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Déjà vu all over again: House Clerk Butch Speer denies public access to Tulane legislative scholarship records

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Courts, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on October 22, 2013| 4 Comments »

So what, precisely, is Alfred “Butch” Speer trying to hide?

And why?

Whatever he is hiding and the reasons behind his actions constitute déjà vu all over again.

Speer, clerk of the Louisiana House of Representatives, has refused to disclose the one-page application forms which all recipients of legislative scholarships to Tulane University must complete.

The New Orleans Advocate, WWL-TV and New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche requested copies of hundreds of the documents to see if the legislators were awarding the scholarships to relatives of fellow politicians.

A 130-year-old program allows each of Louisiana’s legislators to give one student per year a one-year scholarship—worth $43,000 annually—to Tulane. The mayor of New Orleans is allowed to give out five four-year scholarships per year.

It’s a trade-off dating back to Act 43 of 1884 that benefits Tulane financially. The school has to eat more than $6 million per year in free tuition but receives sales and property tax exemptions worth more than $23 million a year, according to one source. http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/scholarships_00a.htm

http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/scandalfinale_05a.htm

Ostensibly, the scholarships are supposed to go to deserving students in the respective legislator’s district—not to legislators’ family members—but that system fell into widespread abuse and news coverage in the 1990s created a public outcry that prompted some reforms to the much-coveted legislative perk. To no one’s surprise the House in 1996 killed a bill designed to abolish both the scholarship program and the Tulane tax breaks.

Victoria Reggie, widow of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and the daughter of Crowley judge Edmund Reggie, along with her five siblings were awarded 27 years’ worth of scholarships by the late Rep. John N. John and in 1993 then-New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy gave a four-year scholarship to his son. Former New Orleans Mayor Ernest Morial likewise gave his son and daughter and the daughter of a top aide and the children of two judges scholarships and former Mayor Moon Landrieu gave a scholarship to his nephew Gary Landrieu.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune went to court—and won—in its attempts to obtain Tulane records that showed other recipients of the scholarships included the children of Sens. John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston and U.S. Reps. Bob Livingston, Jimmy Hayes and Richard Baker.

But in 1983, Capitol News Service, operated by LouisianaVoice, broke a story that State Sen. Dan Richie of Ferriday had awarded his scholarship to a relative of State Rep. Bruce Lynn of Shreveport and that Lynn had given his scholarship to Richie’s brother.

The single-page document being sought by WWL, the New Orleans Advocate and attorney Goyeneche contains two statements: “I am related to an elected official,” and “I am not related to an elected official.” Each recipient is required to check the box next to the appropriate statement and if the student checks that he or she is related to an elected official, the student must list the official’s name and explain the relationship.

Simple enough.

Except that Speer is trying to keep nosy reporters from taking a peek at those records.

To illustrate to what length he is willing to go to protect those records, he first responded to the requests by claiming that the forms belonged to Tulane and were not in his possession.

But then Tulane officials promptly provided the forms to the legislative bodies, leaving Speer in a quandary. No problem, Deftly sidestepping state public records laws Speer, claiming to be speaking for Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp, said he had determined the records are not public and thus, he is not required to provide them.

He even promoted himself to a judgeship on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal which ruled in the 1990s legal battle that “All records related to the contract and the giving of scholarships fall within the broad definition of public records” when he said the application forms do not come under that definition because he was told the forms are only shown to legislators who request to see them.

“Therefore, only those forms Tulane University provided to a legislator for use in awarding a scholarship are public records,” Speer said in his letter.

Wow. What a legal mind.

So, is public servant Speer protecting the public’s right to know?

You can check that box “No.”

Public servant Butch Speer is in the business of protecting legislators from public embarrassment and by all measures, he does his job quite well.

Take our own experience with Speer in July of 2012. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/09/11/deliberative-process-defense-used-to-protect-alec-records-in-texas-reminiscent-of-2012-louisianavoice-experience/

Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) is the state chairman for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and in July of 2012 he sent out a letter on state letterhead soliciting contributions of $1,000 each to help defray the expenses of “over thirty” state legislators to attend a national conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Salt Lake City on July 25-28.

Harrison (R-Gray) mailed out a form letter on July 2 that opened by saying, “As State Chair and National Board Member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, I would like to solicit your financial support to our ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund.”

The letter was printed on state letterhead, which would make the document a public record so LouisianaVoice immediately made a public records request of Harrison to provide:

  • A complete list of the recipients of his letter;
  • A list of the “over thirty” Louisiana legislators who are members of ALEC.

ALEC membership, of course, is a closely-guarded secret but once the letter was printed on state letterhead—presumably composed on a state computer in Harrison’s state-funded office, printed on a state-purchased printer and mailed using state-purchased postage—the request for a list of members was included in the request for recipients of the letter.

Harrison never responded to the request despite state law that requires responses to all such requests.

LouisianaVoice then contacted Alfred “Butch” Speer to enlist his assistance in obtaining the records and last Thursday, July 12, Speer responded: “I have looked further into your records request.” (Notice he omitted the word “public” as in “public records.”) “Rep. Harrison composed the letter of which you possess a copy. Rep. Harrison sent that one letter to a single recipient,” Speer said. “If that letter was distributed to a larger audience, such distribution did not create a public record.

“R.S. 44:1 defines a public record as: ‘…having been used, being in use, or prepared, possessed, or retained for use in the conduct, transaction, or performance of any business, transaction, work, duty, or function which was conducted, transacted, or performed by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of this state…’

“My opinion is that the solicitation of donations for ALEC does not create a public record. The courts have been clear in providing that the purpose of the record is determinative of its public nature, not the record’s origin.”

It seems a stretch to contend that the letter went out to only recipient soliciting a single $1,000 contribution to cover the expenses of “over thirty” legislators to attend the conference.

Still, Speer persisted, saying, “…it is my responsibility to consult with Representatives and make the determinations as to what records are or are not public in nature.”

No, it is apparently Speer’s responsibility to cover the backsides of wayward legislators.

“…The contents of (Harrison’s) letter speak for itself….The origin of a document is not the determining factor as to its nature as a public record. The purpose of the record is the only determining factor. Whether the letter was or was not ‘composed on state letterhead, on a state computer, printed on a state-owned printer and mailed in state-issued envelope(s) does not, per force, create a public record. If the letter were concerning ‘any business, transaction, work, duty, or function which was conducted, transacted, or performed by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of this state,’ then such a letter is a public nature,” he said.

Speer then offered a most incredulous interpretation of the public records statute when he said, “The fact that an official may be traveling does not place the travel or its mode of payment or the source of the resources used to travel ipso facto within the public records law. The purpose of the travel is the determining factor.”

You can tell Speer is a lawyer. They love to use ipso facto whenever they can. It appears to be their way of slipping in the Latin phrase which apparently means, “I’m way smarter than you.”

“What Rep. Harrison was attempting is of no moment unless he was attempting some business of the House or pursuing some course mandated by law,” he said. “Anyone’s attempt to raise money for a private entity is not the business of the House nor is it an activity mandated by law.

“Your personal interpretation of the law is not determinative of the actual scope of the law,” he told LouisianaVoice.

Speer apparently was overlooking the fact that the House and Senate combined to pay 34 current and former members of the two chambers more than $70,000 in travel, lodging and registration fees for attending ALEC functions in New Orleans, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Austin between 2008 and 2011.

Of that amount, almost $30,000 was paid in per diem of $142, $145, $152 or $159 per day, depending on the year, for attending the conferences. The per diem rates corresponded to the rates paid legislators for attending legislative sessions and committee meetings.

That would seem to make the ALEC meeting House business and thus, public record.

ALEC advertises in pre-conference brochures sent to its members that it picks up the tab for legislators attending its conferences. That would also raise the question of why legislators were paid by the House and Senate for travel, lodging and registration costs if ALEC also pays these costs via its ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund.

We have to wonder if Speer hangs out with Superintendent of Education John White to share strategy for shielding public records from the public.

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Psychopaths and sociopaths share many characteristics: seem to coincide eerily with Louisiana official’s persona

Posted in Governor's Office, Politicians on October 10, 2013| 19 Comments »

We at LouisianaVoice are not into pop psychology, but in reading interviews with three authors of two separate books, one about sociopaths and the other about psychopaths, we could not help noticing first, the character traits the two have in common and second, how those descriptions seem to fit a certain Louisiana elected official like a Brioni suit.

All three authors are respected practicing psychologists.

Martha Stout, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and former Harvard Medical school instructor. Author of The Sociopath Next Door, she has spent much of her professional life trying to decipher the psyche of the sociopath and has determined that the central trait of a sociopath is the total lack of conscience.

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/conscience-lack-of#_

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1097/martha-stout

She estimates that one in 25 people, 4 percent of the population, are sociopathic. That translates to roughly 12 million Americans. The percentage, she said, most likely increases as one climbs the ladder of success.

Dr. Stout describes sociopaths as those who, through grand schemes of contrivance, manipulation and deceit, seek to undermine and manipulate simply because they can.

She is also quick to point out that sociopaths generally are not violent and don’t necessarily look like Charles Manson. Instead, she says, they are like most other people in that some of them are brilliant, some stupid and others somewhere in between.

In fact, they are often charming and charismatic and the skilled ones will study the way we emote and use that to his or her advantage. Beneath that façade, however, Dr. Stout says they live “only to dominate others and win.”

While loath to practice amateur psychology, we have to ask: does this sounds like anyone we know?

“In a perfect world, human respect would be an automatic reaction only to those who are strong, kind and morally courageous,” Dr. Stout says. The person who profits from manipulation and fear is not likely to be any of these, she added.

One lie, one broken promise or a single neglected responsibility might well be a simple misunderstanding, she said. “Two may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you’re dealing with a liar and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior.”

Most disturbing of all, Stout says at least six out of 10 people “will blindly obey an official-looking authority to the bitter end.”

Two other experts, Robert Hare, Ph.D. and Paul Babiak, Ph.D. have conducted extensive research into psychopathy and have come up with several similarities between Dr. Stout’s description of sociopaths and their own characterization of psychopaths.

http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=404

In their book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, they note that psychopaths “have an inordinate need for power, prestige, wealth, etc. They operate according to their own self-serving principle: look out for number one, no matter what the cost to others and (do so) without guilt or remorse.”

Again, sound like anyone we know?

The emotional life of psychopaths lacks the range and depth found in most individuals, Dr. Hare says. “…No amount of training and practice will allow…the psychopath to really understand the emotional life of others, except in a vague intellectual, inferential sense. To put it simply, they don’t know how you feel, nor do they much care.

“They are described as without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt or loyalty to anyone but themselves,” he added.

Dr. Babiak added that psychopaths make great first impressions and “talk a good game on a surface level, and will use technical jargon and glib, superficial charm” to convince others of their experience and expertise.

He said the psychopath “operates on the surface level,” presenting a mask or persona that is in keeping with the expectations of the audience and that they are “more observant of others and are motivated to take advantage of the traits, characteristics and personal situations of those around them.”

“Other people only exist to fulfill the supporting roles required of them—the pawns and patrons,” he added.

He said most psychopaths they have known were “loners” in the sense of only thinking of themselves, but that “they do surround themselves with supporters and followers to facilitate their activities.”

Babiak then dropped a bombshell during the interview about their book:

“While economic slowdowns can lead to layoffs and plant closings,” he said, “there is still the need for seasoned, experienced leaders who have the wherewithal to meet the challenge of recovery and turnaround. These individuals are rare. What a perfect scenario for the psychopath to enter as the ‘solution,’ replete with the skills (faked), abilities (faked), and background (faked) necessary to take over and make things right.”

Babiak said the change of organizational structures from large and bureaucratic to lean, mean and flat (read: consolidation and privatization) has inadvertently made organizations more attractive to psychopaths because of fewer rules and at the same time, easier to negotiate (faster progression—as in education reform legislation).

“The mantra became ‘do more, better, faster with less,’” Babiak said.

He said psychopaths are intolerant of creativity and innovation and that in an atmosphere of constant policy changes and restructuring, new structures “are always in a state of flux and never reach the ‘ideal’ state. This frustrates and confuses those who have grown accustomed to the stability that large organizations used to provide.

“Being a thrill seeker by nature, the psychopath relishes the chaos,” Babiak said. “On a practical level, a constantly changing work environment provides the psychopath and endless source of new co-workers to target and many opportunities to move from project to project when boredom sets in.”

“Sadly, even after being victimized, many members of a group will refuse to face the truth, continuing to believe that the scamster is basically good at heart or that there must be a reason why he or she took advantage of the group,” Dr. Hare said.

“There is little evidence that psychopaths can be or even believe they should be, rehabilitated. Their behavior reflects a well-established, stable personality structure,” he said.

“They have solid positions from which they continue to use their organization (read: office) for personal gain,” Babiak added.

One more time: sound like anyone we know?

We’re just sayin’…

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Questions abound as more horror stories emerge from New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys in Arcadia and Longstreet

Posted in Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on September 18, 2013| 128 Comments »

Do it in the name of heaven,

You can justify it in the end.

 —One Tin Soldier by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter

As more and more revelations come to light about the treatment of residents of the New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys in Arcadia and similar homes run by Rev. Mack Ford and wife Thelma in other localities, many serious questions remain unanswered.

  • Why, for example, have the Fords and employees of the home never been charged with felony child abuse?
  • How can a man (and dozens more like him scattered across the U.S.) mete out such barbaric treatment of children in the name of a Savior who’s every utterance of love, peace and forgiveness is in direct contradiction to the policies of these institutions?
  • How can the doctrine of separation of church and state trump state laws enacted to protect children who are unable to protect themselves from inhuman, sadistic and yes, anti-social treatment?
  • And most puzzling of all, how is it that Rodney Alexander and Neil Riser would each hire the grandson of New Bethany’s founder and who, along with his father, Ford’s son-in-law, sat on New Bethany’s board of directors?

http://clarkword.com/nb_docs/docs/NB%20Board%20of%20Directors.jpg

Besides the Arcadia home, the Fords also ran homes for boys in Longstreet in De Soto Parish and in Walterboro, S.C. One by one, the homes were eventually shut down by authorities, the Arcadia home in 1998 (some reports indicate that New Bethany boarded girls there as recently as 2004), but only after inestimable mental, spiritual and physical damage had been inflicted on hundreds of children, many of them in their early teens.

New Bethany is situated in a secluded spot deep in the piney woods south of Arcadia where the children’s screams could not be heard. Its remote location kept the facility out of the public eye and allowed Ford to give outsiders a look on his own terms—at church services, in a controlled environment, where the neatly scrubbed girls would sing and give emotional testimonials about past drug abuse and promiscuity (many of those “testimonials” contrived by Ford) and how New Bethany had turned their lives around—all orchestrated for the maximum emotional impact so as to extract “love offerings” from those in attendance.

http://clarkword.com/nb_docs/arcadia.jpg

Ford resisted state inspections, claiming that he accepted no state funding and that he was not licensed by the state and was therefore not subject to state regulations under the doctrine of separation of church and state.

On one occasion a state inspector did manage to breach the normally chained front gates of New Bethany but that inspector died suddenly a short time later.

Ford used his death as evidence of God’s intention to protect New Bethany from state regulations, saying that the inspector had been struck down by God and a similar fate would likely await other state inspectors.

Still, the clock was ticking and eventually it was the State Fire Marshal’s Office that would prove Ford’s undoing. Not that he didn’t try to thwart state efforts. Ford, following the lead of those like him at other homes, would learn when inspectors were due and would force the girls to move items away from exits and windows and to clean up the facility. He also would go to the extreme of physically transferring girls and boys to a like facility in another state.

And now, 15 years after New Bethany in Arcadia was finally shut down—hopefully for good—we learn that Timothy Johnson, Ford’s son-in-law and a former vice president at Louisiana College in Pineville, is a volunteer in State Sen. Neil Riser’s campaign to succeed retiring 5th District Congressman Rodney Alexander.

Even more baffling is the fact that Ford’s grandson and Timothy Johnson’s son, Jonathan Johnson, is on the payroll of Riser’s campaign after having worked for Alexander for about a decade.

Alexander’s office said Wednesday that Jonathan Johnson, who made $75,000 a year as Alexander’s State Director, was on “unpaid leave,” and would not return until November. Apparently Jonathan Johnson is confident that he will continue working after next month’s primary and the November general election for Congressman-elect Riser.

But the fact remains that if these two men sat on the New Bethany board, they would have had to have known what was going on at New Bethany—the beatings, the mind control, the harsh punishments, and the rapes by Ford that so many of the former residents have come forward to claim.

If, in fact, Timothy Johnson did remove a former student-turned-staff member after she tape recorded a Ford sexual attack on her as claimed, then he not only had knowledge of the incident, but is complicit in concealing a violent crime.

And yet, despite all that we now know about New Bethany’s facilities in Arcadia, Longstreet and Walterboro, S.C., the only prosecutions occurred in South Carolina and even then the perpetrators were allowed to plea bargain their punishment down to probation.

So, why didn’t Louisiana authorities act?

That’s an excellent question for which there are no ready answers. Perhaps authorities were intimidated at the prospect of grappling with God. Authorities in Bienville Parish have claimed they were unaware of the rape allegations but several victims say that is simply not true, that they knew and did nothing.

One administrative employee at New Bethany said he, along with then-State Rep. Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge, wrote legislation that exempted church-affiliated facilities such as New Bethany from state regulations.

If that indeed is the case, then the entire Louisiana Legislature that passed the bill is also complicit in any crimes that took place—as is the governor who signed it into law.

The responsibility for the agony and suffering of hundreds of girls and boys who were forced to endure the sadistic—and that’s the only word for it—treatment at the hands of Ford and his staff can be laid at the feet of Ford, his family and staff members, Bienville Parish law enforcement, the legislature and the governor’s office.

Next: If you support the education reform programs of Gov. Bobby Jindal and Superintendent of Education John White in their push for more church-affiliated charters and their fundamentalist curriculum, you may want to first examine how some of these schools operated in Arcadia and continue to operate in other parts of the country.

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Our random observations on freedom of expression, ATC, questionable meeting and action by Jindal’s LSU Board

Posted in ATC, Attorney General, Boards, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Politicians, Privatization, State Agencies, Transparency on August 26, 2013| 15 Comments »

We’ve come across a few odds and ends lying around that we feel might warrant a second look.

Another take on blood tests and one-vehicle accidents

First we would like to acknowledge that we initially wrote a piece based on erroneous information from certain people whose judgment we trusted but who were wrong. Because of their advice, we also were wrong in saying that blood alcohol tests are “routine procedure” in one vehicle accidents. It turns out that is not the case and we respectfully defer to the state trooper who investigated Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s accident last week. The trooper said in his report that Caldwell did not appear to be impaired and accordingly, he did not take a blood sample for testing. We have been informed by State Police and others that it is not “routine procedure” to take blood tests in single-vehicle accidents.

ATC moves in with State Police, not so the ATC director

The Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control has been moved from its former headquarters at United Plaza on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge to the Louisiana State Police compound on Independence Boulevard, ostensibly to save money.

ATC Director Troy Hebert and his administrative assistant Jessica Starns, however, were allowed to remain at the United Plaza offices and to even rent additional space for Hebert’s office.

What’s with that? Shouldn’t an agency director be physically located at the same address as his employees and not several miles across town? That would be like having a governor who spends all his time in other states. Oh, wait. We already have that, don’t we?

Baton Rouge publisher opposes freedom of expression

Normally, a member of the Fourth Estate would be up in arms at any suggestion at muzzling a critic of government, a suggestion any publisher, editor of reporter would quickly point to as a threat to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

Such is not the case of one Baton Rouge publisher, we’re told. Reports have it that this publisher, a staunch supporter of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has gone on rampages in his office, ranting to his subordinates and anyone else who will listen that he wants Robert Mann stripped of his tenure at LSU—and fired.

Mann, who has worked with three U.S. senators (Russell Long, Bennett Johnston and John Breaux) and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, currently holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU.

A journalist and political historian, Mann also just happens to author a controversial political blog called Something Like the Truth http://bobmannblog.com/ in which he generally takes the Jindal administration to task for its roughshod trampling of all who dare disagree with him, be they state civil service employees, doctors, college presidents or legislators.

Mann is careful to feature a prominent disclaimer which says, “Opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the author, not LSU, the Manship School nor the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.”

But that apparently is not enough for this publisher, who dutifully prints every inane press release by the governor that purports to make the state look good despite reams of negative national surveys on poverty, obesity and health care.

So much for a fair and independent press serving as a watchdog on behalf of the citizenry. We’re just sayin’…

Cerise Memo: LSU Board quorum?

Remember our story last week about that July 2012 meeting in the LSU President’s conference room where former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine pitched the privatization plan for LSU’s 10-hospital system?

There was a key sentence then-head of the LSU Health Care System Dr. Fred Cerise included in his memorialization of that meeting regarding Levine’s presentation:

“The LSU board members present indicated they want LSU’s management to pursue this strategy,” the Cerise Memo said.

But wait. The LSU Board of Supervisors consists of 15 voting members, all appointed by the governor, and one student member who has no vote.

The Louisiana Open Meetings Law, R.S. 42: 4.2, headed “Public policy for open meetings; liberal construction,” reads thusly:

  • “Meeting” means the convening of a quorum of a public body to deliberate or act on a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. It shall also mean the convening of a quorum of a public body by the public body or by another public official to receive information regarding a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.
  • “Public body” means village, town, and city governing authorities; parish governing authorities; school boards and boards of levee and port commissioners; boards of publicly operated utilities; planning, zoning, and airport commissions; and any other state, parish, municipal, or special district boards, commissions, or authorities, and those of any political subdivision thereof, where such body possesses policy making, advisory, or administrative functions, including any committee or subcommittee of any of these bodies enumerated in this paragraph.
  • “Quorum” means a simple majority of the total membership of a public body.

The statute further stipulates that “every meeting of any public body shall be open to the public unless closed pursuant to R.S. 42.6, R.S. 42:6.1 or R.S. 42:6.2.”

First of all, R.S. 42:6 clearly states that a public body “may hold executive session upon an affirmative vote …of two-thirds of its constituent members present.”

R.S. 42:6.1 simply lists the reasons an executive session may be held which you may explore in greater detail here: http://www.lawserver.com/law/state/louisiana/la-laws/louisiana_revised_statutes_42-6-1

R.S. 42:6.2, re-designated as R.S. 42:18 in 2010, applies only to the Legislature. http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=99494

But let’s return to R.S. 42:4.2, that pesky little law about quorums.

Remember, the Cerise Memo said that the “LSU board members present” indicated their desire for the LSU administration to move forward with the Levine proposal.

Remember also, the LSU Board of Supervisors is comprised of 15 voting members.

But there were only four members of the LSU board present at that meeting, according to Cerise’s notes. They included Rolfe McCollister, Bobby Yarborough, Dr. John George and Scott Ballard.

Hardly a quorum.

But then, it was the likely intent of those present to avoid having a quorum because a quorum (eight voting members, in this case) would necessitate public notices of such a meeting and making said meeting open to the public.

Obviously, that was not the wish of the board members who did attend. They wanted, above all else, to avoid a full quorum so that the meeting could be conducted in secret.

If you check out our masthead, we recently added an anonymous quote:

  • It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark but unforgivable when a man fears the light.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (Nov. 13, 1856-Oct. 5, 1941) is credited with coining the phrase, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

But in avoiding the necessity of opening up that July 17, 2012, meeting to the public by purposely skirting the requirement of a quorum so as not to qualify as an official meeting, those four board members were legally barred from taking any official action.

Yet, that minor point of law did little to deter them from directing the LSU administration to pursue Levine’s plan.

Yes, we are fully aware that the four board members not only spoke for the entire board but for Gov. Bobby Jindal as well. As Elliott Stonecipher recently noted in his blog Forward Now, state ethic laws prohibited Levine from conducting business with the State for two years after his departure as DHH Secretary. http://forward-now.com/?p=8403

Levine’s last day at DHH was July 16, 2010. The meeting at which he presented his plan to LSU administrators and board members was on July 17, 2012.

And we don’t believe in coincidences. And anyone who doesn’t believe Levine was in constant contact with the administration in the days, weeks and months leading up to that July 17 meeting is…well, a fool.

Such is the Gold Standard of Ethics that Jindal has bestowed upon the people of Louisiana.

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Delhi Recovering Republican Henry Herford qualifies as Libertarian candidate for Alexander’s congressional seat

Posted in Congress, Governor's Office, Politicians on August 21, 2013| 12 Comments »

Henry G. Herford, Jr., of Delhi, who was hospitalized following a scuffle with police during the Louisiana State Republican Convention in Shreveport in June of last year, filed papers on Tuesday, officially entering the race for the Fifth District congressional seat being vacated by Rodney Alexander of Quitman.

Herford is a recovering Republican of sorts, recently ditching that party in favor of the Libertarian label for the Oct. 19 primary because, he says, there is “not a dime’s difference” between the Democrats and Republicans.

It was just over a year ago that Herford was wrestled to the floor, dislocating his prosthetic hip in a skirmish with Shreveport police after Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere of Metairie refused to yield and ordered Herford removed from the convention floor immediately after Herford was elected convention chairman by Ron Paul supporters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZSferdzaOM

Following Herford’s hospitalization and arrest by police, delegates went on to elected a new chair and a slate of 27 Ron Paul supports to fill 12 of the 18 district delegate slots and 15 of 20 at-large delegate slots.

Herford has since filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court naming Shreveport police, the Louisiana Republican Party and others as defendants in what he terms a “wrongful arrest.”

In claiming that the two major political parties have lost touch with the electorate, Herford said, “I’m ‘us,’ and they’re ‘them.’”

He said the Libertarian Party supports freedom through less government. “You can’t throw money at every problem,” he said. “We spend more on our military budget than Russia and China combined.”

Many observers feel that Alexander’s announcement that he would step down, following in quick succession by a job offer by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the announcement by State Sen. Neil Riser that he would seek Alexander’s seat and the immediate endorsement by the state’s Republican congressional delegation was orchestrated by Jindal.

A possible giveaway of the scheme may have been inadvertently revealed when Alexander’s announcement said he had “agreed” to step down, an indication that there were old-style political back room negotiations leading up to his decision.

The offer by Jindal of a $130,000 a year job heading up the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, which will bump Alexander’s state retirement from his days in the legislature from approximately $7,500 to about $82,000 per year did nothing to assuage the suspicions of smoke-filled rooms and political chicanery.

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