Louisiana Voice

A bill by State Rep. Les Farnum (R-Sulphur) raises several questions:

• Does the good senator have something to hide that he is afraid might become public?
• Or does he just want to curry favor with Jeff Landry?
• Or is his head where only his proctologist can find it?

I don’t mean to go out of my way to insult Farnum; I’ve never met the man.

But to introduce a bill (HB768) that would remove all personal liability from a public records custodian for refusing to comply with a public records request is just plain…what’s the word I’m groping for? Oh, yeah…stupid.

Even more disappointing – and frustrating – is the overwhelming support this piece of garbage received, passing by a 35-0 vote in the SENATE (with four not voting) and a whopping 92-1 vote in the HOUSE. Rep. Michael Bayham (R-Chalmette) was the lone nay vote. Twelve others did not bother to vote

And of course, Jeff Landry just couldn’t wait to sign the bill into law.

So, what was so awful about the bill, you ask? Well, until Landry signed the bill, the law provided a penalty of $100 per day plus attorney fees for any custodian of the record who refused to comply with a public records request.

Landry’s signature, likely executed in a pool of drool from an elated governor, takes away that penalty.

That’s right: a law with no teeth whatsoever. Now any custodian can simply ignore a public records request with no fear of reprisals. No accountability. No consequences.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already done that. They enacted their own set of ethics but failed to provide for penalties for violations of those ethics. Nice. And these guys are supposed to be the final say for the entire country on all matters legal.

Do we see a patter emerging here?

A law with no teeth. Here’s an idea: let’s do the same with traffic violations. Speed, run red lights, drive impaired; it doesn’t matter. We’re gonna remove all the penalties for those offenses. But hey, let’s go a step further. Let’s abolish the penalties for burglary, assault, armed robbery and other felonies. They’ll still be against the law, but at least no one will be punished for violating them.

And the Repugnantcans want to blame Democrats for being soft on crime.

Landry wanted to scrub the public records law altogether. This is the next best thing. Now, good luck to anyone seeking records about possible underhanded dealings by a public official, body cam footage of state police beating a man to death and later saying he died from a car wreck, information about questionable expenditures of taxpayer dollars. Contracts that reveal back room deals? Fuhgeddaboudit.

I don’t want to go too far out on a limb, but it would not surprise me one iota if the next move would be to seal off access to campaign contributions that at least for now are public records. I mean, who’s business is it about who gives how much to which elected official?

Without access to stacks of public records from Louisiana State Police, Mike Edmonson might well still be LSP commander.

We’re already witnessing a blitzkrieg attack on public education, higher education, conviction appeals, unemployment benefits, civil service, ethics laws, local control over industrial tax exemptions and state boards’ governing structure. And he tried, though unsuccessfully, to re-write the state constitution over a period of a couple of weeks without allowing for public discourse. Yes, he failed, but don’t think for a nano-second he won’t be back next year – if not before.

Remember when Bobby Jindal gutted state ethics laws after the ethics board penalized him for an infraction? Well, looky here, Landry was also given a slap on the wrist for campaign violations by the ethics board and what was his response? Why, he went after the makeup of the ethics board.

Folks, this governor is not about transparency. He’s not about good government. He never has been.

He’s about advancing his own personal agenda.

I’ll say it again, unequivocally: We’re going to long for the days of Bobby Jindal before Landry is finished.

John Kennedy may not see the need for strengthening ethics for U.S. Supreme Court justices (see post immediately below this) but by God, the Dingler Wild Hog Roundup up in Bienville Parish or the Swamp Time Hog Hunt in Caldwell Parish have their standards and you better not be caught trying to short circuit their regulations lest you run the risk of a fine and jail time.

The folks in these two contests take a dim view of porcine poaching as six men have learned.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, insisting it isn’t just hamming it up, has arrested Hunter Webb, Davy Haymon and Don Pollard Jr., all of Pitkin, Colby Bushnell of Dry Creek, Trace Davis of Longville and Nathan Granger of Vinton.

The rules, which apparently are more strictly enforced by the swine society than any idea of some obscure ethics code for Supreme Court Justices, mandate that all bacon-on-the-hoof entered in the contests must be caught during the contest dates – and in Louisiana.

The six, who were declared winners of the two contests initially, are accused of catching wild hogs in Texas prior to the contests.

In a pig’s eye, contest officials are now grunting that the six hog hunters are perfidious peccary pilferers. Accused of hunting contest fraud and criminal conspiracy, Davis, Webb, Bushnell, Haymon and Pollard Jr. are also accused of violating interstate commerce and Davis is charged with obstruction of oinker justice and Webb of hunting under a suspended license.

The pig perpetrators are looking at fines of $3,000 each and up to a year in the porker, er, pokey.

So, why do we need to have some standard of ethics, a bar below which no justice should ever stoop (or slither)?

I mean, why would anyone ever question the ethics of Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito? Free trips to exotic vacation destinations and public displays of controversial political leanings shouldn’t call their impartiality, their fairness, their objectivity into question, right?

Well, at least Louisiana’s junior U.S. senator agrees.

Yep, Mr. Self-Righteous his own self, John Neely Kennedy, joined other Sens. Wishy-washy Lendsey Graham (R-S.C.). Mike Lee (R-Utah) and others of the family values and apple pie party to BLOCK such tomfoolery, calling it “unconstitutional overreach.”

Funny, but I was taught in high school civics class that the judiciary, legislative and executive branches of government were to serve as “checks and balances” on each other. Guess my teachers back then misunderstood what our government was all about. Geez, you’d think they’d know better.

Graham, ever the statesman and diplomat, said the proposal by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said the bill would “undermine the court’s ability to operate effectively.”

I see. To require the justices to adhere to some standard of conduct that might place the highest court in the land above reproach, could conceivably hamstring the court in carrying out its duties of administering justice fairly and equitably for every single American – white, black, brown, red, yellow, gay, straight, male, female, rich or poor. Well, we just can’t have that now, can we?

Durbin was a tad more on the blunt side when he said, “The highest court in the land cannot and should not have the lowest ethical standards.”

The Dingler Wild Hog Roundup in Bienville Parish has higher ethical standards than the U.S. Supreme Court (that’s a story to be addressed in a later post).

But Kennedy had the most unique, most original (I suppose), most creative reasoning for objecting to Durbin’s proposal: “I do not think this bill is about ethics,” he sniffed. “This bill is about abortion.”

Huh? Double huh?

What in the name of green persimmons is Foghorn Leghorn talking about? (if you watch video of Leghorn pontificating, you’ll get the green persimmon reference; he looks as though he just ate one.).

Surely, Kennedy, Graham, et al, weren’t opposed to the implementation of ethics for the nine justices simply because the bill was proposed by a (gasp) Democrat! Surely not, for these honorable public servants would never place partisan politics above doing what’s best for the country.

Never mind that. Let’s take a look at a video from Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing on the freedom to travel for abortion care. Kennedy, who has a penchant for posing decidedly loaded questions, got his COME-UPPANCE from Jocelyn Frye of the National Partnership for Women and Families, who suggested that Mr. “I’d rather drink weed killer” made the critical mistake of asking a question without being fulling informed of the answer.

That collection of clowns that descends upon Baton Rouge each Spring, along with Jeff Landry, already have egg on their collective faces – or at least those responsible for the passage of Senate Bill 276 do.

Here’s why.

On May 21, the HOUSE, by a vote of 65-31 (with nine not voting), gave its final approval to the BILL which classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances over the objections of more than 200 doctors who signed a letter to legislators warning that the proposed law could pose as a “barrier” to treatment of patients. The SENATE voted two days later 29-7 in favor with two members not voting. Landry, in his haste make sure that Louisiana would be the first to enact such a statute, SIGNED it into law the very next day, on May 24.

The bill was the brainchild of State Sen. Thomas Pressly (R-Shreveport).

Perhaps it should have been aborted before its ignoble birth.

Because, on Thursday (June 13), exactly three short weeks after Senate passage, BAM! The U.S. Supreme Court, in a rare show of unanimity, RULED the opponents of abortion lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone.

Nothing like trying to jump out in front of the parade only to learn it took a left turn about three blocks back.

It’s just one more example of how the Louisiana Legislature – and Jeff Landry – are so hell-bent on appeasing the far-right evangelicals that they’ll approve any kneejerk legislation if they think it will garner them votes. Congress long sense abandoned any pretense at trying to decide what was best for the country in favor of what is best for the individual parties and for lawmakers’ reelection. When a member of Congress openly declares that it is the intent to do nothing that would aid a sitting President, it’s only too obvious that our elected officials in Washington have lost their moral compass – if, indeed, they ever possessed one.

Now, we know in all certainty that that mentality has worked its way down to Baton Rouge and other statehouses.

The legislature’s silly eagerness to pass SB 276 – and Landry’s equally silly eagerness to sign it into law – evokes memories of more than 60 years ago when Leander Perez insisted on resisting the implementation of civil rights in Louisiana. Gov. Earl Long, not long before his celebrated mental breakdown but still in full possession of his biting wit, shouted at Perez from the halls of the legislature, “Whatcha gonna do now, Leander? The feds have the A-bomb!”

Well, to the Louisiana Legislature and Landry, I would say, “Whatcha gonna do now? The most conservative Supreme Court in this country’s history has spoken!”

The answer, I suppose, should be fairly obvious. Landry will direct his sock puppet attorney general, Liz Murrill, to hire some white-shoe law firm at something between $500 and $1,000 an hour to file meaningless litigation to preserve the state’s sacred laws.

Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

Reporter Melinda Deslatte tells us that Jeff Landry, just six months into his 18 percent “mandate,” has asked the Louisiana Board of Regents to develop Scenarios for what cuts of $200 million to $250 million would do to higher education in case a .45 percent (that’s a little less than one-half of one percent, for the mathematically-challenged) state sales tax expires in June 2025 with no replacement revenue.

No replacement revenue?

How about not blowing $1,000 per hour to defend against an INVESTIGATION into Louisiana State Police by the U.S. Department of Justice when the Louisiana Attorney General’s office, Landry’s old job now held by his sock puppet Liz Murrill, should be assisting the probe? (by the way, it required two months and a lawsuit for The Lens, a New Orleans publication, to obtain a copy of that $1,000-an-hour contract which, I suppose, might be one of the reasons Landry wants to seal off public records from…the public.)

Of course, Landry has no problem pissing away a few million more for the PR purpose of sending Louisiana National Guard units to the TEXAS BORDER with Mexico. That’s for no reason other than to garner face time on television for Landry – at considerable cost to Louisiana taxpayers.

He’s also the single moving force behind SENATE BILL494 by Sen. Beth Mizell (R-Franklinton) which strips local governments of the authority to penalize companies of certain tax exemptions for not living up to deadlines or promised employment figures. That’s potentially going to cost the people of Louisiana untold millions of dollars. Not corporations, mind you, but every day Louisiana taxpayers who get in their pickup trucks and cars every morning, fight traffic congestion just so they can work to support CEOs who make on average 245-times their salaries. Oh, and just to make certain there are no hitches in catering to LABI, he’s also removed representation on the Louisiana Economic Development (LED) agency’s board of directors. Landry wasted no time, signing the bill into law on Tuesday of this week.

Along with all that, we now learn that the administration intends to pay the state’s 64 sheriffs to house juveniles caught up in the legal system. I know, juvenile crime is a problem and the state is woefully short on facilities to house them….but sheriffs? That’s a horrible idea of epic proportions.

Go back and read a few chapters of my book Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption to see what a mess jails operated under the guiding hands of sheriffs can be. (You can order a copy of the book by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the left of this column and paying $30 by credit card. Except it’s not a donation, but a purchase).

If you don’t want to order the book, go to HERE to read about an example of just one such jail.

Yet, I can fully understand Landry’s thinking here. It’s a payoff, plain and simple, to the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association for the organization’s ENDORSEMENT during last year’s gubernatorial election. And they’re acting like quid quo pro was something new up in Washington. How quaint.

The legislature, at Landry’s bidding voted to approve Senate Bill 313, which will funnel $260 million to $520 million (depending upon who’s figures you use: Landry’s – and you know politicians are consistently off by light years when it comes to spending your money – or the Public Affairs Research Council’s) for Landry’s much ballyhooed education savings account (ESA) through the state’s Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program. Designed to help parents pay tuition for private schools. Of course, once they reach college, they’ll be on their own.

And finally, there’s the one issue that no governor, Democrat or Republican, seems willing to fight for. Louisiana continues to lag near the bottom in teacher pay. You may or may not have kids in school but if you can read this, you went to school at some point in your life and because of a teacher – not a politician, a preacher or a rock or sports star – you have become a functional human being in society (or at least had the opportunity to do so).

Some of us were less than ideal students but because some teacher took an interest and helped to steer you in the proper direction, we emerged better persons. Yet, we continue to refuse to pay teachers a competitive salary. In 2021, we ranked 46^th in the nation in TEACHER PAY. Two years later, we still ranked 46^th. Arkansas is a notch ahead of Louisiana at 45^th. Who’s below us? Well, there’s Missouri (47^th), Florida (48^th), South Dakota (49^th), West Virginia (50^th) and Mississippi (51^st).

The median salary for Louisiana teachers (about $56,250 is well shy of the $69,500 national median. The bottom ten states in teacher pay all have Republican governors.

So, using the Bobby Jindal playbook, it looks early on as if Landry is going to give all the tax breaks to his corporate friends, spend lavishly on pet projects, cut higher education (forcing even higher tuitions onto students to make up for shortfalls), and continue to starve public school teachers.

This is what Jindal 2.0 is going to look like, folks, so get ready to bend over.