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Judge splits the baby in LouisianaVoice public records litigation; Nichols held personally liable for fine, costs

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Media, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Public Records on May 5, 2015| 9 Comments »

It’s curious how a judge can look directly at a clear violation of a law, yet somehow concoct a ruling favorable to the violator and completely disregard the rights of more than 4 million citizens of Louisiana.

That, in our humble (but admittedly biased) opinion was what occurred in the Baton Rouge courtroom of 19th Judicial District Judge Mike Caldwell on Monday.

At the risk of sounding like Bobby Jindal in calling a ruling that went against him “wrong-headed,” we will at least attempt to lay out the details of the case along with the reasons for Caldwell’s ruling so you may decide for yourself if justice was done.

Our lawsuit against the Division of Administration (DOA) and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols was based on four separate public records requests with which DOA took its sweet time in complying—and, in the case of the most egregious violation, did not comply for three full months and then only after we filed our lawsuit.

Caldwell did throw us a bone which, to our satisfaction, had a little meat on it. He held in our favor on one of the four requests, assessed $800 in fines plus court costs and (best of all) held Nichols personally liable.

So, unless there is an appeal, Nichols, and not the state, will be required to write a personal check and the money will not come out of the taxpayers’ pockets (of course the salary of DOA’s staff attorney is picked up by John Q. Public).

But back to the one that sticks in our craw and leaves us perplexed and angry at the manner in which Caldwell bent over backwards to let the state off the hook for the most flagrant violation, one that had he ruled differently, could have cost Nichols thousands more in fines.

In that case, we submitted a rather detailed request for public records on Oct. 14, 2014 relative to the state’s $500 million contract with a California outfit called MedImpact, which is contracted to administer the Office of Group Benefits’ pharmaceutical program.

At the same time, we had a legislator to make a nearly identical though somewhat less detailed request through the House Legislative Services Office (HLSO).

HLSO received an email at 3:15 p.m. on Oct 23 to the effect its records were already downloaded to a CD and would be delivered by DOA. Here is the content of that email:

“You requested the MedImpact contract, Notice of Intent to Contract, ratings, and recommendations for awarding the contract. Please note the contract contains some proprietary and/or confidential information that has been redacted under La. R.S. 44:3.1. We have scanned these records. They are too large to email, so I can bring a CD over. I heard you’re out of the office. Do you want me to drop it off for you or wait until you get back?”

The records were actually delivered to the House offices on Oct. 24, 2014.

For our part, we found it necessary to send a second request on Oct. 19 because DOA had failed to respond to our initial request as required by law. Here is that section of the law, courtesy of the Public Affairs Research Council (PAR):

  • “If not in “active use” when requested, the record must be “immediately presented.” The custodian is required to delete the confidential portion of a record and make the remainder available. If it is unreasonably burdensome or expensive for the custodian to separate the public portion of the record from the confidential portion, the custodian must provide a written statement explaining why. If the record is in “active use,” the agency must “promptly certify this in writing” and set a day and an hour within three working days from receipt of the request when the record will be available.” http://www.parlouisiana.com/citizensrightscard.cfm#exempted

 

Remember that part about “unreasonably burdensome and the requirement for a written statement from the custodian of the record. We will be referring back to that part because Judge Caldwell took it upon himself to determine the unreasonableness of our request even though the state never made that argument. Thus, Judge Caldwell made the state’s argument for them.

When I made my second request, I received a response on Oct. 21 estimating the records would be available “on or before October 31, 2014.” Here is a copy of that email:

  • From: Tameika Richard
  • Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 12:21 PM To: ‘azspeak@cox.net’
  • Subject: PRR re: Pharmacy Benefit Management RFP

“Mr. Aswell,

Pursuant to your public records request, we are still searching for records and/or reviewing them for exemptions and privileges. Once finished with the review process, all non-exempt records will be made available to you. It is estimated the records will be available on or before October 31, 2014.

Public Records Requests

Division of Administration

State of Louisiana

Email: doapublicrecords@la.gov”

 

We still had not received the records by the time we filed our lawsuit on Jan. 16, 2015, but almost miraculously, they were delivered to our attorney’s office on Jan. 23, precisely one week after the lawsuit was filed.

So, taking DOA’s promised delivery date of Oct. 31, 2014, and projecting it out to Jan. 23, 2015, discounting about 10 holidays and several weekends (which don’t count), DOA still should have been looking at penalties of upwards of $5,000 on just that one request.

But, Caldwell mused, our request was “broad,” making it difficult for DOA to comply in a timely manner. “I’ve had experience in other cases involving voluminous requests for information where much redaction had to be done (nothing was redacted from the records we received), so I know how difficult it can be for the state to drop everything and meet your demand,” he volunteered. Accordingly, he disallowed our request for damages—again, despite the state’s never having put forward the burdensome argument. But then, why should they when an obliging judge will do it for them?

Moreover, the $800 fine he did assess against Nichols was far less than it should have been for that one violation. The records in that case (travel records for OGB personnel) were first made on October 4, 2014, and we were told the records did not exist. We re-submitted our request in December, but the records were not made available until Feb. 18, 2015.

That fine should have been in excess of $3,000, not $800.

There are several conclusion we can draw from this:

  • Judge Caldwell completely missed—or ignored—the part where DOA promised the records “on or before October 31, 2014;”
  • His honor overrated the difficulty in producing records that already existed and were in the possession of DOA;
  • The judge has little concern for the public’s right to know what its government does, nor he have any sympathy for those who work to report those actions;
  • He simply could not bring himself to impose such a heavy fine against Nichols personally despite the clear intent of the law—so he arbitrarily set a low fine for the one request and simply denied the others.

At this point, we don’t know if the state will appeal Caldwell’s judgment. We can’t imagine Nichols rolling over so easily and writing a check for $800, plus costs and attorney fees. After all, the attorneys work for the state, not her, so what does she have to lose with an appeal?

As for us, we still must meet with our attorneys to decide how to proceed with a partial victory coupled with a stinging loss.

But the question here is just what will it take to get the courts to pay attention to what the state is doing and use the power of the bench to force compliance with the law? How long will the courts simply look the other way to the detriment of the citizenry’s right to know?

We’re told that Judge Caldwell is a good judge and a fair man but we certainly don’t feel as though we received fair treatment before him.

No, we didn’t go to law school and we don’t hold a law license. But we can read and the law is quite clear on the demands placed on governmental agencies to comply with public records laws. There is no ambiguity on that point.

And one other thing: If Kristy Nichols thinks we’re going to fold our tent and skulk away, she’s in for a rude awakening. We’re not going anywhere. There will be other requests and in cases of non-compliance, there will be more litigation.

That’s a solemn promise.

 

 

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LouisianaVoice v. LA. DOA goes to trial Monday; we need your help to defray legal costs that will continue on appeal

Posted in Corruption, DOA, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Public Records on May 3, 2015| 10 Comments »

 

LouisianaVoice needs your support—moral and financial—now more than ever.

The trial on our lawsuit against the Division of Administration begins on Monday (May 4) as we try to hold the administration accountable on the production of public records so that we may keep you informed on events as they take place.

Unfortunately, this administration is trying to see to it—deliberately, we are convinced, that we are not able to provide vital information about the machinations of your state government in a timely manner.

We have already told you about the records request we submitted simultaneously with an identical request by the House Legislative Service Office. The legislature got its records—the same ones we requested—within 10 days; we didn’t get ours until three months later and then only after we filed our lawsuit.

The Division of Administration (DOA) is currently sitting on another request or ours. We again made simultaneously requests of DOA and an office under DOA. The office in question responded with the records within three days or our request. It’s been nearly two weeks and we’re still waiting for DOA to comply.

This is the battle we fight almost daily with the Jindal administration—and they have said in their response to our lawsuit that they do not deliberately delay complying with our requests, that they do not single us out for delay.

That simply does not square with what a former DOA employee told us: DOA routinely gets our requested records and simply stacks them in a corner for weeks at a time before notifying us that we may inspect them.

DOA has—and continues to—open defy us in violation of the state’s public records laws (R.S. 44:1 et seq.).

But even more absurd, in its response to our petition, DOA claims that I have not suffered monetary loss, so the court should not assess damages against the state. That is in direct contradiction to the statute which sets fines of $100 per day for non-compliance. Period. The statute makes no mention of any requirement that the one requesting the records suffer monetary loss as a prerequisite for the assessment of a fine.

Were it not for quick access to the legislature’s public records (which are readily available, with no delay tactics or word games) by LouisianaVoice, that $55,000-a-year retirement pay raise for State Police Col. Mike Edmonson would have gone through.

Were it not for acquisition of public records from the Department of Education (in another, successful lawsuit) by LouisianaVoice, private records of hundreds of thousands of Louisiana public school students would have been made available to Rupert Murdoch of Fox News.

This is what we do.

And it costs money and untold hours of dogged research.

To continue our legal fight, we need your help.

If we win on Monday, DOA is certain to appeal.

If DOA wins, we most certainly will appeal. They believe they can starve us out with legal costs but we won’t back down.

Either way, the costs are going to continue to climb from what we’ve already laid out in expenses.

Please click on the Donate Button with Credit Cards button (not here, but near the top right part of our web page) to donate by credit card.

If your receive e-mail notices to our posts, you will need to click on Read more of this post or pull up the full web site by clicking on https://louisianavoice.com/

If you prefer to mail checks or money orders, please make payable to:

Capitol News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

 

Whichever way you choose to contribute, your help in our fight to make state government more transparent and accountable is both needed and appreciated.

Thank you.

Tom Aswell, editor

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Jindal, with his weekly email self-flagellation, could have promising future as a member of Catholic order Opus Dei

Posted in Governor's Office, Politicians on May 3, 2015| 6 Comments »

When Bobby Jindal’s presidential aspirations are finally dashed against the hard rocks of political reality—as they most assuredly will be—he will still have career options available to him, including one obscure choice conspicuously overlooked by all the pundits thus far.

While there has been some speculation that Jindal may be trolling for a vice presidential spot or even a cabinet position while positioning himself for a run four or eight years down the road, no one has even broached the possibility that his true calling may be that as a member of the Catholic order Opus Dei.

The Opus Dei order, featured in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, is known for its use of “corporal mortification,” or “mortification of the flesh,” the act of voluntarily punishing one’s own body as a form of spiritual discipline.

God knows Jindal has honed the art of self-inflicted pain to an art form.

Whether or not it is a form of penance for him is another story but there is no question that the man has the discipline to keep putting himself on display as an object of public ridicule and it’s got to be painful.

It’s certainly painful to those of us on the sidelines as we watch this train wreck of a politician who came on the scene eight years ago with so much promise only to plunge the State of Louisiana into its own version of the Great Depression.

It’s only appropriate, since he has already performed an exorcism, and given what he has done to our state, that he move on to the next logical step—self-flogging with metaphoric cattail whips on the national stage so the rest of the country can learn, at long last, who the real Bobby Jindal is.

The most blatant example of what we are talking about here is his weekly email blast by the Friends of Jesus Bobby Jindal that he sends out highlighting (if you want to call it that) Jindal’s activities for the previous week. http://click.bsftransmit7.com/ViewInBrowser.aspx?pubids=393%7c445%7c721821%7c9278&digest=qSZxfCGR0e%2bH%2fH85ZQu3zg&sysid=1

If one were to set out to combine self-abuse with self-aggrandizement in a single document, this would be the pattern to use.

Never in our career of watching and writing about politics (which spans more than four decades) have we seen such a sophomoric attempt at promoting oneself. The web page reminds us of the social misfit who has an uncanny knack of saying and doing the most inappropriate things at the most awkward moments even as the rest of the party tries its best to ignore him.

This week’s dispatch featured a list of what appeared to be favorable reviews of Jindal’s most recent appearance in Iowa. Here are some of the headlines from that email:

            Bobby Jindal is barely breaking 2 percent in Iowa polls — but you’d never know it from the way he wowed the crowd at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition summit on Saturday. The Republican governor from Louisiana is one of nine presidential hopefuls speaking at the Des Moines-area confab, which gathers evangelical Christians together to judge the GOP candidates’ social conservative bona fides.

            Jindal brought to the stage a fast-talking, folksy, preacher-like quality that immediately resonated with the crowd.

            “Our God is an awesome God, can I get an amen?!” he began, spreading his arms wide and striding away from the podium. “Amen!” the audience responded loudly.

            Veering away from policy specifics, Jindal instead spoke at length about his personal journey to Christ – thanking his high school friend for giving him his first Bible and describing the moment he came to Jesus during a choir performance at LSU. Moving seamlessly from soul-searching spirituality to tongue-in-cheek quips about himself and his family, the governor’s speech was interrupted more frequently by raucous laughter than applause.

            Even after shifting from his own spiritual experience to the politics of religious liberty, Jindal kept the audience in rapt attention. “Here’s my message for Hollywood and the media elite,” he shouted, in the first standing ovation of the evening. “The United States of America did not create religious liberty. Religious liberty created the United States of America!”

            In another winning line echoing a promise he made in a Thursday New York Times op-ed, Jindal promised evangelicals that – unlike in Indiana — he would not be swayed from his support of a new religious freedom law working its way through the Louisiana legislature.

            “We saw corporate America team up with the radical left to come after our religious liberty rights,” he said, referring to Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s fight against gay rights groups after he signed a religious freedom law last month. “They might as well save their breath, because corporate America is not gonna bully the governor of Louisiana!”

            The discrepancy between Jindal’s knockout performance and his dismal Iowa poll numbers is noteworthy, a sign that perhaps the Louisiana governor should invest more time in the state.

            Iowa City resident Patrick Nefzger, who called Jindal’s speech “wonderful,” had a straightforward answer when asked when asked why Jindal’s poll numbers didn’t reflect the strong response he received Saturday night. “That’s because they don’t know who he is,” he said simply.

As to why Jindal’s poll numbers are so abysmal in Louisiana? We know who he is.

  • Bloomberg: “Jindal, The Louisiana Governor, May Have Helped His Standing With A Speech That Received One Of The Strongest Reactions Of The Night” (in focusing on recent events in Indiana, where Republican lawmakers modified new religious-freedom laws after critics said they could be used to discriminate against gays).

            “We saw corporate America team up with the radical left,” Jindal said, drawing applause.

            “They might as well save their breath because corporate America is not going to bully the governor of Louisiana,” he said. “The real discrimination that is being faced today are Christians—individuals, families, and business owners—that shouldn’t have to choose between operating their business and following their conscience, their traditional views, and their religious beliefs.”

This from a guy who owes his political soul to corporate America.

  • The Hill:

 

            “Jindal also reiterated on Thursday that he would not create his own exchange if the Supreme Court ruled against healthcare subsidies, which could put millions in his state at risk of losing their coverage.

“‘We would not set up an exchange,’” he said.

  • Bloomberg again (quoting from voter Jeff Ortiz, a wind energy company supervisor, commenting on Jindal):

 

            “He’s heard every one of the ’16 GOP hopefuls speak already, he says, and is leaning toward Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, ‘but I don’t know how he’d sell to the farmers.’ Last time, he backed Texas Governor Rick Perry, ‘but he didn’t give intelligent answers in the debates—doesn’t have a quick enough mind.’”

All this from Jindal’s very own self–promoting self-flagellation weekly email blast.

 

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LouisianaVoice launches May fundraiser to help defray costs of legal battle with Jindal administration over public records

Posted in DOA, Finances, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Legislature, Media, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on May 1, 2015| 5 Comments »

LouisianaVoice is launching its third fundraiser during the month of May and while past support has been appreciated more than you could ever know, this one has a greater sense of urgency to it than before.

Where the previous fundraisers helped defray the costs of travel and paying for public records, etc., this one will be used for an even more expensive—and more important—endeavor: covering mounting legal costs.

We are currently engaged in a court battle with the Division of Administration (DOA) over DOA’s pattern of delay in complying with the state’s public records laws (R.S. 44:1 et seq.).

To illustrate DOA’s tactics, here is one glaring example:

Last October 14, we made an official FOIA request for information pertaining to the $350 million contract between the Office of Group Benefits and a California company called MedImpact.

Believing DOA was deliberately stalling in complying with our requests, we had a friendly (but unidentified) legislator make the identical request through the House Legislative Services Office. That request was submitted the same day (Oct. 14, 2014) as our request.

On Oct. 21, 2014, we received the following response to our request:

  • Pursuant to your public records request, we are still searching for records and/or reviewing them for exemptions and privileges. Once finished with the review process, all non-exempt records will be made available to you. It is estimated the records will be available on or before October 31, 2014.

The House Legislative Services Office spokesperson received the following response to its request from DOA two days later, on Oct. 23, 2014:

  • You requested the MedImpact contract, Notice of Intent to Contract, ratings, and recommendations for awarding the contract. Please note the contract contains some proprietary and/or confidential information that has been redacted under La. R.S. 44:3.1. We have scanned these records. They are too large to email, so I can bring a CD over. I heard you’re out of the office. Do you want me to drop it off for you or wait until you get back?

So we were promised the records eight days later than the House Legislative Services Office and while that illustrates a deliberate delay on DOA’s part, it was not completely unreasonable and was hardly a basis for litigation. It didn’t even upset us that DOA would hand deliver the records to the legislature but require that I drive in from Denham Springs to review them.

But the fact is we never received the records—until, that is, after we filed our lawsuit in January of 2015. Once the lawsuit was filed, of course, they were immediately delivered to our attorney’s office—nearly three months after they had been delivered across the street to the legislature.

That was just the most egregious case, but we actually filed our lawsuit on the basis of  shorter but nevertheless unnecessary—and purposeful—delays in compliance with other several other requests.

The records we have requested are for actions by agencies of the state which affect you, the taxpayer. Because most media outlets are concerned with only the surface treatment of news stories, we attempt to pry deeper into the cause and effect aspect of state government—relationships between vendor and vendee, between elected officials and campaign donors, between contributions and contracts and board appointments. In short, we follow the money.

Government in general is uncomfortable with this and this administration in particular abhors scrutiny. That’s why DOA had instituted a deliberate strategy of delay when it comes to complying with our records requests. One former employee of DOA told us that it was common practice for DOA to get the records we request and then simply let them sit in a corner for weeks at a time before finally allowing us to inspect them. This is not the way to build trust between the government and the governed.

And it is not acceptable to us.

That is the reason we filed suit.

Our lawsuit is scheduled for trial this month and no matter which way the judge rules, the decision is quite likely to move to the First Circuit Court of Appeal. It’s that important to us if we lose and apparently, it’s equally important that the administration hide its actions from public examination.

Either way, it has already cost us a lot of money in terms of legal fees. And an appeal is going to cost a lot more. If we win, DOA will appeal in an attempt to make it cost-prohibitive to fight them by forcing us to continue paying legal costs until our resources are exhausted and we allow the case to abandon. That’s what happened with the case of a dentist who was pursuing legal action against the State Dentistry Board. DOA has attorneys on staff being paid with your tax dollars; it’s not costing Kristy Nichols a dime to stay in the game.

That is why we need your help now more than ever.

Please click on the Donate Button with Credit Cards button near the top right part of our web page to donate by credit card.

If your receive e-mail notices to our posts, you will need to click on Read more of this post or pull up the full web site by clicking on https://louisianavoice.com/

If you prefer to mail checks or money orders, please make payable to:

Capitol News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

Whichever way you choose to contribute, your help in our fight to make state government more transparent and accountable is both needed and appreciated.

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LSU students march on State Capitol in protest to higher education budget cuts: but Jindal out of state (as usual)

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Economy, Education, Elections, Finances, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Huey Long, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Vitter on April 30, 2015| 25 Comments »

It’s funny in a sick, perverted kind of way when you think about it.

Come to think of it though, that’s entirely appropriate; the Bobby Jindal administration has been nothing but seven years of sick, perverted exercises in futility and failed policies. It’s enough to make other states laugh at us—and they probably are.

Foremost among his many efforts at “reform” preached by this incoherent governor is his insistence on something he refers to as “freedom of choice” for parents of students in grades K-12. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/10/jindal-urges-parental-choice-limited-government-and-end-to-teacher-tenure-in-sweeping-education-policy-plan/

Speaking at the Brookings Institute in 2012, he said the U.S. does not provide equal opportunity in education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDCU-VlSgX0

Yet, when it comes to freedom of choice and equal opportunity for students in Louisiana’s colleges and universities, Jindal appears perfectly willing to “let them eat cake.”

Even as LSU and other universities and colleges face financial exigency in the face of another round of budget cuts, this time as much as $600 million and as more than 1,000 LSU students marched on the State Capitol on Thursday in protest, where was Jindal?

Out of state, as usual.

Damn him.

Damn his blasé attitude toward doing his job as the elected governor of Louisiana at a time when the state is in dire need of leadership.

Damn his resolve not to repeal corporate tax breaks, his administrations’ failure to properly audit severance tax payments to the oil and gas companies who have bankrolled his campaigns to the tune of about $1 million.

JINDAL SWINDLE

Following the rally Thursday, dozens of students converged on the Senate Education Committee which was meeting in the bowels of the Capitol. The five committee members, who for the most part, talked among themselves instead of listening as a witnessed testified on a bill about student records, paid the obligatory lip service in welcoming the students and then politely suggested they move up one floor to the Senate Finance Committee “because that’s where the money is,” according to one member.

Except it isn’t there. There is no money because of Jindal’s haphazard, slipshod, snow-cone stand brand of administration.

One Education Committee member even suggested that the students keep going—up “to the fourth floor.”

“Except no one’s there,” said another member, eliciting laughter at probably the most accurate statement made thus far this session.

It’s not, of course, as though Jindal is solely to blame for this fiasco. The legislature is complicit in allowing him to run roughshod over the citizens of this state on his way out the door and (he somehow still believes) to the White House.

If you don’t believe the legislators must share the blame in this, then explain how an attempt this week to finally accept Medicaid funds to help provide health care for 240,000 low-income Louisianians never got out of committee. Explain how attempts to increase the minimum wage and close the gender wage gap fail time after time but somehow legislation to allow the teaching that the earth is only 9,000 years old passes muster.

Therefore, the protest by the LSU students, one of those demonstrations inspired by social media, was the perfect opportunity for the four announced candidates for governor in this fall’s election.

It would have been if they had all showed up. Perhaps that’s why State Representative John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) and the lone Democrat among the four candidates, got such an enthusiastic response from the students crowded onto the steps in front of the Capitol.

JOHN BEL EDWARDS

Rep. John Bel Edwards addresses LSU students on Thursday (click on image to enlarge).

Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, the only one of the four to hold an undergraduate degree from LSU and a former LSU Student Government President was apparently so busy he could only send a representative from his office. A missed opportunity if there ever was one.

Edwards tried to downplay the significance of that. “Well, to be fair, I was already in the building,” he laughed. “I didn’t have to go far.”

But neither did Dardenne. His office is across the street from the Capitol and LSU’s right fielder could probably peg a strike to his office window from the Capitol steps.

But Public Service Commission member Scott Angelle and U.S. Sen. David Vitter also were conspicuously absent. Nor was a single member of the LSU Board of Supervisors in attendance.

Of course, it would have been a sham for Angelle to make an appearance. He is, after all, joined at the hip with Jindal. Granted, Angelle was a Kathleen Blanco holdover, but held over he was and Jindal even made him his legislative liaison. Jindal also named him as interim Lieutenant Governor when Mitch Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans, and then appointed him to the LSU Board of Supervisors (that’s the same board that fires LSU presidents on a whim, costs the state hundreds of thousands of dollars defending a defenseless attempt to deny access to public records, and which gives away state hospitals in a deal that had been rejected by the federal government). http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2015/03/lsu_board_jindal_resign.html

But why Vitter didn’t show is something of a mystery; there were so many attractive co-eds at the protest, after all.

Edwards told the students that he has “spent seven years fighting Jindal’s budgets. I did not vote for the budget last year and my solemn promise to you is that I will never vote for a budget that cuts funding for higher education.”

Edwards, who holds his undergraduate degree from West Point, received his law degree from LSU Law School. He told the students they are facing the potential of a 90 percent increase in tuition this fall. As expected, that was met with a chorus of boos. “No state has cut funding to higher education more than Louisiana,” he said. “I have a personal interest in seeing higher education fully funded. My daughter is a freshman at LSU.

“If you look behind you, you see a statue of Huey Long,” he said. “Say what you will about Huey Long, but at a time this state was in the throes of the Great Depression, Huey Long found money to build LSU, build roads and bridges throughout the state and to establish a great state hospital system. If he could find money to do all that during the Depression, we should be able to fund education today.”

But as Jindal prattles on about choice for students of K-12, he seems to have forgotten about the choice of post-secondary students: the choice to obtain an affordable education, the choice to remain in Louisiana and attend a tier 1 university, the choice to avoid devastating student loans that put graduates in deep financial holes even before their careers begin.

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