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Archive for the ‘Notable Quotables’ Category

“The reforms are constitutional. There is nothing in the bill which directs employee contributions to the general fund. The employee contributions would go, as always, to the retirement system.”

–Gov. Jindal’s official response to a Dallas law firm’s contention that the administration’s retirement bills, if approved, would be determined to be unconstitutional.

“We’re open to improving the bills. We’re open to compromises.”

–Jindal’s deputy chief of staff Kristy Nichols, nine days later, announcing that the proposed additional 3 percent employee contribution would not, after all, go into the general fund to help plug budget holes.

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“The Coca-Cola Company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council. Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverae taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business.”

–Coca-Cola spokesperson Dian Garza Ciarlante, on explaining Coke’s decision to pull its ALEC membership on the heels of a similar decision by PepsiCo. Kraft Foods later became the third company to opt out. ALEC opponents say their next target is Wal-Mart.

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“We’re against discrimination, but we don’t believe in special protections or rights.”

–Gov. Bobby Jindal’s press secretary Frank Collins, defending Senate Bill 217 by State Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell), which would allow charter schools to refuse to admit students on the basis of their ability to speak English, their sexual orientation or other unspecified factors.

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“We must act now in order to keep our promise to workers, protect critical services like higher education and healthcare and protect future generations from more debt and higher taxes.”

–Gov. Bobby Jindal, in his response to a study by Dallas law firm Strasburger & Price which said virtually all the provisions of Jindal’s proposed state employee retirement reforms are unconstitutional.

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“The former notion that pension benefits were a voluntary gift from the employer (and thus subject to revision or termination at the employer’s sole discretion) has since yielded to an understanding that pension benefits comprise an essential component of public employee compensation and that public employees have a significant contractual interest in these benefits.”

–Legal analysis of pending retirement bills by the Dallas law firm Strasburger & Price commissioned by the Legislative Auditor’s office, citing a Louisiana court case (Bowen v. Board of Trustees Police Pension fund) which contradicts the philosophy of the administration that it has carte blanche to trifle with state employee pensions without regard to the resultant devastation inflicted upon thousands of lives.

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