court Justice appointed in an election year…..”

Whoa. Hold it right there, lady. That’s a lie.

Nonplussed, she soldiered on: “President Obama intends to fill the vacancy…”

Not true. There have been six Supreme Court justices confirmed during a presidential election year since 1900—two by Nixon, one each by Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/15/10998836/supreme-court-nomination-election-year

Okay, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist were actually confirmed in December of 1971—a couple of weeks shy of the actual calendar election year, but well within the 12 months leading up to the election. Same for the confirmation of Ford’s nominee John Paul Stevens (December 1975). But Anthony Kennedy, Reagan’s nominee, was confirmed in February of 1988.

Going back a tad further, Franklin Roosevelt nominated Frank Murphy who was confirmed in January of 1940 and Herbert Hoover nominated Benjamin Cardozo who was confirmed in February of 1932.

Let me ask you a question, Ms. Pollster: How do you feel about Fleming’s apparent willingness to tell an outright whopper just for the purpose of obtaining a favorable (to him) answer to a poll question?

For that matter, how do you feel about Fleming’s consistently voting against working families even though he represents a district where the median income is only about $35,000 per year?

  • He opposed a bill whereby small businesses with 25 employees or fewer with wages of less than $40,000 would qualify for tax credits of up to 50 percent of the costs of providing health insurance. (Of course, he favored tax credits for the wealthy and for big corporations).
  • He opposed help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole that would have cut the costs of brand name drugs by 50 percent and which would have eventually eliminated the donut hole altogether.
  • One of his first votes in Congress was to oppose SCHIP, the proposal to provide medical insurance to 11 million needy children. (Fortunately, that bill passed by a huge margin of 290-135.

So there. Take your little poll and stick it in the same place where Fleming’s head resides.

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PSC member Foster Campbell enters Senate race, Moody’s downgrades state credit as House passes Edwards sales tax

Posted in Budget, Congress, Economy, Elections, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Senate, Taxes, Vitter on February 25, 2016| 20 Comments »

Thursday (Feb. 25) was an unusually big day in politics, even by Louisiana standards.

The big news in Baton Rouge on Thursday was House passage of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ one-cent sales tax (minus the assessment on manufacturing) but the action was quickly overshadowed by a credit rating downgrade by Moody’s. http://theadvocate.com/news/14993547-79/moodys-downgrades-louisianas-credit-rating

The state also received a “negative outlook” from Moody’s, meaning the state could be downgraded again.

Coupled with the sales passage, which must now go to the Senate for a vote, was additional cuts of $100 million in state spending and the taking of $128 million from the rainy day fund. With the $60 million already cut by the Edwards administration, Thursday’s action will make up about $700 million of the $900 million needed by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.

The downgrade was the first for the state since Hurricane Katrina and the lower rating means when borrowing money, the state will have to pay higher interest rates.

And just to add a touch of spice to an already politically volatile state, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell announced on the Jim Engster Show on Thursday that he will be a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. David Vitter. http://www.jimengster.com/

Campbell, an outspoken PSC member and a former state senator, is the second Democrat to enter the already crowded field of senatorial hopefuls. So far, U.S. Reps. Charles Boustany, Jr. of the state’s 3rd Congressional District and John Fleming of the 4th District, State Treasurer John Kennedy and U.S. Air Force veteran Rob Maness, all Republicans, a second Democrat, New Orleans attorney Caroline Fayard, and, of course, the former director of Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control, the inimitable Troy Hebert, an Independent.

A debate between all the candidates could be reminiscent of the early debates between the 17 original candidates for the Republican president nomination—but without the charm, sparkle and depth of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, a lot less fun.

Maness was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate seat won by Bill Cassidy in 2014 and Fayard was defeated in a special election for lieutenant governor in 2010 by Jay Dardenne.

Campbell, something of a throwback to the populist candidates of another era, is outspoken on issues, particularly with utility companies and the oil and gas industry, and while in the State Senate, he crossed party lines to lend strong support to then-Gov. Dave Treen’s proposed Coastal Wetlands Environmental Levy (CWEL), a $450 million tax on petroleum and natural gas. Campbell today says had CWEL passed, the state would not be in the financial bind in which it now finds itself. But strong opposition by LABI and the oil and gas lobby defeated the proposal.

In a related but relative minor matter, LouisianaVoice received one of those “independent political polls” that was so obviously commissioned by Rep. Fleming that it may as well have been conducted by the good congressman himself.

The questions were prefaced by glowing stories of Fleming’s humble background and how he pulled himself by the bootstraps to not only become a doctor but to establish “numerous businesses,” one of which just happened to be a payday loan company that preys on low-income citizens, hooking them for exorbitant interest rates.

At the same time, the pollster, a woman, set up other questions about the other candidates with disparaging background stories on Boustany, Fayard and Kennedy (Maness was omitted, possibly in deference to his military service) that stopped just short of labeling them as subversives. Also omitted from the verbal flogging was Campbell, obviously only because he was not a declared candidate at the time Fleming wrote the questions for the poll.

Louisiana’s credit rating was not changed by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, the other two major financial rating agencies.

But Moody’s move, dropping the state from Aa2 to Aa3 leaves Louisiana with better credit ratings than just two other states, New Jersey and Illinois. The downgrade will be applied to the state’s general obligation bonds and gas and fuel tax bonds. That means in turn that when the state issues bonds to finance construction projects such as roads and public buildings, it will have to pay higher interest rates on the borrowed money.

The move came as a surprise as most observers, including Kennedy, though Moody’s would wait until the Legislature completed the current special session, which is scheduled to end March 9.

Kennedy used the downgrade to take shots at both Bobby Jindal and Gov. Edwards. “You can’t spend more taxpayer money than you take in for seven years in a row and not expect a downgrade to your credit rating,” Kennedy said. “You also can’t make public statements about suspending TOPS, ending LSU football, closing Nicholls State University and closing five prisons without scaring the daylights out of the credit rating agencies that grade our debt and the institutional investors that buy our debt. What we tell our children is true: Acts have consequences.” http://theadvocate.com/news/14993547-79/moodys-downgrades-louisianas-credit-rating#comments

Edwards, meanwhile, blamed the downgrade on the seven years of patchwork budgeting by the Jindal administration, calling it “a disappointing development, particularly since we believed that Moody’s would wait until the conclusion of the special session to make any decision on our rating. Unfortunately, the downgrade confirms what we’ve been saying about the structural imbalance of our budget. The overuse and abuses of one-time money and fund sweeps by the Jindal Administration were a major factor in this decision.”

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