AMA backs the Public Option. Why can't Mary?

The American Medical Association (AMA) — GASP!!! — has endorsed the healthcare reform legislation proposed by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to the Associated Press:

The American Medical Association on Thursday endorsed a liberal health overhaul bill that includes a public insurance option, a bold step for a traditionally conservative group with a checkered past on health reforms.

In its strongest action yet signaling support for President Barack Obama's vow to reform health care, the nation's largest doctors' group sent letters to three House committees behind the bill. The letters, signed by AMA's executive vice president, Dr. Michael Maves, said the AMA appreciates and supports what is being called America's Affordable Health Choices Act.

This is an historic shift. The AMA opposed the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. It's conference of delegats gave President Obama a lukewarm reception when he addressed their convention earlier this summer.

The AMA's leader told the news organization that the fact that the Democratic proposal will bring healthcare coverage to the 50 million Americans now without health insurance was what won the organization's support:

Dr. J. James Rohack, AMA's president, told The Associated Press that the group's endorsement shouldn't be seen as the AMA turning more liberal.

"It's not blue or red, or Democratic or Republican. This is something that is the AMA's core values," Rohack said. "The status quo that is 50 million Americans not having health insurance, a system that has administrative waste and as a result drives up premiums so that it is unaffordable for many patients — that is just not acceptable."

The AMA has long believed any health system reform can be achieved by revamping private health insurance plans. It fought the creation of Medicare and succeeded in delaying its debut decades ago. That was when it had more clout; its membership has dwindled to include barely one-fourth of the nation's doctors.bama a lukewarm reception earlier this year when he addressed their convention.

So, the AMA has endorsed the House Democratic proposal with the Public Option — a provision that will allow working age Americans to buy into a Medicare-like public insurance program.

Wonder what is keeping Senator Mary Landrieu from seeing the light on this? Maybe this has something to do with it.

Jindal Appoints Multiple-LLC Contributor to Head LRA

Governor Jindal's hypocrisy on ethics knows no bounds.

While traipsing across northeast Louisiana touting his 'Ethics Reform' successes, the former top lawyer for the state Board of Ethics for Elected Officials said the so-called reforms actually gutted the state's ethics laws during an appearance before the Baton Rouge Press Club.

But, Jindal's actions spoke louder than words when, on Tuesday, he appointed one of his biggest contributors to head the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Jindal appointed New Orleans businessman David Voelker to head the LRA board, according to the Associated Press.

Voelker was in a special class of contributors to Jindal's 2007 gubernatorial campaign. Voelker was one of the 28 or so individuals who used multiple limited liability companies they controlled to make contributions to Jindal's campaign that exceeded the personal limits imposed by Louisiana campaign finance laws.

Here's what a review of Jindal's campaign finance records and corporate records from the Louisiana Secretary of State's reveal:

On September 5, 2007, the Jindal campaign booked $30,000 in contributions that were directly related to David Voelker, with another $10,000 possible connected to him. There were four $5,000 checks from Voelker and members of his household. There were also two checks from LLCs he controls or shares control.

• September 5, 2007 •
Voelker Mangement II LLC • $5,000
Frantzen/Voelker Investments LLC • $5,000

F/V Diversified LLC, which shares an address (and initials) with Frantzen/Voelker Investments LLC, also contributed $5,000 to the Jindal campaign that was booked on the same day. Records on file with the Louisiana Secretary of State list only one member of the F/V Diversified company — JSC Management LLC, which is managed by Richard C. Conway, Jr. The Jindal campaign booked a $5,000 contribution from JSC Management LLC on September 5, 2007, as well.

Ethics reform without campaign finance reform is a farce.

Governor Jindal continues to reward his largest contributors for their largess. This is the most blatant form of the kind of "pay to play" politics that Jindal railed against as a candidate. As governor, he's proven that ethics reform is for other people — not for him, his administration and his well-heeled, deep pocketed friends.

'Believe in Louisiana (Committee for a Republican Majority)'

The Times Picayune carried an Associated Press story earlier this week on the pro-Jindal gra$$root$ organization "Believe in Louisiana."

Turns out that this group is funded primarily by members of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM).

Let's let the AP tell the story:

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A nonprofit group formed to tout Gov. Bobby Jindal's political and policy plans raised nearly $750,000 since forming three months ago — nearly all of it from 10 big money contributors.

• • • • •

Though the group received contributions from 189 people, $625,000 of the donations came from fewer than a dozen people or companies, including four that gave $100,000 apiece: Lee Domingue, of Baton Rouge; Joseph Canizaro, of New Orleans; Bollinger Shipyards, of Lockport; and Edward Diefenthal, of Metairie. McCollister donated $4,100 himself.

Canizaro is the chairman of LCRM and a $100,000 contributor to that organization over the 2006-2007 campaign cycle. Bollinger contributed $100,000 during that cycle to LCRM via his Bollinger Shipyards company.

Edward Diefenthal contributed nearly the same amount, plus bundled contributions to Jindal's campaign from his LLCs. In appreciation, Jindal appointed Deifenthal to his Ethics Reform Transition Team — right, the one that didn't make any recommendation regarding campaign finance reform. Not surprisingly, the Ethics Governor failed to include campaign finance reform in the call for his special session on Ethics.

Southern Recycling was once owned by Diefenthal, so his involvement could be deeper than the AP reports.

LCRM funder Phyllis Taylor came up with $10,000 for 'Believe.'

When the money is followed, the real story here is not that these people believe in Louisiana; instead, three months into the Jindal administration, they are not yet experiencing buyers' remorse.

Meanwhile, they are spending the big bucks to convince the public that they should ignore those stories about how Jindal is using public dollars to demonstrate his appreciation to his strongest supporters.

"Ignore those stories — and those fat cats behind the curtain!"

Jindal Campaign Admits Campaign Finance Law Violation

Well, it's clear now why there's been no mention of campaign finance reform in the vaunted Jindal ethics package.

Seems like the new governor's campaign was — in that great Republican tradition — trampling Louisiana's campaign finance laws at the same time the then-candidate was blathering about the essential need for ethics reform in our state.

The Baton Rouge Advocate reported tonight that Jindal's campaign has admitted that it failed to report more than $100,000 assistance it got from the Louisiana Republican Party:

Gov. Bobby Jindal faces state ethics charges for failing to timely disclose more than $100,000 in campaign aid he received from the state Republican Party.

The Louisiana Board of Ethics ordered a public hearing to explore charges that Jindal and his governor’s campaign committee violated the state’s Campaign Finance Disclosure Act.

Timmy Teepell, Jindal’s chief of staff, said Thursday night that Jindal would pay the fine.

Jindal failed to “accurately disclose in-kind contributions” from the state GOP, according to a Tuesday letter notifying Jindal of the reporting problem.

The Advocate on Thursday obtained a copy of the letter.

Jindal was flying to Washington, D.C., according to his press secretary, Melissa Sellers, who said he could not immediately be reached for comment.

Jindal campaign accountant William Potter of Baton Rouge said a mistake was made.

“We are not trying to deny anything,” said Potter. “It’s an error.”

According to The Advocate, Jindal's campaign will suffer the indignity of a $2,500 fine for hiding the $100,000 in party money that was spent during the summer of 2007. The Associated Press also has a story on the Jindal campaign finance violations.

Jindal's ethics task force was silent on the matter of campaign finance reform in the report it submitted to the new Governor just days after his inauguration, where he again proclaimed his intention to make Louisiana's ethics laws the best in the country.

What this violation makes clear is that ethics reform without campaign finance reform is a scam. The fact that campaigns can routinely violate the state campaign finance laws and yet suffer nothing worse than a token fine makes violating a winning proposition.

Case in point: Lafayette-area Republican Representative Don Trahan hid more than $23,000 in excess PAC contributions to his re-election campaign, listing them as "individual gifts." Trahan won a tough re-election campaign over independent Nancy Landry by only 33 votes. No doubt, that illegal PAC money helped put Trahan over the top.

Trahan's campaign blamed "an inexperience staffer" for the "error." Trahan, though, will get to keep his seat despite the fact that he won it with illegal money.

There is no deterrent in current law for well-funded campaigns to thumb their noses at the campaign finance laws of this state. They break the law, say they're sorry, take a slap on the wrist and keep their ill-gotten office.

Another key point which The Advocate article points out is the role that citizens play in enforcing campaign finance and other ethics laws in this state:

Potter said the problem didn’t come to light until a news report alleged that advertising the Republican Party did for the Jindal campaign wasn’t being reported.

Chris Stow-Serge, a New Orleans public high schoolteacher with Democratic ties, said he had filed the complaint.

The Shreveport Times produced an excellent post-campaign series on the Louisiana State Board of Ethics and how our laws and the board compare with those in other states. One glaring problem is the small, under-funded staff on our board.

With this situation, it falls to citizens to do the discovery and present claims to the Ethics Board and its staff.

Citizen Chris Stow-Serge's actions show the way for the rest of us.

Be the campaign finance law enforcement you want to see — at least, until Jindal and his Republican friends decide to measure of the standards they set and include real campaign finance reform in the the call for the so-called "Ethics" special session.

If campaign finance reform — with real penalties for scofflaws like Don Trahan and the LCRM (more coming soon) — is not included in the call for that special session, Jindal's rhetoric will have been proven empty and he will be discredited on his central issue in his first month in office.

Genius!

Something about Climate Change that Mary Does Not Get

Will someone please tell Senator Mary Landrieu that she represents the state of Louisiana and not the oil and gas industries!

Landrieu was the lone Democrat to vote against ending a Republican filibuster against provisions in the energy bill which would have mandated that utilities get at least 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The bill, in its final form, does some good things, but it could have done much more if not for Landrieu's placing of the interests of oil and gas companies ahead of the interests of the people of the state she was elected to represent.

Why do I say Landrieu voted to defend the interests of a leading industry over the interests of the state? For starters, there is the matter of the accelerating rate of climate change, which is speeding the melting of the polar ice cap and the cap in Greenland.

Less ice, means more water in the oceans, which translates into rising sea levels. Louisiana's coast is very flat. Rising sea levels combined with sinking land is a bad combination for us.

How bad? Check out the images from the University of Arizona at the top of this post.

The image on the left is what Louisiana's relationship with the Gulf of Mexico was like earlier this year. The image on the right shows the impact of a one-meter rise (a little more than three feet) would have on our state. Look at it closely (you can find another set of the images here).

Orleans and Jefferson parishes are inundated. Terrebonne and LaFourche, too. Gulf waters reach up to I-10 in West Baton Rouge Parish. Most of Cameron and Vermilion parishes are under water.

Oh, well, you might say, "that won't happen for a century. We'll be gone and someone else will have figured out what to do."

Wrong!

The pace of the melting is increasing.

Well, then, it's hopeless you might say.

Wrong again!

McKinsey & Company (the business consultants) recently released a report (PDF) that substantial progress could be made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 23 years without disrupting the U.S. economy. It focuses on increased energy efficiency as a means of reducing the growth in the release of greenhouse gases.

But, McKinsey report states that the measures that need to be taken include the very kind of energy production shift that Landrieu wrong-headedly blocked by supporting the Republican filibuster against the energy bill:

5. Reducing the carbon intensity of electric power production — 800 megatons to 1,570 megatons. This potential derives from a shift toward renewable energy sources (primarily wind and solar), additional nuclear capacity, improved efficiency of power plants, and eventual use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies on coal-fired electricity generation.

This is McKinsey & Company writing! It's only radical if you're so deep in the back pocket of the energy industry that you think their farts are perfume.

Again, why is this important? Go to the images at the top again.

Louisiana, due to our geology, topography and geography, is going to be among the areas most dramatically affected by rising sea levels (not the only one, to be sure!).

It would be nice if any of our elected officials would give even the slightest indication that they understand what is at stake here.

The senior Senator from Louisiana has gone all 'flat earth' on climate change at a time when we need her to be rational. Maybe her polling numbers have unnerved her?

Campaign Finance Reform Push Gets Shreveport Backing

The Shreveport Times is the first mainstream media outlet in the state to take up the call for campaign finance reform and placing it in the broader context of the widespread support for ethics reform in our state.

On Sunday, The Times carried another installment on campaign finance reform in what has become a series on ethics. The paper also published an editorial on Sunday that made the case that campaign finance reform is an essential element in any serious ethics reform package. Here's a key paragraph:

• Toughen campaign finance laws. Prohibit candidates from borrowing money to run their campaigns to avoid the potential murkiness of how they might retire those loans. Eliminate third-party spending that allows often previously unheard of groups from forming to smear a candidate through ads and direct mail, allowing the favored politician to keep his or her hands "clean."

Sounds to me like they might be thinking about the LCRM with that swipe at third-party spending. In a few days, the full picture of that third-party spending will become publicly available and the public push to eliminate this kind of destructive, systemic distortion of the electoral process should only increase.

Lamar White, Jr., at the blog CENLAMAR has an excellent exposition on campaign reform which includes a list of possible reforms produced by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Ethics reform is not a partisan issue. However, if Governor-elect Jindal and his leadership team don't include campaign finance reform in their push for ethics reform, it can only be because they profit from the existing lax system. As was seen in the run-up to the October primary election, wealthy individuals used multiple Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) under their control to circumvent campaign finance contribution caps. It just so happened that most of that money went to support Republican candidates, including the governor-elect.

The mantra in the weeks running up to the January special session on ethics should be: "Ethics reform without campaign finance reform is a scam." That's not because it's a Democratic issue. It's because it happens to be true.

The Shreveport Times gets it. Let's see who else joins that parade.

Jindal, Tucker, bi-partisanship, and consensus

Welcome to the Jindal era of Louisiana politics where 'bi-partisanship' and consensus are redefined.

Check your dictionaries at the door. Prof Jindal will be making it up as he goes along now. Pupils (and the press) will be expected to take notes and not ask questions.

The latest lesson took place on Tuesday when Jindal announced that Rep. Jim Tucker had his backing to be the next Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Let's go by story filed by The Advocate's Michelle Millholon:

Tucker, a 43-year-old investment banker, would be the first Republican speaker since at least Reconstruction, House clerk Butch Speer said.

In the past, Tucker spearheaded Republican opposition to Democrat Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s legislative initiatives, especially her spending plans. Tucker recently resigned as the House GOP caucus leader.

Jindal, a Republican congressman who served for three years on Capitol Hill, said he wants to prevent Washington-style partisanship from taking root in Baton Rouge.

He said Tucker built a “bipartisan coalition” of support to gather the necessary votes for the speaker spot, indicating he can work with Democrats as well as Republicans.

“He understands his previous job is different from his current job,” Jindal said.

Tucker was the tip of the Republican spear pointed, first, at Governor Blanco and, later, at Democratic House candidates across the state. Tucker, through his T-PAC contributed to a list of predominantly Republican candidates for the House — just about all of whom were also helped by the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority.

T PAC campaign finance reports show that all of the Republicans getting money from the PAC in its initial round of support got their checks on the same day — July 25, 2007. Could they have all have been attending the LCRM candidate workshop in Alexandria on that day? Might Tucker have passed out all of his checks to those candidates at that meeting? That would make Tucker an un-named partner in the LCRM, among the most partisan organizations in the state.

But, not to worry. Governor-elect Jindal says Tucker will play a different game now that he'll have real power. Tucker must have under gone a wild decompression session since last week's election in order to have completely shed his partisan skin in so short a time.

T-PAC did back four Democracts who got a grand total of $4,500 ($2,500 of that went to Elbert Lee Guillory in a special election in Opelousas during the spring). He's about as much of a consensus builder at Tom DeLay.

It's easy to see why Jindal would feel comfortable with Tucker. Tucker's PAC got a hefty chunk of its contributions from the same place as Jindal — nursing home operators. One particular funding nexus is a collection of care companies working out of Ridgeland, MS, that contributed heavily to Jindal and, to a lesser extent, Tucker's T Pac. Campaign finance reform will not be on the Jindal/Tucker agenda, it is safe to say.

That said, Jindal's claim that Tucker's ascension is bi-partisan and consensus introduces Louisiana to what Democrats in Lafayette have known for a while. The Republican notion of bi-partisanship is that Republicans vote in lock-step and count on a Democrat or two to cave-in, and — voila! — you have bi-partisanship. Think it's not true? Watch how few times Republicans in the House and Senate break ranks over the next four years.

No doubt Tucker will have the vote of Democrat Elbert Lee Guillory of HD 40, to whom he gave $2,500 in his special election bid in March of this year. And, no doubt there will be other Democrats who abandon the party and its constituents on key issues, such as healthcare in the coming months. These will be Democrats that Louisiana Democratic House Caucus and/or the Louisiana Democratic Party poured in their otherwise precious resources to help elect — foolishly thinking that it didn't matter what the person they supported believed, so long as there was a "D" behind their name.

Add Rep. Karen Carter of New Orleans to the list!

New Orleans blogger Your Right Hand Thief has more on Rep. Carter's move.

The Times Picayune provides some details as to Rep. Carter's early decision to back Tucker.

Republicans have put ideology front and center (regardless of the posturing by the governor-elect) and Democrats will be force to either stand on principles or hop on the bandwagon. Personally, I think the wagon is going to get worn out by erstwhile Democrats rushing to jump on it.

It was Tucker who declared after the October primary that there were more ways to win control of the House than just having a majority of Republicans elected there. With an able assist from the Democrats, Mr. Tucker has already proven himself correct.

This train hasn't even fired its engines and the ride is already looking pretty shaky. Candor was apparently the first passenger tossed from the coach.