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Archive for the ‘Privatization’ Category

Dave ‘Lefty’ Lefkowith more than a motivational speaker; he’s a political operative looking for privatization dollars

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Privatization, Water Sales on October 10, 2012| 14 Comments »

LouisianaVoice has learned that the Department of Education may have an understandable, if not altogether legitimate reason for refusing to release information to the public: a candid response to one request for information might well lead to additional requests and subsequent release of information that the department simply does not want on the street. In short, things could get out of hand in a hurry. That’s called the domino effect.

Accordingly, DOE is following the lead of Gov. Piyush Jindal, who hides behind the “deliberative process” in not releasing information, by likewise clamping down on all information flowing from the department.

That, if nothing else, should be sufficient for Louisiana citizens to demand a more open administration from their absentee governor.

It turns out that Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith, DOE’s new Director of the Office of Portfolio, has quite a past, with strong connections to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the infamous Enron Corp. and a spinoff company called Azurix. More about that later.

Our initial request for public records resulted in the disclosure that Lefty was an employee of DOE. The obligatory follow up request for information revealed that the Louisiana taxpayers got him for a mere $144,999.88 a year, with a “free” Youtube video to boot, albeit a largely amateurish effort to hype DOE’s computer Course Content.

It might also be worth noting that on that video, Lefkowith gives himself a promotion—from being Director of the Office of Portfolio to Deputy Superintendent.

That, of course, prompted a more thorough background search and what we found was a real eye-opener and should be a red flag to state legislators and Louisiana taxpayers alike. If, after all, the past is really prelude, then his appointment does not bode well for education in this state. This could well be a train wreck waiting to happen and it begs the question: just how much tolerance will the citizens of Louisiana have for this administration’s shenanigans before enough is enough?

The information that follows comes from investigative reports by Michael Pollock and Chris Davis of the Sarasota (FLA) Herald-Tribune. Davis is now leader of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team at the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg, FLA.

In 1998, when Jeb Bush was running for governor of Florida, Enron, then a fast-rising Houston energy broker, was in the process of diversifying into the potentially profitable new field of water supply privatization through a subsidiary called Azurix Corp.

Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) David Struhs, a Bush appointee, was simultaneously promoting two concepts on behalf of Azurix: auctioning off blocks of water to the highest bidders and obtaining underground water and storing it for later withdrawal through a process called aquifer storage and recovery (ASR).

Enron sank $900 million in Azurix, hoping to duplicate the proposed action in two other states, California and Enron’s home state of Texas, as well as in South America. Ultimately, however, Enron lost $500 million when the project failed to materialize, eventually selling what was left of the company in 2001 to American Water Works as a precursor to the eventual collapse of Enron.

Struhs also pushed another project to deregulate energy in Florida and to open the state to competition by allowing companies to build power plants, using existing power lines for the purpose of selling electricity to the highest bidding utility or other customers.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Struhs was his good friend, David “Lefty” Lefkowith, president of Canyon Group, Inc., of Los Angeles.

First, a little background:

Back in 1991, President George H. Bush named 23 industrialists and environmentalists to the President’s Commission on Environmental Quality and named Struhs to run the commission. One of the 23 commission appointees was then-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay.

When Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton in 1992, Struhs went to work for Lefkowith as vice president of Canyon Group. Lefkowith has represented as many as 60 different electric power companies through his company.

By 1998, Struhs was working for Jeb Bush and Lefkowith was on board with the ill-fated Florida water privatization project. “I don’t think water is so damn special,” he said at the time. “If you let markets take over, you’d find water was cheaper, there would be more of it, and customers would be better served.” He neglected to explain how water quantity would increase.

Fast forward to 2002 and Struhs and Lefkowith were back at the forefront of market manipulation in Florida at the behest of Jeb Bush, but by now, their dealings were with electric power companies. Struhs was DEP Secretary and Jeb Bush had set up Energy 2020 Commission, a group assembled to study deregulation.

This time when Struhs brought him in as a consultant, Lefkowith was given unlimited access to all the emails of Bush’s Energy 2020 Commission members and staffers even though most of the 2020 commissioners never heard of him, never saw him and never knew he access to their correspondence. The Energy 2020 Commission was a group Jeb Bush assembled to study deregulation.

On Feb. 4, 2001, Struh’s deputy chief of staff, Mollie Palmer, ordered a half-dozen top DEP employees to start sending Energy 2020 Commission documents to Lefkowith with emails from Energy 2020 Chairman Walter Revell or from commission executive director Billy Stiles to be “forwarded to Lefty upon receipt.”

After receiving a copy of that memo, Pollock and Davis requested copies of all documents sent to Lefkowith but DEP officials responded that no documents existed. (That sounds much like the responses received by Capitol News Service from the Division of Administration and from the Louisiana governor’s office.)

“Who is this guy to get this information?” asked Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe. “From the tone and tenor of these emails and communications, he is directing energy policy (for the state). What authority does he have to do that? And for what purpose?”

Democratic State Sen. Kip Campbell of Tarmarac was even less forgiving of the practice. “Suppose I was sending letters to Struhs, like ‘here is my thought process on what we are going to do legislatively.’ And Lefkowith knows this ahead of time. Lefkowith might be working for Calpine and all those other companies, and selling that knowledge for profit. I’d be willing to wager he probably was.”

Lefkowith also attended strategy sessions with Gov. Jeb Bush to discuss findings of the Energy 2020 Commission.

In addition, he lobbied Florida utility representatives in private meetings on the issue of building power plants in order to broker power sales.

He would later use the information he had obtained as confidant to Struhs and Jeb Bush to wrangle a consulting job with the Florida PSC.

So now “Lefty” Lefkowith is in the employ of Louisiana Department of Education as Director of the Office of Portfolio, which is over the Office of Parental Options—whatever the function of those offices may be.

Given his past efforts at privatizing water sales and his attempt at forming a consortium to sell electric power to the highest bidder in Florida, it should come as no surprise to see him attempt to implement much the same type of coup with charter schools or the computer Course Choice program in Louisiana.

Whatever the case, one can bet there is money to be made somewhere in the grand scheme of things.

All this from our initial request for the amount he was paid for making a video of embarrassingly amateurish quality.

No wonder news outlets are experiencing difficulty in obtaining information from the “most open, accountable and transparent administration in the history of Louisiana.”

Our mothers always told us one thing leads to another.

There’s another adage that applies here: Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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LWC director sends email announcing no pay raises: oops! he forgot about one who will get a $19,430 (40.8%) bump

Posted in Broadband, Internet, Civil Service, Commissions, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, State Agencies on October 8, 2012| 6 Comments »

State Civil Service employees have gone without a 4 percent merit pay raise for three years now because of budgetary restrictions, brought on in large part by a Piyush Jindal administration that refuses to apply for federal grants for needed projects and by Jindal’s insistence on granting more and more tax breaks to corporate entities who take the money and, in at least one case, cease operations within a year or so.

No one is saying that grant money can be used to fund employee pay raises but when federal funds for broadband internet ($80.6 million), early childhood development ($60 million), and $5 billion a year in tax exemptions are taken out of the budgetary mix, the money must be made up from other sources.

Because of constitutionally mandated spending, there are only two areas where cuts may be made: higher education and health care. And of course, there is always the suspension of pay raises.

Accordingly, Curt Eysink, executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC)–once known by its archaic nom de plume, the Department of Labor–sent an email to all his employees on Sept. 26 which informed them thusly:

Dear Fellow LWC Employees,

As you are aware, the LWC has experienced significant reductions in funding over the last four years as the demand for our services increased. That has put a lot of added pressure on many of you, and you should know that your efforts are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, the combination of funding reductions and increased services also puts a tremendous strain on our budget, and we continue to struggle to maintain staffing levels in certain areas.

Yesterday afternoon, I submitted a request to Civil Service for the Layoff Avoidance Measure of withholding performance adjustment pay increases (or merit increases) for the upcoming year. I sincerely regret that this is necessary for a third year in a row, but I made this request to minimize the impact of budget pressures on our levels of staffing and on the agency.

I appreciate your dedication and patience as we work through these tough financial times. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Well, wasn’t that special? Eysink, in an effort to avoid layoffs, was willing to allow his employees to bite the bullet on behalf of the greater good by denying them pay raises, even though he “sincerely” regretted the action.

But wait. While he was sacrificing 4 percent increases for virtually his entire agency, Eysink was apparently attempting a backdoor salary bump of some $20,000 per year (40.8 percent), from $47,570 to $67,000, for a single employee.

Jonie Smith, Emerging Workforce Manager (for programs involving community action agencies, veterans and disabled workers), was approved by the state Civil Service Commission for an increase from $47,570 to $67,000 despite restrictions that would have limited her increase to only $53,000.

This is the same Civil Service Commission that rubber stamped the privatization plan for the Office of Group Benefits that will cause about 120 workers in that agency to lose their jobs. (Is it just us, or does anyone else see the Civil Service Commission as becoming just another Jindal dancing monkey in much the same mode as the Ethics Commission and the Louisiana Legislature?)

Not that one member, at least, didn’t try to discourage the big raise.

Briefly, here’s a recap of what went down:

Smith apparently got a job offer from the private sector and Eysink felt she was just too valuable to lose. Civil Service rules allow a state agency to match a private sector offer and in this particular case a match would have boosted her salary by $5,430, or 11.4 percent—nearly three times the 4 percent merit raise for state employees—if such raises still existed, which, of course, they don’t.

Even at that, agency officials lobbied for $67,000, causing commission member Scott Hughes to balk. Hughes observed that a lot of good employees have already been lost to layoffs. Another 1500 or so are slated to lose their jobs (just in time for Christmas, no less) through massive cutbacks in services by the LSU healthcare system.

“I’m not going to cast a vote to set a precedent for one employee,” he said, adding that other agencies might attempt similar moves. “I believe it’s a barn door we are opening that will not get shut.”

Commission Vice Chairman John McLure pooh-poohed Hughes’s concerns. “Given the current economic situation and the downsizing we have approved, we won’t see much of this,” he said somewhat incredulously.

Apparently, McLure has not been paying close attention to the news lately (see Tim Barfield, whom Jindal appointed Revenue Secretary at twice the salary of his predecessor).

It should also be noted that while Eysink pays the obligatory lip service to his employees by telling them how much he values and appreciates their dedication and patience, at least one staff member is valued and appreciated considerably more than the rest. Either that or he’s simply lying about how much he appreciates his workers in the first place. Of course, lying is certainly not new to this administration.

Remember Jindal’s disingenuous State Employee Appreciation proclamations the past three years? Were they not so cynical and such classic examples of sick humor, they’d almost be laughable. Almost.

Hughes did have one ally in Civil Service assistant director Jean Jones.

While Ashley Gautreaux, LWC human resources director described Smith, who has worked for the agency since December of 2010, a “critical” employee, Jones said based on Civil Service records, Smith barely meets minimum job qualifications for the job she is in.

The commission predictably went along with the $19,430 per year pay raise with Hughes casting the only negative vote.

One LWC employee emailed LouisianaVoice expressing an attitude of being quite “p—sed” at the action.

That’s certainly easy to understand. Jindal has completely ignored this state since his re-election (with the exception of opportunities for camera face time during Hurricane Isaac). He is rarely even in the state anymore even as a dangerous sinkhole has caused evacuations in Assumption Parish. He is nowhere to be found even as the state’s economy is tanking, causing cutbacks in medical care, budget cuts to higher education which in turn precipitated tuition increases for already financially-strapped students—all while he pumps up salaries for his appointees (see Tim Barfield), fires doctors and college presidents and attorneys and continues to campaign for president—a goal, by the way, that he will never reach.

The question then is, with more than three years left for him to turn his nose up at the citizens who elected him, how much more of this boorish behavior is the state citizenry—and the legislature—willing to take off this arrogant Alfred E. Newman lookalike?

Perhaps Hammond attorney C.B. Forgotston said it best when he said it is time for us to move on because Bobby has. “It’s time for us to admit the truth: Bobby Jindal is finished with Louisiana,” he said.

“Bobby’s future is beyond the borders of Louisiana and he shows it every day. It’s time for the legislators to determine what type of state in which they want to live, not what Bobby leaves us.”

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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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Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization, Regents on September 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Thank you for your correspondence to Senator Riser regarding state cuts. Please know that Senator Riser appreciates hearing from you and will keep your thoughts and concerns in mind as they go thru the legislative process.”

–Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia), in his response to several specific questions from a constituent regarding efforts by Gov. Piyush Jindal to gut higher education, help private entities profit from charter schools and online courses, to take absolute control of LSU and to dismantle the state’s system of health care for the state’s indigent population. By this canned response, obviously not written by Riser but by a legislative assistant, Riser has demonstrated that the concerns of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which he is a member, are given more attention than those of his constituents.

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