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Archive for the ‘Governor’s Office’ Category

With 5th District Congressional Election a Week Away, Some Random Observations

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, Politicians on November 8, 2013| 12 Comments »

While we don’t normally offer negative comments on other blot posts, there was a guest post on The Hayride Wednesday (Nov. 6) written—or ghostwritten, would be my guess—by one Ray Griffin, a member of the Republican State Central Committee from the 105th District, which encompasses all or parts of the parishes of Jefferson, St. Charles and Plaquemines.

His post on The Hayride consisted almost entirely of ridiculing Riser’s opponent in the Nov. 16 runoff for the 5th District congressional seat, Vance McAllister. He first sniped at McAllister as a “wealthy, self-funding political novice.”

Actually, we find it somewhat refreshing that a candidate is willing to sink his own money in a run for office as opposed to sucking up donations from special interests who will own the candidate after his election. PACs and fat cat donors seem to be at the root of the nation’s political dilemma today.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/some_of_gov_bobby_jindals_dona.html=

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/bobby_jindals_political_appoin.html#incart_maj-story-2

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/louisianas_top_campaign_donors.html#incart_maj-story-2=

Griffin also snorted his derision at McAllister’s self-proclaimed aspirations to parlay his hoped-for congressional seat into the presidency. While McAllister may be a bit premature in getting the cart way out in front of the horse, his disarming candor is certainly refreshing in light of Jindal’s continued ridiculous contention that he already has the job he wants when everyone who has not been in a coma for six years knows the presidency is Jindal’s own burning obsession.

Griffin, of Lafitte, in Jefferson Parish, is listed as an agent and officer of Cochiara Corp. in Lafitte on the Secretary of State’s web page but is designated as not in good standing for failure to file an annual report. The last annual report filed was on May 24, 2012, records show.

He is also an officer and director of Ray Griffin, Inc., an active corporation about which there were no details furnished.

Griffin also worked as an intern in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2004 congressional campaign, drawing a total of $1,654 in intern fees and travel reimbursements.

So now we have a campaign flunky turned entrepreneur turned political pundit.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong that—if he did indeed pen the article. But even if he allowed his name to be used for an author written by, say, someone like Kyle Plotkin, it still would not be nearly as egregious as Sen. Rand Paul’s experiment in plagiarism; at least Griffin, if he did use a ghostwriter, was a party to the ruse.

So, just to put things in perspective, here are three images of Griffin, the Riser shill:

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Hey, boys just want to have fun, right?

What continues to disturb us even more, however, besides the obvious contrivance of Jindal’s orchestrating the retirement of Rodney Alexander by offering him a lucrative state position so that Riser could inherit the office (the election being only a pesky formality), is Riser’s continued association with two former board members of New Bethany Home for Boys and Girls in Arcadia.

Tim Johnson, son-in-law of New Bethany administrator/owner/minister Mack Ford, and his son Jonathan Johnson have both been active in the Riser campaign. Their motivation is obvious: for the past decade, Jonathan Johnson worked as State Director for Alexander. He is working in the Riser campaign in the fervent hope that he will continue in that same capacity once upon Riser’s coronation…er, election. And Tim just wants what is best for Junior.

Ford, the patriarch of New Bethany, has been accused by several former female residents, of beatings and rapes, dating back to the mid-1970s and continuing until the early 1990s.

No formal charges have been filed because (a) the Bienville Parish Sheriff’s Office denies that any of the victims ever appeared at his office to file a complaint and (b) because an assistant district attorney claims that the district attorney’s office cannot initiate an investigation.

Determined to see justice done, several of the former residents have indicated to LouisianaVoice that they will be appearing in person in the near future to file formal charges against Ford.

Even though the home has been closed down for more than 20 years, Ford still receives monetary support from various Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) churches from around the country. Several former IFB ministers are currently serving prison sentences for sexually abusing church members, mostly women.

Oddly enough, because of the IFB philosophy that women must be totally subservient to men and because the ministers instill the belief among their congregations that they are anointed by God and thus, infallible, whenever sexual abuse of women is exposed, it is the women—and often young girls—who are required to stand before the congregation and apologize for their sins of tempting men just as Eve tempted Adam into original sin.

Even more disturbing is a book by IFB members Michael and Debi Pearl. The book, To Train Up A Child, is nothing more than a manual for child abuse, i.e. beatings.

The Pearls were not the first, however. Ministers Bill Gothard and Richard Fugate were two of the first IFB leaders to preach “breaking the will” of children. The two wrote What the Bible Says about Child Training, a book used by Bob Jones University (BJU) in its child psychology classes. One of Mack Ford’s daughters attended BJU.

Among other things, Fugate recommends a balloon stick, a willow or peach tree branch, or a blackboard pointer of one-eighth-inch wooden dowel for toddlers up to 15 months in age. After that, the instruments only get thicker—up to one-half inch in diameter.

For nursing mothers, Pearl recommends pulling infants’ hair when they bite. “An alternative has to be sought for bald-headed babies,” he wrote.

Fugate writes that babies should not be spanked through a thick diaper, but bare-bottomed. A child who is strong-willed “will require more frequent and more intense whippings,” he said. “Such a child is likely to require enough strokes to receive stripes or even welts. Parents should not be overly concerned if such minor injuries do result from their chastisement as it is perfectly normal.”

Child beatings (and some IFB children have died at the hands of their “disciplinarians,” by the way) and total dominance over women are not the only characteristics of IFB. Among other things, IFB ministers teach that the word “sex” is hidden in the animated twinkling stars of The Lion King and that Azrael, the cat on The Smurfs cartoon, got its name from one of Satan’s top demons of the same name, and anyone who brought a Smurf doll into his/her home was inviting demonic possession.

One more thing: Thursday (Nov. 7) was the 95th birthday of the Rev. Billy Graham.

How is that relevant, you ask?

Well, before his rise to prominence, Graham spent a semester at Bob Jones College in Tennessee (before it relocated to its present location in Greenville, S.C.) and Jones was his mentor.

But Graham, who rejected the Doctrine of Separation, began to distance himself from Jones, who believed if conservative and liberal Christians joined forces it would compromise the word of God. The rift grew to such an extent that in 1995, Bob Jones III told 1,000 employees that, “Billy Graham has done more damage to Christianity than any other person in the 20th century.”

BJU, which teaches its students that accreditation is not important “because Harvard University is not accredited” (it is, of course), rejects any governmental interference while at the same time accepting federal student aid and enjoying tax exempt status.

These are examples of the beliefs of those to whom Jindal, Superintendent of Education John White and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) President Chas Roemer wish to turn over the education of our children through vouchers and charter schools.

And Neil Riser is Jindal’s boy.

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New lower paying jobs assigned to Jindalites in effort to put them in touch with and appreciative of state’s working poor

Posted in Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Jobs on November 3, 2013| 16 Comments »

It’s easy to sit back and take pot shots at those in charge so when I recently said Gov. Bobby Jindal was out of touch, perhaps I was remiss in not offering solutions as to how he could regain the connection with the average working people of the state he purports to govern, often from the New York studios of Faux News or the latest conclave of Republican governors.

You know the people I’m talking about: those who congregate each Sunday in the Protestant churches of north Louisiana—those same churches that Jindal used to visit during his first term of office but hasn’t since—and who returned to the drudgery of their workaday jobs on Monday morning while Jindal basked in the glowing praise of the usual cast of sycophants.

My neglect in offering suggestions for Jindal and Co. to overcome their respective psychopathic behavior was brought home to me by Robert Mann in his recent blog Something Like the Truth about Jindal’s “Poverty of Compassion,” in which he said he has often wondered why Jindal “is so apathetic about the plight of the working poor.”

Mann said Jindal, speaking at the Republican Governors Association (RGA) during its “American Comeback” project, said when he was born his dad had no medical insurance and paid for little Bobby’s delivery on the installment plan. “And the doctor was willing to do that,” he said in explaining why Daddy did not need health insurance. “He didn’t want help from the government,” he told his fellow GOP governors, to what almost certainly was enthusiastic applause.

So the obvious lesson here is if you need a heart, lung, or kidney transplant or if neurosurgery is necessary, you don’t need insurance. All you need is an understanding surgeon, team of nurses, anesthesiologist and other OR personnel who are willing to tote the note for a few decades—or longer.

Well, that little episode certainly sheds a glaring light on Jindal’s psyche. Perhaps he was taking his cue from Texas Republican Congressman Steve Stockman’s aide Donny Ferguson, who in June boasted that he took the challenge of trying to feed himself on the $31.50 per week level of SNAP food stamp benefits under the Farm Bill—and actually got by on $27.58.

Anyone can pull that off—for one week, as this clown did. A gallon of milk, peanut butter, crackers a few canned biscuits, sardines, bologna and bread, and anyone can get by for a week.

But why doesn’t Ferguson try that little ploy for a year or longer? Why doesn’t he do it permanently, the way the real people on SNAP do? The Spam might lose some of its appeal as a publicity stunt. He might switch the peanut butter for a package of those Kraft American Cheese slices—you know the ones that used to advertise five ounces of milk in ever two-thirds-ounce slice (I actually called the Kraft advertising agency once to ask how they did that. There was a long pause on the other end of the line before the Madison Avenue shill declared, “Oh, you want American; I’m in cheddar.”). But even those cheese slices will get old before too long.

So, after making that suggestion to Ferguson, I’ve decided to offer the same solution to Jindal and his minions. All he and his cadre of confidants have to do is get back to the roots they never knew: the hardscrabble life of long hours and low pay of 19.9 percent of Louisiana citizens living in poverty (second highest in the nation), many of whom do work but at minimum wage jobs with no benefits.

Here are some choice jobs I’ve found for Jindal and select members of his cabinet:

  • Superintendent of Education John White: Since Wal-Mart is out front in bankrolling pseudo education reform, White seems the ideal candidate for a Wal-Mart greeter as he forgoes his $275,000-a-year salary;
  • Jindal’s Assistant Chief of Staff Kyle Plotkin: Pizza delivery boy for Domino’s because he already carries Jindal’s water for him and the Domino’s pay would be closer to his actual worth instead of the $110,000 he now makes;
  • Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols: Her $162,700 salary is completely disproportionate to her actual worth at her new job as a hostess for a Cracker Barrel Restaurant.
  • Dr. Christopher Rich approves workers compensation claims at a pathetically low rate of 14 percent—at $225,000 per year. He appears more qualified to transport claimants as a passenger van driver for a cut-rate chiropractor’s office;
  • Jimmy Faircloth has raked in more than a million dollars while losing court cases for the state, making him more realistically suited to run cheesy TV ads as a personal injury lawyer in Paincourtville (that’s a real town in Assumption Parish, by the way—and aptly named);
  • Jan Kosofsky, Executive Director and Deputy Director Carol Nacoste of the Capital Area Human Services District have received raises of $21,000 and $15,000, to bump their salaries up to $189,500 and $142,000, respectively, since 2011 while the remaining 200 agency employees received no salary increases. For that little indiscretion, they are infinitely more qualified to work as worm counters in a bait stand on Bayou Corne (site of that expanding sinkhole in Assumption Parish). My first job as a 12-year-old growing up in Ruston, LA., was counting worms at a bait stand out on Cooktown Road. Clarence Cooley paid me five cents per each 100-count carton filled (He sold them for 50 cents each) and my standing instructions were to always throw in a few extra to keep the customers happy. I generally made about $5 per Saturday;
  • Public Service Commission (PSC) member Scott Angelle, who resigned his $129,000-a-year job as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in the wake of that sinkhole at Bayou Corne to run for the PSC rather than stay and address the problem. He is hereby reassigned to clean porta-potties at construction sites around Baton Rouge;
  • Joe Namath once called sportswriters “$125 a week jerks.” That seems a tad inflated for Timmy Teepell, but he can be the sports editor of the Grand Coteau Weekly World News Guardian Tribune Shopper.
  • And saving the best for last, Gov. Bobby Jindal hereby relinquishes his $130,000-a-year job in favor of plucking chickens at that Foster Farms poultry processing plant in Farmerville in Union Parish—the one for whom Jindal orchestrated a $50 million infusion of state money as repayment for a generous campaign contribution so that 65 percent of the plant’s 950 employees can drive the few miles from Arkansas to Farmerville to work in the Louisiana taxpayer-supported plant.

I haven’t attempted to assign all of Jindal’s cabinet members with special employment because jobs are scarce and not everyone can find employment. Accordingly, those who are not assigned jobs are going to have to accept meager unemployment benefits—and apply for food stamps.

These new assignments should put officials of this administration in touch with those who put them in office—the people who thought Jindal represented a new day in Louisiana politics only to find that the man they elected cares first and foremost for his own political fortunes and little for those who elected him.

Jindal has forgotten those who believed in him—if he ever thought of them in the first place. Perhaps living their lives—for more than a week the way Donny Ferguson did—might make him more appreciative of the great unwashed.

Or perhaps not.

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Gov. Jindal completely out of touch with approval of $2 million appropriation to construct shrine to Mike Foster

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records on October 24, 2013| 36 Comments »

Bobby Jindal has completely lost touch with reality.

To be perfectly blunt, he is an imbecilic moron. (For those of you who think I should apologize for that characterization: okay, I’m sorry he’s an imbecilic moron.)

There, we’ve said it. We’ve tried to take the high road in our criticism of his actions and policies in the past but when he chooses to spend $2 million that the state does not have to build a monument that it does not need to his mentor who isn’t particularly memorable other than for the fact that he imposed and inflicted Bobby Jindal on the state, we can only throw up our hands in abject exasperation.

Our college and university physical plants are in desperate need of repairs and renovations—but there’s no money for that.

Most state employees have gone four years without pay raises because there’s no money.

The various state retirement plans have gigantic unfunded liabilities mostly because the state does not live up to its obligation to pay its share into those funds.

Higher education has been cut to the bone by this administration but there’s money to house the archives of former Gov. Mike Foster.

Our roads and highways are in deplorable condition—and there’s no money fix them. But we can erect a shrine to a former governor for the first time in the state’s history.

The administration has been conducting a fire sale of state property in order to raise one-time money to meet recurring expenses in an effort to plug a gaping deficit in the state budget but somehow we seem to need a museum for a governor who likes to ride a motorcycle without a helmet (and Lyndon Johnson once said that Gerald Ford played “too much football without a helmet.”)

Nearly a half-million people are without health care but Medicaid benefits have been cut.

What the hell?

Has anyone taken a look at some Jindal’s veto messages?

  • He killed a $190,000 appropriation for support services to the elderly;
  • He slashed $500,000 for the arts;
  • Appropriations for individuals with development disabilities in Jefferson Parish ($50,000), the Florida Parishes ($200,000), Capital Area ($200,000), the Metropolitan Human Services District ($50,000), the Northeast Delta ($50,000), Acadiana ($200,000), Calcasieu ($50,000), Central Louisiana ($50,000), Northwest Louisiana ($50,000): all vetoed because of a reduction to Medicaid utilization;
  • Continued operation of the Children’s Special Health Services Clinics across the state ($794,000);
  • Prevention and Intervention Services Program for the Family Violence Program ($1.17 million);
  • A $2 million reduction in the value of state contracts;

Yes, we are aware that these vetoes were from Act 1, the General Appropriations Budget and the $2 million appropriation for the Mike Foster Shrine comes from Act 2, the Capital Outlay Budget and yes, we know these are two different buckets. We know that, but waste is waste and payback is payback and this is both.

The state is spending the money to renovate the third floor of an old elementary school in Franklin (Foster’s home town) to house the archives of Jindal’s benefactor who served as governor from 1996 to 2004.

The first two floors of the former school building presently serve as the Franklin City Hall.

There are three very good reasons why the state should not be paying for this. One we’ve already mentioned: the state is broke, as in destitute—mostly because of Jindal’s penchant for giving away the store in the form of tax incentives, tax breaks and tax exemptions to business and industry and for the Louisiana Department of Economic Development’s designation of enterprise zones to businesses and industries, which awards more tax incentives even though the designation does not always translate to jobs.

The other two reasons are:

  • Mike Foster is a very wealthy man. If he wants to immortalize himself with a trophy room, let him pay for it.
  • Bobby Jindal should pay for it personally because he owes everything he has attained in his political life to the glaring blunder of Foster back in 1996: appointing Jindal head of the Department of Health and Hospitals at the tender age of 24 when he knew even less than he knows now about how things work.

The most absurd utterance of this entire sordid affair came from Foster himself when, in saying that the project came as a surprise to him, added, “I never liked to be the center of attention.” That ranks right up there with Jindal’s “I have the job I want.”

State Sen. Bret Allain (R-Jeanerette) said he included the project in the Capital Outlay Bill because he did not want Foster’s papers to be buried among a university’s collection, whatever that meant. Maybe he wants Foster to make him a governor the way he did Jindal.

No governor in Louisiana’s history has had his own library, museum or archives building. That’s what makes Jindal’s approval of Allain’s project so absurd—and outrageous and irresponsible.

Most Louisiana governors simply turn their papers over to the Secretary of State’s office where they are stored in the State Archives but Foster sent only those records involving state boards and commissions. Supposedly, everything else was taken to Franklin in a U-Haul towed by Foster on a Harley-Davidson 1450 cc V-twin (yeah, we had to Google that).

Of course with Jindal’s obsession with secrecy and the “deliberative process,” there won’t be a need for a museum or a library; any papers and records that he leaves behind can probably be stored in a cabinet beneath the bathroom sink—with room to spare.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables on October 15, 2013| 6 Comments »

“No member of a civil service commission and no officer or employee in the classified service shall participate or engage in political activity; be a candidate for nomination or election to public office except to seek election as the classified state employee serving on the State Civil Service Commission; or be a member of any national, state, or local committee of a political party or faction; make or solicit contributions for any political party, faction, or candidate.”

Article X, Part I, Paragraph 9 (A) of the Louisiana State Constitution.

“No person shall solicit contributions for political purposes from any classified employee or official or use or attempt to use his position in the state or city service to punish or coerce the political action of a classified employee.”

Article X, Part I, Paragraph 9 (B) of the Louisiana State Constitution.

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Civil Service rules prohibit campaign contributions by classied employees—unless you’re the governor’s mom

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Commissions, Ethics, Governor's Office, Toledo Bend, Water Sale, Water Reservoirs, Water Sales on October 15, 2013| 9 Comments »

For a man who has received more than $20 million in contributions to his various political campaigns, perhaps a half-million or so in questionable contributions shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. After all, that’s less than 2.5 percent of the total.

Still, for the man who set himself up as the beacon of all that’s pure and pristine, the one who established the “gold standard” of governmental ethics, the one who loves to boast (only in out-of-state speaking engagements, of course) of “the most transparent” administration in the state’s history, anything less than clean campaign money should be unacceptable.

Alas, such is simply not the case.

Even his mother, a state civil service employee, got into the act in open violation of civil service regulations, but more about that later.

We have written at various times of many of the contributions which appear to be directly related to appointments to state boards and commissions. Donald “Boysie” Bollinger was appointed last March to the State Police Commission and Aubrey Temple of Deridder was appointed in July of 2008 to the Coastal Protection and Restoration Financing Corp.

Together, the two men and their businesses and family members have combined to give Jindal’s campaigns at least $95,000 and three of their business associates, Red McCombs ($15,000), Corbin Robertson ($5,000) and James Weaver ($1,000) formed a partnership to purchase water from the Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Louisiana-Texas border for re-sale in Texas. That attempt, at first supported by Jindal, failed when the Sabine River Authority reversed itself and killed the deal at least for the time being.

Temple, meanwhile, was paid $400,000 by the Coushatta Tribe back in 2001 for undisclosed services but he was never able to give an accounting for how the money was used. Also involved with the Coushatta Tribe was Alexandria attorney Jimmy Faircloth, who chipped in another $23,000 to various Jindal campaigns and has since reaped more than $1 million in legal fees for defending the state in various legal proceedings, most of which saw the state end up on the losing end of key court decisions.

Faircloth, while serving as legal counsel for the Coushattas, advised the tribe to sink $30 million in a formerly bankrupt Israeli technology firm call MainNet for whom his brother Brandon was subsequently employed as vice president for sales. The investment, to no one’s surprise except perhaps Faircloth, proved to be a financial bust for the tribe.

This is the same tribe, with Faircloth as legal counsel, that Paid disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff $32 million to help promote and protect their gambling interests but who provided little in return for his fee.

Another Abramoff associate, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, also contributed $5,000 to Jindal. DeLay was convicted of scheming to influence Texas state elections with corporate money but a federal appeals court overturned that conviction last month.

There was the $55,000 in laundered money the Jindal campaign received in 2007. Richard Blossman, Jr., president of Central Progressive Bank of Lacombe in St. Tammany Parish, issued $5,000 “bonuses” to each of 11 board members but instead of giving them the money, 11 contributions of $5,000 each were funneled into the Jindal campaign in the names of the board members—without their knowledge or permission. Regulators subsequently took over the bank and Blossman was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for bank fraud.

Jindal has refused to return the money.

The State Board of Ethics also said River Birch, Inc., of Jefferson Parish formed six “straw man entities” through which it laundered $40,000 in illegal donations to Jindal.

Again, Jindal kept the money.

The governor accepted $158,500 in contributions from Lee Mallett and a host of his companies in Iowa, LA., and Lacassine and in return, Jindal appointed Mallett to the LSU Board of Supervisors—even though Mallett attended McNeese State University only briefly and received no degree. Jindal also had the Department of Corrections issue a directive to state parole and probation officers to funnel offenders into Mallett’s halfway house in Lacassine.

Jindal appointed Carl Shetler of Lake Charles to the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors in July of 2008 after Shetler, his family and businesses contributed $42,000 to Jindal. Shetler’s biggest claim to fame came when he managed to get McNeese placed on athletic probation by the NCAA after it was learned that he paid money to McNeese basketball players. Now he helps preside over the very school that he placed in jeopardy. So much for that “gold standard” of governmental ethics.

Jindal also accepted $2,500 from Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) which paid a record settlement of $2 billion to settle the largest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history. The founder and CEO of HCA was Rick Scott, later elected governor of Florida, for whom Jindal campaign extensively.

Speaking of Florida and records, Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein was disbarred and sentenced to prison for running the largest ($1.4 billion) Ponzi scheme in the state’s history but not before he, his wife, his law firm and three of his corporations contributed $30,000 at a 2008 Jindal fundraiser hosted by Rothstein.

Most news media found the $10,000 contributed by Rothstein and his law firm but missed his wife’s and the corporation contributions that totaled an additional $20,000. Jindal announced that he would refund the money to a victims’ fund but instead, gave the $30,000 to the Baton Rouge Food Bank.

Jindal also took $10,000 from Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) and later gave ACS employee Jan Cassidy, sister-in-law of Congressman Bill Cassidy, a state job with the Division of Administration. ACS, meanwhile, has come under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for certain accounting practices.

Then there was the $11,000 Jindal accepted from the medical trust fund of the Louisiana Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (LHBPA), whose board president, Sean Alfortish, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for conspiring to rig the elections of the association and then helping himself to money controlled by the association.

The association also was accused of paying $347,000 from its medical and pension trust funds to three law firms without a contract or evidence of work performed. A state audit said LHBPA improperly raided more than $1 million from its medical trust account while funneling money into political lobbying and travel to the Cayman Islands, Aruba, Costa Rica and Los Cabos, Mexico.

The association, created by the Louisiana Legislature in 1993, is considered a non-profit public body and as such, is prohibited from contributing to political campaigns.

Saving the best for last

All these were sufficiently questionable to tarnish the “Mr. Clean” image Jindal has attempted to burnish throughout his administration but the most blatant display of arrogance and complete disdain for campaign laws has to be three individual contributions in 2003 that totaled a mere $5,000—from Jindal’s mother.

So what’s wrong with a relative contributing to his campaign? Several family members, after all, gave to the campaign as do family members of many other candidates.

Well, nothing…except that his mother, Raj Jindal, is a classified state employee, according to Civil Service records, an IT Director 3 with the Louisiana Workforce Commission, formerly the State Department of Labor. She earns $118,000 per year and has been working for the state for 38 years, certainly long enough to know the prohibition against state classified employees being active in political campaigns. State employees, after all, are routinely sent periodic reminders of civil service regulations governing political activity.

Records provided by the State Ethics Commission campaign finance reports indicate that Raj Jindal contributed $3,000 on April 23, 2003, to son Bobby. Nine days later, on May 2, she contributed another $500 and on June 17, she chipped in an additional $1,500, bringing her total contributions to the $5,000 maximum allowable by law—for non-civil service employees.

Article X, Part I, Paragraph 9 of the Louisiana State Constitution says:

“Section 9.(A) Party Membership; Elections. No member of a civil service commission and no officer or employee in the classified service shall participate or engage in political activity; be a candidate for nomination or election to public office except to seek election as the classified state employee serving on the State Civil Service Commission; or be a member of any national, state, or local committee of a political party or faction; make or solicit contributions for any political party, faction, or candidate (emphasis ours); or take active part in the management of the affairs of a political party, faction, candidate, or any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen to express his opinion privately, to serve as a commissioner or official watcher at the polls, and to cast his vote as he desires.

“(B) Contributions. No person shall solicit contributions for political purposes from any classified employee or official (emphasis ours) or use or attempt to use his position in the state or city service to punish or coerce the political action of a classified employee.”

One veteran political observer said that unless Jindal solicited the contribution, all liability lies with the governor’s mother for the rules violation.

But Jindal is a big boy, as evidenced by his advice earlier this year to his fellow Republicans to put on their “big boy pants.” He has to accept the responsibility for allowing his mother to flaunt state civil service rules not once, not twice, but three times. And yes, she also should be held accountable for her violation of rules that apply to every other state civil service employee.

Now the only question remaining is what will the Civil Service Commission do about the governor’s mother violating state campaign regulations governing political activity by Civil Service employees?

Our best advice is: don’t hold your breath waiting for disciplinary action.

The rules obviously do not apply to this governor.

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