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Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category

House members stick around for per diem but leave before adjournment of Joint Committee studying hospital closures

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Transparency on October 5, 2012| 5 Comments »

Thursday’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Health and Welfare was a critical meeting in that committee members were considering massive cutbacks to the LSU healthcare system and the impending layoffs of nearly 1500 employees at seven of the 10 hospitals in the LSU system.

One might think that a meeting such as this might important enough to merit the testimony of Bobby Yarborough, member and former chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors.

One would be wrong.

Yarborough, who also served as campaign finance chairman for Jindal’s re-election campaign last year (he’s a busy man), might also have spoken up in his capacity as chairman of the University Medical Center Management Corp. Board.

But he did not.

Nor did anyone from the administration of one Piyush Jindal appear to justify cuts of more than $300 million that will necessarily cause significant reductions to the availability of health care to Louisiana’s uninsured poor—and even insured Louisiana residents who are geographically depending on facilities such as Bogalusa Medical Center, one of those slated for cutbacks.

Instead, Dr. Frank Opelka, chief of the LDU system health care, was left to defend the cuts and to withstand withering questioning from members of the joint committee.

It might also be expected that for a meeting as important as this one was, all members would be in attendance, but that also was not the case.

Absent from the entire four-hour session were Sens. Dan Claitor (R) and Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb (D) of Baton Rouge and ex-officio member Rep. Walt Leger (D-New Orleans).

House members attending the meeting included committee Chairman Scott Simon (R-Abita Springs), Frank Hoffman, vice chair (R-West Monroe), John Anders (D-Vidalia), Kenny Cox (D-Natchitoches), A.B. Franklin (D-Lake Charles), Lance Harris (R-Alexandria), Kenneth Havard (R-Jackson), Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville), Dorothy Sue Hill (D-Dry Creek), Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe), H. Bernard LeBas (D-Ville Platte), John Morris (R-Monroe), Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs), Lenar Whitney (R-Houma), Patrick Williams (D-Shreveport), Thomas Willmott (R-Kenner) and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, ex officio (R-Lake Charles.

Senators present on Thursday included Chairman David Heitmeier (D-New Orleans), Fred Mills, vice chairman (R-New Iberia), R.L. “Bret” Allain, II (R-Franklin), Sherri Smith Buffington (R-Keithville), Dale Erdey (R-Livingston), Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas), Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa), and Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego).

Even more difficult to understand, however, was the early exit of many of those who did attend. Several were there long enough to qualify for their $149 per diem checks, plus 55.5 cents per mile (round trip) for travel, but were not present near the conclusion of the session when Nevers attempted to push through a resolution requesting the LSU Board of Supervisors and Dr. Opelka to delay implementation of any cuts until all plans have been finalized and presented to the legislature.

While there was a sufficient contingency of senators to mount a quorum, more than half the House members had departed, leaving Simon with no choice but to disallow any vote on Nevers’s motion under House rules.

Rep. Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs), one of those who stayed until the end, said he could not speak for those who left and did not know the reasons for their departure. “They may have had things to do but you know, this is an important issue and we were elected to look out for the best interests of our constituents. I took an oath of office and I felt obligated to remain until adjournment.”

Pope said he is fully aware of the budgetary crisis, but said health care for the poor is imperative. “There are going to be cutbacks in services rendered but we need to make wise decisions on what is cut and where.

“I don’t like a lot of things this governor is doing,” he added. “I especially do not like what he has done and is doing to education in this state.

“Sure, we have problems in education, but you don’t scrap the whole system. We have bad governors in this country, too, but we can’t just throw them all out and start over. It’s not that easy. You work within the system to improve it; you don’t destroy the system.”

Pope said he was aware that Jindal does not like criticism. “But I’ve criticized him in the past so I know I’m among those on the outside.”

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Transparency on October 5, 2012| 2 Comments »

“I would like to make a motion that the Joint Health and Welfare Committee urge and request the LSU Board of Supervisors and Dr. (Frank) Opelka (head of the LSU Health System) to delay implementation of any cuts to the LSU hospitals until plans have been finalized that will ensure patients of the LSU hospital system that they will continue to receive services and where they (services) will be administered.

“I think we all deserve the plan and they should hold up on the cuts until such time as they present the plan.”

–Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, at the conclusion of the four-hour hearing by the Joint Legislative Committee on Health and Welfare on Thursday, held to consider proposed cuts and closures of parts or all of seven of the 10 hospitals in the LSU system.

“Mr. Chairman, I would like you to consider allowing the senators to vote on the motion even though there’s not a quorum. We have a quorum of Senate members; they’re here and ready to do business.”

–Nevers again, on being told that House rules prohibited the committee’s voting on the motion. (Committee Chairman Rep. Scott Simon, R-Abita Springs, again refused, citing House rules. There was no explanation as to why House members vacated the committee meeting before its conclusion.)

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Education loading up with badly needed PR types (at six figures); meanwhile charter school vultures are circling

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs on September 25, 2012| 6 Comments »

The scene at the Louisiana Department of Education on Monday and Tuesday could best be described as something slightly less than a feeding frenzy—but barely.

In show business, the auditioning for acting roles is referred to a cattle call. For Louisiana charter school wannabes, it’s called a request for applications and after the July 31 deadline for applications, applicant interviews were scheduled for Sept. 24-25—Monday and Tuesday of this week.

But you would never know that by making an inquiry of the department’s public information department.

When asked about the beehive of activity in the building on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the public information office allowed as he had no knowledge of what was going on.

Perhaps that is why State Superintendent of Education John White is paying $12,000 per month for a part time communications manager for the department—even though he already has a full time press secretary.

Just in case your math is a little rusty, that computes to $144,000 per year, although Deirdre Finn, the former deputy chief of staff for former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, is being contracted for only four months, from July 23 to Nov. 30, but may be renewed for up to three years.

She replaces René Greer who was paid $110,000.

And get this: She will be working part time, dividing her duties between Baton Rouge and Tallahassee.

All while, the Baton Rouge Advocate noted Monday, state aid to public education has been frozen for four years and public school districts have been forced to lay off teachers.

Does the word arrogant carry a special meaning here?

That, of course, begs the question of whether she will obtain a Louisiana license plate for her vehicle. She will probably follow the example of Carol Steckel, chief of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology who says she maintains her primary residence in Alabama and does not intend to remain in Louisiana. In other words, it’s a virtual (DOE loves that word) certainty that she will not register her car in this state; ergo, no Louisiana license plate, no tax revenue from high-priced, out-of-state workers who were hired because there obviously was no one in Louisiana qualified to churn out PR flak.

(We would love to do a story about the number of out-of-state types have been hired at six-figure salaries and to give their individual and cumulative salaries but that would take some serious digging in all the state agencies.)

Jindal policy director Stafford Palmieri and DHH chief technology officer Zachary Jiwa are two other administration hires who neglected to pay taxes in Louisiana by obtaining state license plates for their vehicles.

The same question may well be asked of Heather Cope of Seattle who has been hired as the new executive director of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) at $125,000 per year.

One of her first tasks will be the hiring of a counterpart to Finn for BESE, a move that is unprecedented for the board at a time when state civil service employees have gone without a pay raise for more than three years.

The proposed hiring also has caught the attention of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro), who said the proposed hiring of public relations employees may warrant attention from his committee. “If they have those extra dollars, they may have more money than they need in their budget,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he added.

When asked about the part-time status of Finn and of her splitting her time between Baton Rouge and Tallahassee, the same public information spokesperson said, “We don’t have a problem with that. She’s always available when we need her.”

Well, so are those 900 phone number operators. Of course, we hear they charge by the minute and that they’re pretty expensive, too.

We’ve heard of working from home, but when that home is in another state…?

While Jindal and his minions continue hell bent on their objective to hire at least one executive from each of the other 49 states, the charter school vultures were circling the department Monday and Tuesday.

Word was every available room in the Claiborne Building was being used for interviews with charter school applicants.

The guard desk in the building foyer contained a temporary sign instructing charter applicants to sign in as a group (not as individuals) and to wait until called for interviews.

Throughout the foyer, groups of proposed charter schools milled and talked among themselves and inside the cafeteria nearly every table was occupied with charter school representatives waiting for their turn for interviews.

Many of these were church-affiliated charter schools that will be subjected to none of the accountability required of public schools. Others were for-profit schools. All of them were casting greedy eyes at funding that will be ripped from local school boards to finance their schools.

And we haven’t even mentioned the online computer courses for which other vultures are circling or the vouchers that will further decimate public education.

In fact, the department has been saying for weeks that it will have names and social security numbers for students given vouchers so that local school districts the voucher students leave can cross-check them against students they know are attending the public schools.

The last word two weeks ago was that State Superintendent John White told the school districts he would have the information in a week. But as yet—nothing.

The times, they are a-changing but not necessarily for the better.

Just what is the arrogance saturation level for this state?

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π-yush takes a powder, ducks the issues…again but Vitter’s cowardice eclipses D.C. Madam scandal in pure sleaziness

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, Taxes, Transparency, Vitter, Vouchers on September 21, 2012| 11 Comments »

This is about arrogance. More specifically, it is about the arrogance of two men, both from Louisiana and each elected to represent his constituents to the best of his ability.

And to that end, each has failed miserably while taking his individual insolence to new levels—in very different ways. One we have written about extensively in the past. The other, not so much, though perhaps he may well warrant closer attention in the future.

We are talking about Gov. Piyush Jindal and U.S. Sen. David Vitter.

The first, Jindal, has repeatedly displayed his cowardice, his spinelessness, by taking actions to close state facilities without bothering to notify affected legislators of his plans in advance. He has consistently ignored the plight of hundreds of state employees he forced into unemployment by cutting services and corporate taxes, further exacerbating the state’s budgetary crisis.

Vitter’s vote on a Senate bill last week can only described as despicable and hypocritical.

We will get to him presently.

It was not enough that Jindal announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville and C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in Dequincy without extending the courtesy of a heads up to the legislative delegation in southeast and southwest Louisiana, the two areas affected.

But in doing so, he appeared to give little regard to or concern for the hundreds of employees at the two facilities who will be adversely impacted by layoffs or, in a few cases, transfers.

Then, on the heels of the announcement of the C. Paul Phelps closure The Baton Rouge League of Women Voters held a panel discussion to discuss Jindal’s continued privatization of state agencies, including the Office of Risk Management, the Office of Group Benefits, charter schools, educational vouchers, state hospital privatization and Medicaid cutbacks.

Invited to attend were representatives of the Jindal administration and proponents of privatization as well as four opponents, including an education coalition representative and Dr. Fred Cerise, former head of the LSU Health Care System.

One end of the head table was fully represented. On the other end, not a single person appeared on behalf of the administration. Cowardice. If an administration cannot publicly defend its actions—and make no mistake, Jindal never does—then that can only be described as cowardly.

Oh, they all had excuses. Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater said he had to attend a State Bond Commission meeting. But that meeting was over before the panel forum began across town. Bottom line, no one from the administration could—or would—find the time to defend the governor’s program.

Of course, Jindal had plenty time to attend a Republican unity breakfast in New Hampshire a week before and agreed to participate in a Sept. 26 Leaders of Iowans for Freedom “No Wiggins” bus tour—a rally in opposition to the re-election of Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins who voted with the majority to rule the state’s one-man, one-woman marriage law unconstitutional.

We have to wonder how our governor, who, metaphorically speaking, has more snakes than he can kill right here at home, can find time to involve himself in a supreme court race in Iowa. Does the state Medicaid budget’s gaping budget hole not keep him sufficiently occupied without his having to traipse off to Iowa? Isn’t the fiscal plight of the state’s colleges and universities of enough concern to deter him from having breakfast in New Hampshire?

Or could it be more than mere coincidence that the first presidential primary and party caucus will be in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, in about three years? Could Jindal be that brazen, that disturbingly obvious? Well, yes. Could he really be that delusional, fooling himself into thinking he has a prayer? Yes again.

Piyush would be wise to awaken to the realization that Timmy Teepell is no Karl Rove.

LouisianaVoice has submitted a public records request to determine the cost of Jindal’s two trips including costs not only for Jindal, but for his security detail and any staff members who went along, including travel, lodging, meals and salaries—and including Jindal’s pro-rated salary for the days he is out of state.

Just for argument’s sake, let us say he made each trip in a single day. Giving his annual salary of $130,000, that would mean he should rebate the state a minimum $712 in salary while he was out of state attending to non-governor-type business—plus all the other expenses incurred on the trip for him and his entourage.

Now let’s talk about Vitter.

There was a bill up for a vote in the Senate last week. The Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 would have made it easier for veterans in the future to transition to civilian life.

With veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars experiencing unemployment rates 3 percent higher than the general population, the bill would have put a lot of those veterans to work.

A majority (58-40) voted for the bill but that was two votes short of the three-fifths majority needed to overcome a budgetary point of order thrown up by Republicans.

Republicans said the bill violated the Budget Control Act by adding a program that would increase the deficit. Only five Republicans voted for the bill.

Vitter was one of 40 Republicans who voted no.

That’s correct. U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), given a chance to vote up or down on a measure to help veterans, chose to vote down.

We’re talking about a $16 trillion deficit and the Republicans were quibbling over a budget item of $200 million per year over five years.

Given the propensity of Republicans to consistently vote for larger and larger appropriations for the Pentagon and military contractors and given Republicans’ support of two wars that have cost this country more than $4 trillion, a $1 billion appropriation to help our veterans re-enter the work force should not seem so unreasonable.

Given that most of these Republican chicken hawks have never experienced military service, it certainly is curious that they are so reluctant to lend a hand once these military personnel have sacrificed so much to defend the rhetoric of the pompous congressmen who while beating their collective breasts, are so quick, yea eager, to send them off to war.

It is heartless enough that military personnel with traumatic head injuries are unable to obtain adequate or timely medical treatment once they are no longer useful as fighters and as unwitting enablers of military contractors who milk the Pentagon budget of untold billions of dollars in unchecked cost overruns and outright fraud.

But when it came time to put his money where his patriotic, flag-waving mouth is, Vitter, rather than reaching out to the veterans, turns his back on them. What a coward.

And we thought his frequenting New Orleans prostitutes and cavorting with the D.C. Madam after all of his preaching about family values was hypocritical. That was child’s play, a victimless crime, as they say. His vote on the Veterans Jobs Corps Act dwarfed that transgression. There were thousands of victims of that callous action.

To demonstrate the Republican stance on American exceptionalism and righteous wars, one need look no further than to a statement made by Andrew Card, President George W. Bush’s chief of staff who, when asked about the timing of the March 2003 Iraqi invasion, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom, said, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

There you have it. A half-century ago President Eisenhower said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Despite that admonition, war—and the influence of that military-industrial complex—has become a marketing concept, a product to be introduced with the appropriately hyped mixture of patriotism, mom and apple pie, along with the oft-repeated need to defeat the newest threat to the American Way of Life, whatever that is.

And Vitter is right there with his fellow Republicans—until it’s time to help those who supported that policy—the men and women in uniform.

In 2003, he voted in favor of HR 1559, the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act. In 2008, he voted in favor of HR 2642 to approve funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan War—funding that has now exceeded the $4 trillion mark.

But in 2012, he and 39 other Republicans just could not bring themselves to waste a five-year, billion dollar expenditure to help military veterans return to the workforce.

We should be so very proud of our junior senator.

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First shot fired across bow of S.S. π-yush; legislator asking colleagues for special session to challenge administration

Posted in Boards, Budget, Economy, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Prison, Privatization, Revenue, State Agencies on September 19, 2012| 15 Comments »

The first legislative salvo has been fired but it remains to be seen whether it will become merely an isolated sniper’s round or if it will escalate into an all-out battle between state lawmakers and Gov. Piyush Jindal.

Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) Wednesday morning sent an email to his fellow legislators in the Louisiana House and Senate asking for their support in calling a special session of the legislature to consider reversing what he describes as “a complete disregard of the Legislative branch’s powers by this administration.”

Richard’s email comes as a result to deep budget cuts to higher education and health care, as well as the announcement of hospital and prison closures—all announced by Jindal since the end of the regular legislative session and without prior notification to legislators in the areas affected by the cutbacks.

The Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma, part of the LSU Health System that is undergoing massive budget cuts, is in his area as is Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. “If they reduce Chabert to a clinic, it will cripple that facility,” he said.

Asked if he was concerned that Jindal might strip him of his committee assignments as he did with Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Franklinton) and Rep. Jim Morris (R-Oil City) who voted against Jindal-backed bills in the last legislative session, Richard said, “The governor can do what he wants to do; I do what I have to do.”

Richard serves on the House committees on Education, Labor and Industrial Relations, and Transportation, Highways and Public Works.

He said he was not attempting to threaten the governor. “I just want the legislature more involved,” he said.

The procedure for legislators’ calling themselves into special session requires for one-third of each chamber’s membership (35 in the House and 13 in the Senate) to sign a petition which would then be delivered to the clerk of the House and secretary of the Senate.

They, in turn, would be required to send individual petitions within 48 hours to each member of the legislature for his or her signature. Lawmakers would then have 20 days in which to return their individual petitions and once a majority of each chamber concurs, the presiding officers (Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles) must issue the call for the special session.

Richard, like other members of the House and Senate, is also upset at Jindal’s habit of leaving legislators out of the loop so that they often find out about administrative decisions that affect their legislative districts only after announcements are made by the governor’s office.

Two cases in point are the recently-announced closures of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, scheduled for next month, and last Friday’s announced closure of the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy.

Lawmakers in both areas say they were not notified in advance of Jindal’s plans to close those facilities. One of those legislators is House Speaker Kleckley.

The Phelps closure will mean that some 940 prisoners will have to be moved to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel. But of even greater concern to lawmakers is the fate of more than 250 prison employees who will face layoffs in a rural community that is largely dependent on the facility for employment.

Likewise, the closure of the 174-bed Southeast Louisiana Hospital, slated to begin Oct. 1, will mean the loss of about 300 jobs. The closure of Southeast, along with the earlier closure of state mental health facilities in Orleans Parish, leaves the entire southeastern area of the state without access to state mental health treatment.

Following the 2009 closure of New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, Jindal said those patients would be able to receive treatment at Southeast. Now that Southeast is facing closure, one reader asked, “Where will they go now, to Mississippi?”

Rep. Dorothy Sue Hill (D-Dry Creek) said she learned of the closure of C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center about a half-hour before the announcement was made by Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc.

“I was devastated,” she said, adding that DeQuincy is in the rural northern part of Calcasieu Parish and that a large number of its residents are dependent on the facility. “I don’t understand why they (the administration) don’t realize that rural people need jobs also,” she said. “This is a good place for jobs. We can’t all move to Baton Rouge or New Orleans. They don’t want to live there.”

Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles) called the abrupt announcement without advance notice to legislators “a lack of respect” for area legislators.

Rep. John Smith (R-Leesville) echoed the sentiments of Hill and Geymann when he said the secrecy of the move “perplexes me more than anything.”

Sticking to what has become an increasingly obvious policy of revealing as little as possible, the Department of Corrections did not respond to questions about why southwest Louisiana lawmakers were not included in the decision-making process.

“This is a good deal for Louisiana taxpayers and will result in significant savings while maintaining public safety,” was the only official response from the department. There was no further explanation as to where savings might be realized or how the closure was a good deal for the state—explanations that would seem easy enough to provide if the administration chose to do so.

Having provided the backdrop for the simmering resentment of Jindal that apparently has been building in the legislature, here is the content of Richard’s letter to his colleagues:

I respectfully ask that each of you read this email in its entirety and then ask yourself if you agree that we should immediately call ourselves in to special session. If you agree I ask that you respond to my legislative email address in order to begin the process of petitioning the body in order to reach a majority. While I acknowledge that this is not easy for each of us to decide I feel that it is time for us to get back into the process and our Constitution provides for that to happen.

Like many of you, I am passionate about the well-being of this state and its people and will continue to stand for the things that I believe in whether it be during session or while we are not in session. I believe that we are witnessing a complete disregard of the Legislative branch’s powers by this administration and must address this immediately or we shall find ourselves completely left out of the budget process. When we as a body are not convened in regular session, but have important matters to address, we do not have to wait until next year’s annual session. Our state Constitution provides a mechanism for us to meet in other times in order to enable the Legislature to continue the checks and balances of state government.

Extraordinary Sessions and the Need to Convene

As per Article III, Section 2(B) of the Constitution, the state “legislature may be convened at other times” in “Extraordinary Sessions,” (informally known as special sessions). It is during special sessions that legislators may address important items or “objects” as they are referred to in Article III.

Since our adjournment in June, there has been almost a billion dollars in reductions to the state budget without any input from the Legislature. And thanks to some media outlets we are now learning of still more cuts to healthcare without any input from the Legislature. And we know that mid-year cuts are approaching and these will be made with no input from the Legislature. We spent many hours during the past session debating the budget and trying to protect health care and higher ed and then after adjournment cuts were made with no input from legislators.

I believe it is time for us, as Legislators, to aggressively reinsert ourselves into the budget process by using the Constitutional rights given to us. We should not have to relinquish our legislative duties to the administration once we pass the budget at the end of regular session in times like this. I am tired of explaining to constituents and at civic gatherings that there is nothing we can do once the budget is passed.

There IS a PROCESS:

As stated earlier, Article III, Section (B) of the Constitution authorizes the Legislature to call itself into session for up to a maximum of 30 days. A majority of House members (53) and a majority of Senate members (20) must be in favor of convening and, if so, its members choose the time and the Call.

I would like to see the Call include the discussion of health care and higher ed and how we can determine just how reductions are made. The Constitution allows for us to set the agenda and each of you may have other interests to bring before the body.

Please understand that Louisiana Revised Statutes 24:11 sets forth the procedure for calling ourselves into special session. First, we will need a petition signed by 35 members of the House and by 13 members of the Senate, which would be delivered to the presiding officer in each. Within 48 hours of receipt of petition, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House are then required to send individual petitions to each member for their signature. We, as Legislators, then have 20 days to return our individual petitions and once a majority of each house is reached, the presiding officers must call the Legislature into special session.

It is OUR CHOICE.

This is how I look at the situation: we can either continue to stand by and allow the administration (to) amend the budget; or we can do what we were elected to do; to represent our constituents. The Constitution gives us that right. The choice is up to each one of us.

In closing, I fully understand that convening and conducting a special session will not be easy but think about the cuts that our hospitals and universities are having to make and will continue to be forced to make while we, as local elected representatives, sit back and try to defend those cuts that we know nothing about. Please know that I respect each and every one of you, regardless of your decision to support or not to support a special session. I simply ask that you take the time to respond to this email to: richardj@legis.la.gov.
Respectfully,

Jerome “Dee” Richard
La. State House of Representatives
District 55, Lafourche Parish
Thibodaux, La. 70301

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