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Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Retirement, Transparency on April 23, 2012| 3 Comments »

“If these bills pass, We’ll be next.”

–Stacy Birdwell, secretary-treasurer of the Professional Firefighters of Louisiana during Monday’s Senate Retirement Committee hearing, explaining why he was testifying against Gov. Jindal’s retirement reform package even though firefighters aren’t affected in the current round of legislation.

“If they want to kick me off my committees, that’s okay with me. I’ll cut grass and edge around the Capitol in the morning but at 2 p.m. I’ll be in the House Chamber speaking out against and voting against these retirement bills that are detrimental to state employees.”

–State Rep. James Armes (D-Leesville), who is also a landscape contractor, speaking at a press conference on Monday at which Gov. Jindal’s retirement reform package was roundly criticized by several speakers.

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It looked like a victory in the Senate Retirement Committee but don’t be fooled: it was extremely bad acting by Guillory

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, Teague on April 23, 2012| 6 Comments »

Opponents of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s retirement legislative package won a token victory Monday when the Senate Retirement voted down Senate Bill 17 by Sen. Barrow Peacock (R-Bossier City) that could have resulted in changing state employees’ retirement from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution.

The action, as was the delayed vote of committee chairman Sen. Elbert Guillory, was nothing more than bad theatre, however, as it was necessary to kill Peacock’s bill in order to keep Gov. Jindal’s retirement reform package on track.

In stage magic, the ploy is called misdirection.

The bill itself would not have mandated the conversion to a defined contribution plan but rather would have placed the matter on next November’s ballot as a constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to make the switch if it so desired.

That conflicted with Jindal’s package, as presented in bills supposed authored by Guillory but in reality drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and which the administration contends is constitutional.

To vote a constitutional amendment out of committee would have been tantamount to what one witness described as passing a constitutional amendment on the premise that it serves as “backup” to another law that the administration believes may not stand up in court.

SB 17 was not part of the governor’s retirement reform package and was not an administration bill. The bills filed by Guillory in the Senate and House Retirement Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) accomplish statutorily what Peacock was attempting with his constitutional amendment.

Because the administration insists that its bills are constitutional, Peacock’s bill would have had the consequence of saying the constitution must be changed in order to switch from a defined benefit to defined contribution.

For those who might still look upon the vote as a victory for opponents of Jindal’s retirement reform, consider this:

On the surface, the voted appeared to amount to wasted investments by Jindal and ALEC who, together with Jindal, contributed $95,200 to three of the committee members who voted no.

Three of the “no” votes came from Chairman Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas), Sen. Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches) and A.G. Crowe (R-Pearl River).

Guillory received $45,200 from corporate members of ALEC and another $7500 from Jindal. Jindal’s contributions were in increments of $2500 each from August to November of 2011.

Long received $33,000 from ALEC corporate members and another $2500 from Jindal, campaign records show, and Crowe received $4500 from ALEC corporate and $2500 from Jindal.

Neither of the three would dare go against such generous benefactors—especially a governor who has already shown his predisposition to allow no dissention from his troops. And there’s no way Guillory was going to risk his chairmanship with the memory of the fate of State Rep. Harold Ritchie still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Ritchie, sitting as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, voted against legislation pushed by Jindal and was immediately stripped of his vice-chairmanship of another committee, the House Committee on Insurance.

His demotion came so lightning-fast that Insurance Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Cromer (R-Slidell) was not even informed of the action until after the fact.

It’s uncertain if Peacock’s bill was an inadvertent obstacle for Jindal or if it was intentional. Jindal had supported Peacock’s opponent, Jane Smith, with a $2,500 contribution in last fall’s elections

For added drama, however, Guillory was the deciding vote. Following a 3-3 vote and to provide sufficient drama to the moment, Guillory paused for several seconds before saying, “I’m going to vote no, so the bill is reported unfavorably.”

It looked for all the world as if Guillory was actually pondering all the pros and cons of Peacock’s bill when in fact, he’s just another bad actor in what has quickly become a very bad play that in spite of all the bad reviews, is going to run for 85 days.

Mary Patricia Ray, spokesperson for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, apparently felt the committee members were sincere in considering Peacock’s bill. She testified that amending the State Constitution should not be a “backup” plan in case the governor’s bills did not stand up constitutionally.

“If the members of this committee are willing to amend the Constitution on the premise that it serves as ‘backup’ to another law that they believe may not stand up in court, I think we’ve really got to re-examine what it means to amend our constitution,” she said.

Whether she misread the committee’s true intent or not, she still got a strong point across when she said, “My teachers don’t have social security to fall back on. They aren’t private citizens. They chose to dedicate their lives to teaching the children of this state.

“What we’re discussing doing here amounts to the complete opposite philosophy that we’ve been hearing this whole session and that is we absolutely respect our teachers and public servants.”

She said the bills “say we don’t value them; we don’t care what happens to them and their families when they retire and that we’re willing to continue a destructive patter of tax exemptions and other measures and ask state employees to foot the bill.”

She was referring to five-year revenue losses of more than $22.5 billion from various tax exemptions granted by the state since Fiscal Year 2009. More than a third of that amount, $8.1 billion was in the form of corporate income tax and corporate franchise tax exemptions and tax incentive and exemption contracts.

The combined unfunded accrued liability of the four state retirement systems is less than $19 billion, or nearly $4 billion less than the total tax exemptions granted by the state.

Stacy Birdwell, secretary-treasurer of the Professional Firefighters of Louisiana testified that even though Jindal’s current retirement reform package does not affect firefighters, if Jindal’s retirement reform passes, “we’ll be next.”

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Piyush up to political chicanery as SB51 omitted from Senate calendar on Tuesday; are contents being hidden from public?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, Transparency on April 17, 2012| 14 Comments »

Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show once drawled, “Ohhh, there’s mischief afoot. Yeah, mischief afoot.”

That well may be the case with Senate Bill 51 that raises the state employee retirement age.

First, a little background.

The Senate Retirement Committee was originally scheduled to meet Monday at 9:30 a.m. As opponents gathered in the committee room and overflowed into the hallway, however, word came down that the meeting would be delayed because of a lack of a quorum.

In contemporary American Politic, that normally translates to the administration does not have the necessary votes to get the bill out of committee.

But this committee was wrapped and packaged by Gov. Bobby Jindal, so that explanation wouldn’t seem to hold water. After all, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Jindal had combined to contribute more than $102,000 to five of the seven committee members.

That fact alone should offer sufficient evidence that the fix was in. It’s already been shown to work for education bills and prison sales.

So, why the delay?

Apparently, there were some glitches with the bill despite assurances from the administration that provisions of the bill—and companion bills that change the final average compensation (SB47) and SB52 that increases most rank and file contributions by 3 percent—are constitutional.

For two hours committee members met with administrative officials to tweak SB51, coordinating retirement ages with time of service ostensibly so as to adversely affect as few state employees as possible.

In reality, the administration was drafting a more palatable substitute bill so as to neutralize criticism of Jindal’s retirement package by the Legislative Auditor and Gary Lawson of Strasburger Law Firm of Dallas. State Auditor Daryl Purpera retained the firm to conduct an analysis of the proposed retirement bills.

The Strasburger 38-page report opined that most of the retirement package would be ruled unconstitutional if subjected to a legal challenge.

Publicly, the administration pooh-poohed the Strasburger report but the two-hour delay Monday said proponents were having second thoughts.

Lawson, contacted as he prepared to return to Dallas, said he had no opportunity to review the substitute bill and the amendments before being called to testify in opposition to the bill.

“Nobody knows what’s in the bill,” he said, “least of all the committee members themselves.”

That didn’t stop committee members, heavily indebted to ALEC and Jindal for generous campaign contributions from one or both, from rubber-stamping their approval of the bill.

Then on Tuesday things began to take a strange turn on the Senate floor.

The Senate divides daily proceedings into the “Morning Hour,” and “Regular Order.” It is during the “Morning Hour” that Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp reads into the record the reports from each committee meeting of the day before.

This is the official report on which bills have been amended and moved favorably by the respective committees. Koepp also reads reports from several committees.

This is an important technical step in the process because it officially gets the bill out of committee and back on the Senate calendar. When this is done, the amendments are posted online. The amendments remained “proposed” until the following day when they are adopted by the body (in this case, the full Senate) and the bill is passed to Second Reading.

The report from the Retirement Committee, however, was not included during Tuesday’s “Morning Hour.”

Then, on Tuesday evening, after the Senate completed its calendar for the day, the body “reverted” to the “Morning Hour,” a normal procedure that allows Koepp to read communications from the House or from the governor.

It was at this point that Koepp suddenly read into the record the report from the Senate Retirement Committee from Monday. He reported SB33, SB47, SB52 and SB740, all “favorably as amended.”

SB51, the most controversial of the lot, the one that raises the retirement age to 67, was not among those reported by Koepp.

That means that the bill is technically still in committee and more importantly (and more ominously), it means that the substitute bill and its mystery amendments are still unavailable to the public.

More than 24 hours after the committee voted out a bill that not one member of the committee had read, the public still has no idea what the substitute bill is, what it says or what it does.

Frank Jobert, executive director of the Louisiana Retired Employees Association, expressed his puzzlement at the omission of SB51 in Koepp’s report.

“Perhaps they (the administration) don’t have the votes on the (Senate) floor,” he said. “I believe even the committee members don’t know what they voted for and are hesitant to go further down this road until they know what they passed out of committee merely to please the governor.”

Jobert added that he had heard that the 3 percent employee contribution increase might yet be ruled a tax or a fee by the Senate leadership “which could cause them to start over in the House or stymie the measure because it is a non-fiscal session. This remains to be seen.”

The Louisiana Constitution prohibits consideration of taxes in even-numbered years and last year, when Jindal attempted a similar move, then-House Speaker Jim Tucker said any increase in contributions imposed on state employees would constitute a tax.

Jindal has consistently rejected efforts to increase taxes—at least on his corporate supporters. He had no problem with forcing college tuition increases and apparently has no compunctions about imposing the 3 percent increase on employees’ contributions.

While the reasons for omitting SB51 from the report remain unclear, one thing is for certain: the action was intentional on the part of the administration.

The bill has to be made public at some point in time, so why the parliamentary chicanery? The only possible explanation is to keep the contents of the bill away from public scrutiny for another day or so in order to allow less time for opponents to react.

Jindal Communications Director Kyle Plotkin earlier Tuesday issued a statement about a fake Facebook posting in which someone impersonated the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristy Nichols as telling state employees, “We are watching you.”

In that statement, Plotkin said, “We have big challenges and need to have a substantive debate about the issues. These underhanded attacks distract from the issues. It’s unfortunate and surprising that someone would stoop this low to try and win.”

Substitute “tactics” for “attacks” and we couldn’t agree more.

Just another day in the Piyush transparent, ethical and accountable administration.

Michief afoot, indeed.

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Piyush Push continues with Senate Retirement Committee hearings today; will legislators man up to this governor?

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement on April 16, 2012| 11 Comments »

Now that Piyush Jindal has shoved the education reform bills down our throats with minimal time for debate and even less attempt at actually reading the bills, he is ready to turn his attention to his state retirement reform package.

First up are three bills by Sen. Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas). Senate bills 51, 52 and 740 are scheduled to be heard by the Senate Retirement Committee, which Guillory chairs, beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday.

The bills may have Guillory’s name on them but make no mistake: they were written by corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and spoon-fed to Guillory to introduce at Jindal’s behest.

SB 51 would require rank and file state employees who are members of the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System (LASERS) to work until age 67 before being able to realize full retirement benefits. Those retiring before that age would receive sharply reduced benefits under terms of the bill.

SB 52 would require members of LASERS, who have not had a pay raise for three years, to contribute an additional 3 percent of their salaries. Originally, that increase was to have been offset by a corresponding reduction in the amount the state contributes. The money saved by the state would have gone into the state General Fund to help Jindal fill in a big hole anticipated in the state budget.

That would have meant that employees would not have realized any advantage either toward reducing the LASERS unfunded accrued liability (UAL) or in providing increased retirement benefits, thereby defining the increase as a tax—illegal during an even-number year’s legislative session.

Now, though Jindal, in his usual method of smoke and mirrors economics, says the 3 percent additional will go to pay down the UAL.

The really curious thing about Jindal’s incessant barking about the UAL is that LASERS presently has a UAL of $6.3 billion, only about a third of the total UAL of the four retirement systems–teachers ($10.8 billion), school employees ($863 million) and state police ($313 million), yet he continuously blathers as if the entire amount is the liability of LASERS alone.

Smoke and mirrors.

The governor soldiers on with his ALEC-inspired bills despite a report by the Dallas law firm Strasburger & Price which says that virtually all components of the retirement bills would be ruled unconstitutional if subjected to legal challenges—as they will most surely will be.

The report was commissioned by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera.

Jindal dismissed the Strasburger report through his press lackeys, saying the analysis was conducted without a thorough read of the bills and that the 38-page analysis was done with no examination of case law.

It appears that the Strasburger report was the document that did not receive a thorough read—from the governor and his “brown shirts,” to borrow a term from Rep. Sam Jones (D-Franklin)—because the report specifically cited case law from 18 other states and a handful from right here in Louisiana as legal precedents.

Smoke and mirrors.

If Jindal’s bills are passed and somehow survive legal challenges (highly unlikely), we might brace ourselves for an attempt in his three-plus years left as governor (He is not going to be Romney’s veep, though there is a chance he may run for the U.S. Senate against Mary Landrieu) to reduce benefits for already retired state employees. We certainly would not put it past him.

Regardless of the legal outcome of the retirement bills, he will probably make another run at abolishing Civil Service as he did through Rep. John Schroeder (R-Covington) two years ago.

In contrast to Jindal’s slash and burn tactic of benevolent governance, the words of former Gov. Edwin Edwards come to mind. Quoted in the book Bad Bet on the Bayou by Tyler Bridges, Edwards, who grew up the son of a sharecropper, said, “I remember when government made it possible for electricity to be brought to my house.”

He was referring to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act of 1936, when Edwards was just nine.

“I remember when the government made it possible for a (school) bus to pick me up and drive me eight miles into town,” he continued. “I remember when government made it possible for me to eat a free hot lunch at school. I remember when government made books available to me that I otherwise would not have been able to have.”

If the governor pushes his retirement bills through, then the sins of Edwin Edwards will pale by comparison to the cumulative harmful effects of Jindal’s privatization of the Office of Risk Management, the Office of Group Benefits, Medicaid, his “reforms” to education and state employee retirement, his cutting of higher education, thereby forcing tuition increases, his granting of tax cuts to favored corporations, his allowing friendly former legislators to settle into do-nothing jobs at six-figure salaries (jobs for which they are woefully unqualified), and the sale of state prisons.

No matter what the shortcomings of Edwin W. Edwards, he never shafted teachers or state workers. For that matter, he never turned his back on Louisiana’s working citizens. Nor did he ever dodge a reporter’s questions or refuse an interview—claims Jindal could never make. When a reporter left a message for Gov. Edwards to return his or her call, it was Edwards, not some flunky, who personally returned the call.

But enough with the reminiscing; let’s turn our attention to the makeup of the respective House and Senate retirement committees and the key campaign contributions of the members of those two committees.

The heavy hand of ALEC is ever-present, as is that of Jindal himself.

Following are members of the Senate Retirement Committee and the contributions received from corporate members of ALEC and from Jindal’s own campaign fund:

• Guillory—$45,200 from Alec, $7500 from Jindal;

• Page Cortez (R-Lafayette), vice chairman—$2500 from Jindal;

• Conrad Appel (R-Metairie)—$2500 from Jindal;

• A.G. Crowe (R-Pearl River)—$4500 from ALEC, $2500 from Jindal;

• Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches)—$35,000 from ALEC, $2500 from Jindal;

• Barrow Peacock (R-Bossier City)—No contributions;

• Jonathan Perry (R-Kaplan)—No contributions.

Both Crowe and Long are members of ALEC.

Following are members of the House Retirement Committee and the contributions received from corporate members of ALEC and from Jindal’s campaign:

• Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell), chairman—$2500 from Jindal;

• Nick Lorusso (R-New Orleans), vice chairman—$6500 from ALEC;

• Anthony Ligi (R-Metairie)—$20,500 from ALEC, $5000 from Jindal;

• Jack Montoucet (D-Crowley)—$6000 from ALEC;

• Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport)—$11,750 from ALEC, $2500 from Jindal;

• Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge)—$5000 from Jindal;

• Jeff Thompson (R-Bossier City)—No contributions;

• Paul Hollis (R-Covington)—No contributions;

• Sam Jones (D-Franklin)—No contributions;

• Edward Price (D-Gonzales)—No contributions;

• Eugene Reynolds (D-Minden)—No contributions.

Lorusso, Ligi, Montoucet, Seabaugh and Talbot are ALEC members.

One state employee said in a recent email to LouisianaVoice that Jindal’s proposed comprises on his retirement bills “are in no way acceptable.” The compromises, he said, “are still breaking a contract with state employees.”

Here is the rest of that email:

“Sometimes people forget that pensions are the sole source of retirement planning for many state employees. We receive no match on any IRAs we may be able to afford on our relative low salaries and we are not allowed to contribute to Social Security.

“I think some legislators need to be reminded that they do not answer to a political party, to a governor, or to their largest campaign contributors. They answer to the people, the taxpayers and the voters of this state. And contrary to what many legislators believe, state employees are, in fact, people, taxpayers and voters. We have the same financial obligations that private sector employees have, yet we are ‘solely’ asked to bear the burden of a historically irresponsible legislature.

The true measure of a society is how it treats the weakest among it. State employees are the weakest among all civil servants; therefore, we have been intentionally targeted. Our hands are tied by ridiculous civil service regulations that do not afford us the same opportunity as teachers or law enforcement officers to speak on issues that directly impact us. In addition, many state employees have been intimidated into thinking that they cannot speak out against these reforms for fear of retribution.

“This targeted approach is both abusive and discriminatory towards state workers. In my opinion, (legislators’) true character will be especially clear after this vote. While many of us are afraid to speak out, we can vote. We can sign a recall petition. So, please do not play unnecessary politics with the livelihoods of your constituents.”

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Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Retirement on April 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

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

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

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

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

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