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3rd Congressional District incumbent candidates Landry and Boustany saw big increases in wealth while serving in office

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Politicians on October 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

There’s an old joke about an honest congressman who refused to take advantage of his position to enrich himself and was defeated for re-election because his constituents considered him too stupid to hold elective office.

If that is the case for Louisiana’s redrawn 3rd Congressional District, voters are going to be in a real quandary next Tuesday when it comes time to choose between the two incumbents. Not to trivialize the campaign of Democrat Ron Richard, but realistically, this race is between Republicans Ron Landry and Charles Boustany.

Campaign contributions certainly bear that analysis out: Boustany has received about $3 million in contributions to Landry’s $1.8 million while Richard has pulled in only $53,000, according to figures provided by OpenSecrets.org, an online campaign tracking organization.

But the real story may lie in how both Landry and Boustany have seen their fortunes grow while serving in Congress.

The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics recently published an analysis of the financial health of each of the 535 members of the House and Senate and the report showed that all but two of Louisiana’s eight-member congressional delegation (six Congressmen and two Senators) saw their bottom lines increase significantly since taking office.

In the 3rd Congressional District, the two Republican frontrunners saw their wealth increase much more dramatically—262 percent for Boustany and 233 percent for Landry.

But Landry did it in much shorter time—from $2.5 million in 2009 to $8.2 million just a year later.

Boustany’s wealth was listed at $1.4 million in 2010, up from $400,000 in 2004.

Put another way, Boustany had a $1 million increase in his estimated wealth over a six-year period compared to an increase of $5.7 million in a single year for Tea Party incumbent Landry.

Both men are pitted against each other in the redrawn district that resulted in the loss of one seat in Congress.

Boustany serves on the House Ways and Means Committee which, among other things, handles commercial matters that include trade agreements, revenue measures and transportation of durable goods. It also oversees social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and passage of highway and farm bills.

His five largest contributors, by industry, include health professionals, $284,725; insurance, $151,700; oil and gas, $127,550; health services/HMOs, $115,300, and lobbyists, $95,067.

Landry serves on the House committees on Natural Resources, Transportation and Infrastructure and Small Business.

His five biggest contributors, by industry, include sea transport, $128,550; oil and gas, $124,416; retired, $52,600; crop production and basic processing, $44,600, and general contractors, $34,250.

The Washington Post story said investments by members of Congress range from riskier, high-growth funds to safer municipal bonds. While lawmakers range from the super-rich to the deep-in-debt, they generally don’t get rich simply by virtue of their membership in Congress. On the other hand, wealthy candidates who go to Congress seem to get richer while serving.

The wealthiest one-third of members were for the most part immune from the recent recession. They took the fewest financial hits and saw their investments recover rather quickly, even rising to new heights, the report said. Another 121 were worse off in 2010 than they were six years before and 24 actually reported their wealth in negative numbers.

The seamier side of congressional wealth is reflected in the fact that 73 members (almost 14 percent) either sponsored or co-sponsored legislation that benefited businesses or industries in which either they or family members had a financial interest.

Others leveraged their positions to lucrative positions in the private sector upon leaving Congress.

Two such congressmen were from Louisiana.

Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was a former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Capital Markets Subcommittee before resigning in January of 2008 to accept a hedge fund lobbying position with the Managed Funds Association.

Billy Tauzin of Chackbay helped ram through the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which, among other things, prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices on prescription drugs set by pharmaceutical companies. He did not seek re-election in 2004 and the following year took a job as head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a power lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry.

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Let’s ask our state leaders: What were you thinking? Have you thought your actions through to a logical conclusion?

Posted in BESE, Boards, Civil Service, Commissions, Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Public Records on October 27, 2012| 17 Comments »

Whenever I see a story about some stupid criminal I find myself wishing I could be alone in a room with the poor sap just so I could ask him three questions:

• What was your thought process?

• Did you think this through to its logical conclusion?

• Did you ever, at any point in time, think this would end well for you?

That’s all. Just those three questions.

Until now, I had always limited this wish to stupid criminals:

• Like the guy who pulls up at the drive-through window of a bank and slips a note in it saying “This is a holdup.” The teller, pulls the drawer in, reads the note, flips it over and writes on the back, “I don’t see a gun,” and sends note back to the guy who obligingly puts his gun in the drawer and sends it in to the teller;

• Like the guy who writes his holdup note on any piece of paper with his name and address on it or who is wearing a work uniform with his name tag fully visible;

• Like the guy who tries to outrun police on the interstate;

• Like any idiot who tries to resist a half-dozen police officers;

You get the picture.

But now I have expanded my sentiments to wishing I could pose the same question to some of our bumbling state politicians—particularly our self-promoting, egocentric, ambitious, absentee governor who insists—with a straight face, no less—that he has the job he wants even as he ignores a multitude of problems at home while auditioning for any job that will promote his shameless career goals.

But there are others:

• Any legislator (like Noble Ellington or Jane Smith) who runs for office on the promise of looking out for the folks back home but then accepts a six-figure salary in some department for which he or she has zero qualifications. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Louisiana Workforce Commission Executive Director Curt Eysink) who sends out an email saying there will be no merit raises for employees because of budgetary constraints while almost simultaneously approving a 41 percent increase for a single employee. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein) who would attempt to withhold the name of the winner of a $300 million contract with DHH from a legislative committee charged with confirming his appointment as secretary. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle) who would resign in the middle of a major crisis involving a potentially toxic sinkhole in order to selfishly run for a public office that he thinks will set him up for a run for governor in 2015? What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Alcohol and Tobacco Control Office Commissioner Troy Hebert) who would send a uniformed agent to inspect bars where she had recently worked undercover and purchased drugs from dealers. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Superintendent of Education John White) who, on the night before he was to testify before a legislative committee about the New Living Word school in Ruston, sent emails to the governor’s office that he would try to “take some air out of the room” and to “muddy up” the narrative over the his approval of 315 vouchers for the school that had no classrooms, no desks and no teachers. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like White) who, within a matter of a few weeks, would hire a $144,000 part-time public relations officer from Florida and a consultant from Los Angeles to serve as a shill for the Department of Education’s (DOE) computer Course Content at a salary of $146,000—both of whom are allowed to commute and/or work from their homes. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head who, while giving no merit increases for three years and while even laying off rank and file employees, continues to give healthy salary increases to employees already earning in excess of $100,000 per year. What were you thinking?

• Any legislator who sees nothing wrong with private Christian schools receiving vouchers but who goes ballistic when it is learned that an Islamic school applied for vouchers under the same program. What were you thinking?

• Any governor who, while busy traveling all over the country promoting his aspirations for a cabinet position should Mitt Romney be elected president, approves closures of and budgetary cutbacks for state hospitals where cutbacks and closures result in the loss of treatment availability for indigent citizens. What were you thinking?

• Any governor who, while spewing outright lies in his many out-of-state visits about how he has the most ethical, most transparent and accountable administration in the country, continues to hide his office behind a veil of secrecy, refusing to provide public records or to grant media interviews. What were you thinking?

• Any inaccessible, unreachable, unavailable, unaccountable governor who, in an attempt to further shroud public agencies from having to answer directly to Louisiana citizens, attempts to force disputes with state agencies to be handled via telephone hearings instead of face-to-face hearings. What were you thinking?

• Any legislator who allows this governor and these bureaucrats to snub their collective noses at the citizens of this state with their arrogant actions and their attitude of defiance and mockery.

• Any citizen of Louisiana who would rather watch Dancing with the Stars than hold these sorry excuses for public servants accountable.

What the hell are any of you thinking?

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Angelle rallies Cajundome crowd in PSC TV spot, attracts campaign money from companies regulated by commission

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Governor's Office, LSU, Politicians on October 21, 2012| 19 Comments »

Former Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources Scott Angelle, who resigned his post right in the middle of the deepening crisis with the Assumption Parish sinkhole to run for the District 2 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission, has been running a curious television ad in the 12-parish district.

He is running to succeed current commissioner James Field whose term ends on Dec. 31. Field, vice-chairman of the commission, is not seeking re-election.

The district includes all the parishes of East and West Feliciana, Iberia, Lafayette, Lafourche, St. Mary and Terrebonne, and parts of East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston and St. Martin.

Angelle’s agency was aware of possible problems with a salt dome in Assumption Parish nearly two years ago, yet he never alerted local officials. The sinkhole in the parish’s Bayou Corne community began forming on Aug. 3 and 150 area families were forced to evacuate. Angelle resigned four days later to run for PSC.

Today, the sinkhole, which has been the site of several earth tremors, is the size of several football fields—and growing.

The Department of Natural Resources issued a permit to Texas Brine to begin exploration of the dome to see if it could be mined. That permit was issued in May of 2010, just about the same time that Angelle left DNR temporarily to become interim lieutenant governor.

As soon as the sinkhole developed in August, Angelle resigned.

And curiously, Gov. Piyush Jindal has yet to make an appearance at the site of the disaster which has displaced hundreds of residents. If there are no hurricanes or Gulf oil spills, there are no national television network news cameras; ergo, no Jindal and now no Scott Angelle.

Instead, what we have been treated to is a well-edited television ad depicting Angelle as the savior of the offshore oil industry.

In this ad, you are treated to sound bites from a fiery Angelle speech about the federal offshore drilling moratorium. It’s bad enough that he sounds like the stereotypical southern politician as depicted in so many uncomplimentary old movies (the only things missing are the bourbon, the string bow tie, the white cotton suit and the spats), but the speech never happened.

But we jumped the gun and we’re not above admitting when we are wrong.

Contrary to our initial skepticism over the validity of the ad’s content, it now appears that he did indeed make the speech as depicted in his cheesy ad. It was at Lafayette’s Cajundome and the 15,000 or so in attendance were worked into an emotional lather, albeit before Angelle had taken the stage. We concede as much now. The fact that he was only one of several speakers should not detract from his soul-stirring rhetoric that was enough to conjure up memories of the Kingfish, Earl Long and George Wallace.

But make no mistake about it, it is all cheap theatrics. And make no mistake about this: Angelle had precious little to do with fighting President Obama on the drilling moratorium or with Obama’s subsequent lifting of the moratorium. That fight was led by Jindal and Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter in a rare cooperative effort.

But the ad certainly makes Angelle look like a champion of the people, a true demagogue.

When Jindal took office in 2008, he retained Angelle, who was appointed DNR secretary by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco in 2004. In 2010, Jindal chose Angelle to serve as interim lieutenant governor when former Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans.

Accordingly, it would not seem much of a stretch to assume that Angelle would remain loyal to Jindal should he be elected to the PSC in November, thus extending the governor’s reach into yet another state agency.

After all, as a couple of readers comment below, immediately after Angelle’s resignation as DNR secretary, Jindal appointed him to the LSU Board of Supervisors, thus tightening his control over the board even more.

Moreover, Jindal, as our readers so quickly pointed out, also made Angelle his legislative liaison to work on behalf of oil companies who were fighting the so-called “legacy lawsuits.” The resulting legislation weakened landowners’ power to force oil companies to clean up lease sites upon leaving the sites.

Now Angelle wants to “regulate” those same companies on whose behalf he worked so diligently to weaken landowner rights.

A closer look at just who is supporting his campaign is quite revealing and offers a much clearer picture of just where Angelle’s loyalties might lie if elected.

The Public Service Commission has jurisdiction over publicly-owned utilities providing electric, water, wastewater, natural gas, and telecommunication services, as well as all the electric cooperatives in Louisiana. The LPSC also regulates intrastate transportation services including passenger carrier services, waste haulers, household goods carriers, non-consensual towing, and intrastate pipelines.

No fewer than 85 such companies or persons affiliated with industries regulated by the PSC have contributed between $1,000 and $5,000 to Angelle’s campaign since his August resignation.

Altogether, those 85 have combined to pour more than $230,000 into his campaign coffers in less than three months.

Those contributors include energy, towing, communications and transportation companies, an ambulance service, oil and gas exploration companies, shale oil fracking companies and four companies owned by Jindal’s latest appointment to the LSU Board of Supervisors Lee Mallett of Iowa, Louisiana.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?

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π-yush minions can count; House Appropriations, Senate Finance joint committee meeting on privatization of OGB is cancelled after governor’s office sees it didn’t have the votes

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Transparency on October 17, 2012| 4 Comments »

Thursday’s scheduled joint meeting of the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to consider the approval for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana to take over the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) Preferred Provider Organization health coverage has been scrubbed.

The reasons for cancelling Thursday’s meeting vary, depending upon who is doing the explaining.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro) said that he and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville) agreed late Wednesday morning to remove the OGB item from the agendas of the joint meeting.

“We just got the contract (with BCBS) yesterday and we need to give people an opportunity to look at it,” said Fannin, who added that the contract was nearly 80 pages.

Fannin, who supports the privatization, admitted the vote count was close but insisted that wasn’t the reason for postponing action.

State Rep. Katrina Jackson, a member of the Appropriations Committee who opposes the contract, however, interpreted the cancellation differently.

“I believe that the cancellation of this meeting indicates the legislature’s willingness to exert independence as a separate and equal branch of government,” she said, adding that she was certain that the administration would continue to apply pressure on members of both committees to come up with the needed votes.

Fanning should have gotten with the governor’s office and gotten their stories together. The two versions don’t mesh.

The word out of the governor’s office was that it has the votes already but that certain key members were scheduled to be out of town Thursday so the meeting needed to be re-scheduled.

That claim can probably be taken with a grain of salt. This is the same administration that insisted it took no active part in the day to day operations of LSU but yet insisted on reviewing any public records relative to the LSU Health Services prior to their release to Capitol News Service.

A more likely scenario is that Gov. Piyush Jindal’s staff members can count.

They saw that the votes (a simple majority is needed to approve the privatization) were not there and like NASA, aborted the mission.

For now.

Members of both committees were being lobbied heavily by both sides late Wednesday in the final hours before the meeting was finally cancelled. It’s a certainty that the pressure on the committee members will not abate—especially from the governor’s office. This is a must-win for him.

The original number of OGB personnel expected to lose their jobs with the BCBS takeover was 177 but some have already retired or found other jobs. That number is now about 150.

An important twist to the story involves the proposed layoffs. The Division of Administration is scheduled to submit a layoff plan to the Civil Service Commission in next few days but no layoff plan may be considered by the commission without an approved contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS).

Without the concurrence of the two committees, however, there can be no approved contract and thus, no layoff plan.

The privatization plan (but not the layoff plan) was approved by the Civil Service Commission in August but State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) requested and got an attorney general’s opinion that said the administration must obtain the concurrence of the legislature to finalize the transfer.
BCBS already serves as the third party administrator (TPA) for OGB’s HMO program.

OGB has accrued a fund balance in excess of $500 million over the past six years since Tommy Teague took over as director of OGB. But he was fired on April 15, 2011 when he did not get on board the Jindal privatization plan quickly enough. His successor lasted only six weeks before he, too, was gone.

Jindal has claimed that a private TPA would be able to run the various health and life insurance plans of about 225,000 state employees, retirees and their dependents.

A Legislative Auditor’s report, however, said that privatization could lead to increased health insurance premiums because of a private insurer’s higher administrative and marketing costs, its requirement to pay taxes on income and its need to realize an operating profit. The state does not pay taxes nor is it required to turn a profit.

The Jindal administration has employed tactics bordering on the clandestine in efforts to shore up its position. At one point it even refused to release a report by New Orleans-based Chaffe & Associates with which it contracted to determine the “fair market value” of OGB’s business.

When a copy of the report was released, however, questions arose immediately because of conflicting dates given by the Division of Administration (DOA) as to its receipt date and by the fact that none of the pages of the report was date-stamped.

DOA routinely date stamps every page of documents it receives to indicate the date and time the documents were received.

This led to speculation that there may have been two Chaffe reports. Even so, the one that was leaked to the Baton Rouge Advocate said that a private insurer would be required to build in the extra costs of taxes and profits when setting premiums.

Much of the reason for the closer-than-expected vote may have to do with growing resentment on the part of legislators who have seen hospitals and/or prisons closed in their districts, actions they say were taken by the administration without the benefit of giving lawmakers a heads-up.

Jindal, in closing prisons and hospitals, has done so while leaving it up to area legislators to try and explain to constituents why they will be out of work or why health care will be either cut back or unavailable.

Only this week, notices went out to 41 employees at E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe that they would no longer be employed after Nov. 30—just in time for the Christmas holidays. Twenty-five of those were nurses.

Similar cutbacks have taken place at health care facilities all over the state and in August, Jindal abruptly announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, effective this month, throwing some 300 employees out of work.

Moreover, with the earlier closure of a mental health facility in New Orleans, the entire area of Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Tangipahoa, Washington and St. Tammany will be without access to mental health treatment at a state facility.

“The Office of Group Benefits does not cost the state any money,” Jackson said. “It is a healthy plan that has always remained viable while offering …excellent health care benefits.

“Our research has revealed that more than $70 million of the existing OGB surplus (more than $500 million) would be used to effectuate this privatization,” she said.

“The governor’s office claims that the state will realize $20 million in savings. However, this claim came without any supporting documentation even after numerous requests for that documentation.

“OGB’s administrative costs are 2 percent while the industry standard for private insurers is 6 percent. It seems that, at some point, it (the privatization) would actually cost the state additional money,” Jackson said.

http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Cmtes/H_Cmte_AP.asp

http://senate.legis.louisiana.gov/Finance/Assignments.asp

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Troy Hebert, like his predecessor, accused of misconduct as Alcohol Tobacco Control Commissioner; Civil Service orders reinstatement, back pay and legal fees for suspended agent

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Politicians, State Agencies on October 12, 2012| 27 Comments »

The beleaguered State Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) is experiencing more bad karma, thanks to what appears to be a series of ill-advised polices put in place by ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert.

Hebert is a former state senator from Jeanerette appointed to his position by Gov. Piyush Jindal in November of 2010 after Hebert’s predecessor, Murphy Painter was fired in August of that year on charges of sexual harassment and then was indicted earlier this year on charges of computer fraud, making false statements and aggravated identity theft.

Hebert now is facing his own problems including allegations that he deliberately sent an ATC agent into harm’s way, that he has transferred agents from one end of the state to the other with as little as two days’ notice, and last month’s decision by the Louisiana Civil Service Commission that he pay an employee back wages, interest and attorney fees after he suspended her for insubordination when her doctor refused to comply with what the commission agreed were unreasonable demands made under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

Hebert had suspended ATC administrative assistant Lisa Pike after her physician declined to provide weekly status reports as ordered by Hebert. Pike was on extended medical leave for failure to provide acceptable proof that was unable to work.

Hebert’s action was taken despite her doctor’s written certification that she was unable to work and that she “has been under my care from July 19, 2011 to Aug. 19, 2011” and that she could “return to work on Aug. 20, 2011.”

On July 29, 2011, Hebert sent Pike a letter of suspension.

“This letter is to advise you that you are being placed (o)n Leave Without Pay (LWOP) effective Thursday, July 21, 2011, for failure to provide acceptable proof that you were ill and unable to report to work,” the letter from Hebert said.

“You were directed by letter dated July 13, 2011, to submit a statement from your health care provider to verify that you are unable to report to work due to illness or medical condition. The statements you submitted do not specify the cause of your absence or verify that you are unable to report to work.”

The physician subsequently agreed to provide weekly medical reports but charged Pike $25 for each of the weekly updates.

In her ruling of Sept. 20, Civil Service Commission referee Roxie F. Goynes ordered the Department of Revenue (DOR) to pay Ms. Pike back wages, with interest. ATC is part of DOR. “I further order DOR to remove all documents concerning this disciplinary action from Ms. Pike’s personnel file,” Goynes said in her ruling.

Goynes added that DOR “was unreasonable in going forward on its charge. Therefore, pursuant to the provisions of Civil Service Rule 13.35, I award attorney’s fees to Ms. Pike in the amount of $1500.”

But perhaps the most serious claim against Hebert is that he ordered an agent back into bars in New Orleans in full uniform where she had previously worked on undercover assignments to purchase drugs. If true, such a decision could have placed the agent’s life in peril had she been recognized by those from whom she had purchased drugs.

A formal complaint of discrimination filed against Hebert by agent Daimian McDowell contained the allocation that “Commissioner Hebert has assigned African-American agents to dangerous duties.”

In his complaint, one of three separate complaints filed by three separate agents earlier this month, McDowell said that agent Lori Claiborne of Gonzales was transferred from the Baton Rouge region to the New Orleans region. She had worked as a narcotics agent in Baton Rouge so her supervisor in New Orleans allowed her to work as a task force officer (TFO) in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) while remaining an employee of ATC.

As a TFO, Claiborne worked undercover in civilian clothing, purchasing synthetic marijuana from dealers in New Orleans bars.

Upon learning of her work with DEA, Hebert ordered her back to Baton Rouge and over the objections of Claiborne and another agent, assigned her to conduct inspections in the same establishments—in full uniform—where she had purchased drugs as an undercover agent, the complaint says.

Other written complaints against Hebert, all dated Oct. 2, 2012, include:

• Asking an employee to “keep tabs” on a fellow agent;

• Transferring agent Charles Gilmore from Baton Rouge to Shreveport with no advance notice and subsequently telling one of his co-workers, another ATC agent, that he took the action in the hopes it would prompt Gilmore to take early retirement;

• Boasting that he planned to “break up” a trio of black agents in north Louisiana (one of whom was subsequently fired);

• Requiring supervisors to report to their subordinates;

• Calling agent Larry Hingle “a zero” and sending an email to other employees soliciting suggestions for ways to punish Hingle for the agent’s failure to address Hebert at “Commissioner” or “Sir,” as per a directive by Hebert.

In addition to the three formal complaints to both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and to Civil Service, six members of the ATC Command staff and six ATC employees sent a five-page letter in March of 2011 to then-Revenue Secretary Cynthia Bridges in which they itemized a laundry list of 45 separate complaints against Hebert. The contents of that letter would comprise much of the complaint contained in a subsequent lawsuit against the Department of Revenue that is still pending in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.

That letter and the lawsuit filed by a fourth ATC agent contain several charges that are eerily familiar to some of the charges against Hebert’s predecessor, Murphy Painter. Those documents will be the subject of our next installment.

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