Bobby Jindal: cam head

The self-proclaimed 'Ethics Governor'™was laid bare as a fraud over the past week as the pay to play nature of his administration was revealed for all who cared to see.

Gold digger? Yes! Gold standard? Hardly!

First, last week the New York Times revealed that the Supriya Jindal Foundation was the beneficiary of conspicuous corporate largess, made all the more suspect by the fact that many of those same companies had matters that needed the Governor's attention.

Then, a tenacious legal fight over a study to consider the feasibility of merging the University of New Orleans with Southern University at New Orleans revealed more than a few unflattering facts about the Governor's appointing practices. It turns out that all of the Governor's appointments to the Board of Regents for Higher Education had two things in common: first, they were all maximum contributors ($5,000 per individual, not counting family members and companies); and, second, they were all white.

Jindal won that round of the legal fight, but even Republican sycophant pollster Bernie Pinsonat said he believed the Board of Regents story had the potential to prove costly to the Governor.

It's probably just a coincidence that Pinsonat's remarks were published just before 2 p.m. on Lundi Gras and within two hours Jindal's office announced the resignation from the Board of long time member and Turner Industries President and CEO Roland Toups. Jindal political guru Timmy Teepel made it clear that he and Jindal had asked Toups to resign in order to provide the Governor with the chance to name a minority member to the Board.

Turner Industries, it turns out, is charged with employment discrimination against African Americans in a lawsuit filed in Texas. According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly 250 workers sued, alleging racial discrimination in hiring, pay, promotions and on-the-job treatment. Turner Industries, the paper reported, has had a number of such suits brought against it by employees and by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The question that should immediately be raised is whether this minority member will have to first contribute to Jindal's campaign in order to get the seat, or has the Jindal camp already scoured their campaign finance reports to identify potential candidates? Is green the only color Jindal can see?

The extent to which Jindal and his team are so out of touch on racial issues is made clear by the belief that appointing a single minority member to the Board of Regents will somehow correct the Governor's defective appointing patterns. That pattern shows that Jindal views African Americans as irrelevant to the governmental process at the state level.

Late last year, the Legislative Black Caucus called attention to Jindal's appointing practices in a press release that came on the heels of legislative testimony by one of Jindal's assistants. The Governor did not feel compelled to respond.

The sacking of Toups indicates that the Governor only started to consider the impact of his appointing practices when it became clear it might cost him something he wanted — specifically, the closure of the SUNO campus. The lack of a minority member on the Board with a vote appears to contradict the will of the Legislature when it passed the law creating the Board of Regents and the amendment to the Louisiana Constitution that voters approved in 1998. When Blacks complained about his pay-to-play system, he could ignore it. But, when the matter got raised in a court of law, that changed things.

Rumor has it that Jindal two conditions for people seeking appointment to the Southern University System Board of Supervisors. The first is that any appointee cannot give money to anyone running against Jindal; the second is that they cannot work against the election of any Republican legislators in their area.

The pay-to-play issue and the racial composition of the Board of Regents will not go away in the SUNO matter because the plaintiffs have announced that they intend to pursue an appeal.

The Jindal Way: Pay-to-Play

The pay-to-play model cropped up in connection with the Supriya Jindal Foundation where, the New York Times first reported, major corporations with business before the state have been making large contributions to the First Lady's foundation. Sure, they only want to help her help the kids, but there is one thing that pushes this beyond some liberal media trying to do a hit job on our nationally irrelevant governor.

The connective tissue between the Jindal Foundation and the Jindal Campaign is Alexandra Bautsch. Ms. Bautsch is listed as an officer of the Supriya Jindal Foundation (the New York Times reported her as the Treasurer). She also happens to be a fundraiser for the Jindal campaign, according to her LinkedIn page.

Ms. Bautsch apparently operated as something of a one-stop contribution window for both Jindals. Imagine the outrage (not to mention federal investigations) if Edwin Edwards and one of his wives had tried a similar arrangement!

While some of Jindal's allies have tried to downplay the significance of this story (see Pinsonat's comments in the link above), the fact is that the story solidifies the fact that Jindal operates a pay-to-play administration — exactly what he said he would end with his self-proclaimed ethics 'Gold Standard' reforms passed in the first few days of his term. As it turns out, his 'reforms' have rendered campaign finance laws virtually unenforceable.

In light of what the public has learned about Jindal in the past two weeks, the question must be asked if this wrecking of the campaign finance enforcement regime by Jindal was a deliberate act?

The Governor's pay-to-play ways are catching up with him. Bills are coming due. Too much damage is being done to public and private institutions in this state by the Governor and his policies based on nothing more than a desire to prevent his patrons from paying more taxes and a desire to turn public coffers into funnels directed into the pockets of donors-to-be through privatization.

Having set up the Board of Regents to carry out his wishes, he handed them the work of dismantling SUNO. It was overreach and it laid bare his pay-to-play approach to appointments to boards and commissions. That policy is exactly what he said he was against. It is a direct contradiction of who he said he was.

Jindal's demise as a presidential contender on the national level came after he repeatedly exposed his lack of substance to national audiences. With his ethics mantel having been shattered, the unraveling of his in-state myth has begun. Whether it unravels fast enough to enable his defeat at the polls remains to be seen. But, life is nothing if not unpredictable.

Papal Bull: Jindal The Infallible

To hear Governor Bobby Jindal's coterie of loyalists, calls for greater transparency in the Governor's Office and legislative oversight of the sweeping privatization contracts the administration wants to implement constitute heretical questioning of their core belief in Jindal's infallibility.

Jindal's ascent in Louisiana politics has been based on a presumption of his intellectual brilliance. It started back when then-Governor Mike Foster named the 25 year-old Jindal to be secretary for the Department of Health & Hospitals (DHH). What followed was a job-hopping career that enabled Jindal to advance without the implications of his performance in one position becoming evident before he moved on to a new slot. He went from DHH to DC where he served as executive director on a Medicare panel. Then it was back to Louisiana in 1999 where Foster convinced the University of Louisiana system to waive its hiring standards in order to make Jindal head of that system. In 2001, it was back to DC where Jindal went to work in the Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services. In 2003, he ran for governor. In 2004, he ran and won the seat of Congressman from the First Congressional District. He stayed there about two years before returning to Louisiana to run again for governor, winning the 2007 election.

At no step on that dizzying ascent did Jindal stay long enough to deal with the repercussions of whatever policies he might have proposed or implemented. It's different now that he's governor. Two-and-a-half years into his term, the impact of his policies are coming into focus. The picture for the state is not pretty. Essential services are being relentlessly and needlessly slashed. Yet, Jindal keeps plowing ahead while his supporters demand that the rest of the state continue to bow to his intelligence and ignore the implications of what he's doing.

From ethics reform to state budgets to privatization to the BP Gulf Gusher, Jindal's hidden but real record as governor is an uninterrupted stream of poor decisions and bad choices.

"Hey!" his supporters say, "The man's got an image to buff and a presidency to pursue. He can't be bothered by niggling questions about how his pursuit is wrecking the state."

Ignore those implications behind the curtain!

How dare you question The Smartest Guy In The Room?

Ethics: All That Glitters . . .

Jindal swept to victory based, in part, by positioning himself as having the answer to Louisiana's long history of political corruption. Interestingly, there was no corruption in the post-Katrina/Rita deluge of federal funding into the state. The administration of Governor Kathleen Blanco created and ran a squeaky clean reconstruction process that handled billions in federal dollars appropriated in the wake those two hurricanes and the federal levee failures in New Orleans after Katrina.

It is worth noting, too, that Jindal's deep ties to the Bush administration and his burning ambition to run again for governor may well have influence the heavy and early hyper-partisan effort of that administration to deflect blame for its failures onto the Blanco administration. I know, it's difficult to imagine the Bush administration playing politics with public policy.

Candidate Jindal incessantly touted his intention to win legislative approval for what he called "The Gold Standard" in ethics for state elected officials. In a special legislative session that took place shortly after his inauguration, Jindal got his ethics reform package passed, but problems were immediately apparent.

Enforcement of the state's ethics laws were transferred from the state Board of Ethics for Elected Officials to a group of administrative law judges. A large number of ethics board in place at that time resigned in protest over the obvious flaws in the process that relegated them to figureheads. An undaunted Jindal appointed a new board and, as problems have continued to manifest themselves, the new board members have become vocal in their criticism of the new ethics regime.

Jindal's 'gold standard' has actually crippled ethics enforcement in the state, a fact made embarrassingly clear when the administrative law judges refused to penalize a Democratic group that spent more than $600,000 in the 2007 campaign for attorney general. Here's how The Advocate described the case and the ruling in a May 22 article:

The three-judge adjudicatory panel found a Washington, D.C.-area Democratic group violated the state’s campaign finance law by failing to file required reports. The group spent $644,000 on television commercials criticizing 2007 Republican attorney general candidate Royal Alexander.

But the three-judge panel assessed no fine against The Louisiana Justice Fund because it said those behind the group did not know they were supposed to file. The group is funded by the Democratic Attorneys General Association Inc., a Denver-based organization formed to support the elections of Democrats to a state’s top legal post.

Ethics Board member Scott Schneider said the notion that a political action committee can come to Louisiana, spend $644,000 against a candidate without reporting it and then have no fine levied is “just unbelievable to me.” Schneider said lack of knowledge should be no excuse.

Ignorance is apparently blissful in Louisiana politics, particularly when it comes to violating campaign finance laws under the Jindal gold standard.

There was not a word about campaign finance reform in the Jindal reforms, which left in place gaping loopholes that allow well-heeled individuals controlling multiple limited liability corporations to make a mockery of campaign finance contribution caps.

But the pattern is clear. Freshly elected legislators deferred to Jindal's popularity and the perception of his intelligence. That the centerpiece of the Jindal campaign and what might have been his only claim of success having come a cropper, the need for closer scrutiny of the governor's initiatives, policies and their implementation are starkly clear. And it is precisely that kind of scrutiny that his loyalists are fighting desperately to stave off.

Taxes and Pay

Two decisions late in the first Regular Session of the Legislature in Jindal's term have come back to hurt the state and haunt his relationship with legislators.

The first decision was his 2008 choice to go along with a repeal of the income tax portion of the Stelly Plan. It was not part of Jindal's legislative agenda that year, but the state (still riding the surge of post-storm federal spending) appeared flush financially. Some legislators were eager to put money back into the hands of their benefactors. After Jindal signaled his approval, the repeal passed.

The need for budget cuts became apparent in the first half of the fiscal year that began immediately after that session.

Repealing Stelly costs state government about $350 million per year. It is a recurring hole in state government coffers since the other side of the voter-approved Stelly Plan reduced state sales taxes on food and residential utilities.

According to the Louisiana Budget Project, the elimination of the income tax portion of the Stelly Plan will have cost the state $2.2 billion in revenue by the end of the 2012 fiscal year (the budget Jindal will propose and the Legislature will act on in 2011). The tax break benefits those in the state's highest income brackets. The budget cuts in higher education and healthcare forced by this reduction in revenue hits middle- and working-class families and the poor the hardest.

In that same session, Jindal gave his consent to a substantial pay raise for state legislators. With his consent, members of both houses of the Legislature approved the pay raise at the end of the session and sent it to Jindal for his signature. His conservative base was as mad about the pay raise as they were happy about the tax cut.

Initially, Jindal reaffirmed his commitment to at least let the raise become law. But, as he became the target of the crescendo against pay raise, Jindal vetoed the raise after the session had ended.

Viewed from either side of the issue, Jindal demonstrated that the principle that he most cherished was his own political advancement. It damaged his credibility with legislators and caused Jindal's legislative director Tommy Williams to resign the night before the veto was announced.

The lesson to be drawn from 2008 is that Jindal's judgment on issues can be faulty and, therefore, must be questioned and examined. Yet, Jindal loyalists deny that the governor has made mistakes and the notion that he should be subject to the kind of second-guessing that he routinely engages in sends them howling in protest.

Privatization: Comforting the Comfortable

Jindal's most ambitious plan is to dismantle the state's public healthcare infrastructure and run billions of state and federal healthcare through the coffers of private contractors operating on the state's behalf.

Privatization is an old weapon in the conservative arsenal used on its attack on government and government services. As such, it has an extensive track record — and, like many ideologically driven concepts, the record does not measure up to the hype. Privatization does benefit the companies getting the government contracts, but the quality of service is erratic at best. This is no small matter when things like, say, healthcare or care for the developmentally disabled are involved.

Jindal handed his DHH Secretary Alan Levine that job of executing the demolition of the state's public healthcare and mental health delivery systems. Privatization is the method with the claim being that it will save the state money, although the claims associated with the privatization of state's mental health hospital in Jackson seem pretty slim.

What is not slim is the number of employees who will be moved off the state payrolls if and when team Jindal/Levine complete their mission. Coupled with the clearly signaled intent to shut down much if not all of the LSU Hospital System, Jindal and Levine intend to shed tens of thousands of workers from the state's payroll.

The total number of permanent job losses resulting from this privatization push will make the temporary loss of jobs resulting from the deep water drilling moratorium pale in comparison. But, classified state employees, unlike the owners of those deep water oil service companies, are not big Jindal contributors and that may well be why the governor does not see any equivalence between the job losses that will come as the result of his own initiatives.

What is missing in the push for privatization is any significant attention to the impact that this will have on the quality of care delivered. Stories abound about what happens when the push for profits clash with other essential issues like safety — in fact, there is a gushing example of the outcome of one such collision in the Gulf of Mexico now.

What we do know that will happen as this push continues is that some companies are going to get rich feeding at the state revenue trough. Medicaid is the largest single component in the state's budget. That's where the privatization efforts are focused.

The myth of privatization is that costs can be controlled while adding another hand in the revenue stream. The math does not work, though it can be made to appear to work in the short term.

As it turns out, a significant portion of the state's budget — $7 billion, according to Jindal's own Streamlining Commission — runs through the hands of already outsourced positions. That amounts to just under one-third of all state government spending. There are 16,000 active contracts in place but the state does not know how many workers are covered by those contracts.

So, the Jindal 'solution' is to dive deeper into privatization, to push accountability further beyond the control of government, and put more public dollars into the hands of private companies.

Clearly, privatization is not away to streamline Louisiana state government. It is, however, a very effective tool for enriching contractors who are all too happy to make contributions to the politicians who enabled them to connect into the public money stream.

Legislators appear adamant about enforcing some oversight onto this process. HB 1143 has won final approval by both the House and the Senate and is headed to Jindal's desk for action. Levine and DHH fought this bill every step of the legislative way, but to no avail. Levine threatened a veto early in the process. It remains to be seen whether that threat will hold after the bill won final approval in the House by a veto-proof margin on Thursday.

Again, Jindal's privatization push is another area where the hype does not match up with reality. Some check or review of the policy is essential. That is what the Legislature is insisting upon. That is precisely the kind of oversight Jindal and his loyalists are resisting.

BP', Berms and Bobby

The BP Gulf Gusher has been a catastrophe for the workers killed and their families, the state's coastal communities, fishermen, oyster men, our fisheries and our way of life. It has been something of a godsend for Bobby Jindal's national political aspirations and he has milked it for all it has been worth.

The disaster happened just as Jindal's ability/willingness to focus on state government and its many challenges had about run out. This is as long as he's been on any job in his adult life and his presidential aspirations are no doubt linked to the restlessness of the boredom with Baton Rouge that has clearly overtaken him.

It is either ironic or fitting that Congressman Bobby Jindal led the fight to open to drilling the exact part of the Gulf of Mexico where the Deepwater Horizon blowout produced the catastrophe that Governor Bobby Jindal has latched onto as his national political lifeline.

Before the spill, but Governor Jindal initiated a move that put more layers of bureaucracy between the state's Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office and the Office of the Governor by moving that office into the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Inserting layers of bureaucracy between what should have been a key office in helping the state respond to this catastrophe seems like a mistake. Jindal loyalists say it ain't so.

The sightings of Jindal in Baton Rouge have been as rare as progress on staunching the flow of oil into the Gulf.

But, he's nearly taken up residency on the coast and his laser-like ability to hone in on a microphone or land in front of a camera lens has surged as he has spent more time there. Jindal's lack of engagement in the job he was actually hired to do — governing Louisiana — has contributed significantly to the uncertainty and bitterness that has flared over trying to deal with the state's various and mounting budget problems.

If Jindal had brought anything remotely resembling the sense of urgency to the budget issues that he brought to the effort to get sand berms built along the coast is there any question that things would be working more smoothly at the Capitol?

Then there is the matter of the idea for the berms itself. The idea came to Jindal by way of Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. It went from Jindal's ear to the press and it was all the governor could talk about for weeks. While he could not bring himself to stop talking to reporters about the idea (or pestering federal officials to approve what had become his idea), Jindal never could bring himself to speak to anyone who actually understands the Louisiana coastal ecosystem and the hydrology of tides about the idea.

There were plenty of knowledgeable people willing to discuss the merits of the berm idea with him. He just didn't want to hear it. In Jindal's mind Nungesser said, he believed it and that settled it.

Based on Jindal's prior track record in the Gulf alone — wrong on drilling, wrong on oil spill response — there should be room for questioning his judgment on the berms. Jindal never heard any of those until Admiral Thad Allen convened a hearing on the plan in New Orleans a few weeks ago and Allen made the governor sit through the scientists presentations about their concerns that the berms could cause more damage to the coast than doing nothing. Nungesser could not stomach it and walked out. He returned a bit later.

But, it is evidence that Jindal's bubble is so tightly sealed that no opposing views can permeate it — unless of course, having it punctured (how ever briefly) is the price of getting some cherished idea approved if even on a limited basis. So, work is underway on the berms and Jindal is there. It will be interesting to see if he sticks around if they don't work.

Being wrong once on deep water drilling is not enough for Jindal, he has now fixated on compounding the error by pushing for a speedy end to the six month moratorium on that drilling ordered by the Obama administration. Jindal has made his new Lieutenant Governor (and fund raiser) Scott Angelle the point man in talks with the federal government on this.

Based on Jindal's spotty record on the spill, legislators have approved a bill that will require Jindal and his staff to retain all records relating to the state's effort in response to the spill and to make those records publicly available.

Opposition from the administration is expected to be fierce, as second guessing is a game Jindal prefers to reserve to himself and not be allowed to be played about him.

The Plaquemines Pope Is Not Infallible

Despite the best efforts of Jindal's defenders to maintain appearances, the governor's track record has caught up with him. His successes have proven failures. His rhetoric has been exposed to be empty ideological cant served up by an increasingly arrogant yet desperate team to whom cooperation or compromise equals failure.

The state budget crisis is in shambles. The Governor has abandoned his job and the Capitol to chase publicity on the coast. He's working harder to save his national political image than he is to help the state he was elected to lead.

If Bobby Jindal won't stand up for Louisiana, then the Legislature will have to fill that void. It won't be pretty and it won't be smooth, but it will be necessary.

The all too fallible Plaquemines Pope has left the building.

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!"

Pay to Play the GOP Way

The Sunday edition of the Baton Rouge Advocate pulls back the curtain on the still legal, still ethical form of pay to play as practiced by Governor Bobby Jindal and his Republican patrons.

The subject is the brazen $15 million payoff that Louisiana taxpayers will make to GOP heavy hitter Gary Chouest. Chouest, his family and companies gave more than $134,000 to Republican causes in the recent state election cycle. It took Jindal only two months — had to get that ethics special session out of the way — to pay back Chouest's largess.

Here's how the story begins:

The first business to benefit from state economic development aid under Gov. Bobby Jindal is run by a man whose family and businesses donated at least $135,250 to the governor’s campaign and local Republican Party causes during the past year.

Jindal introduced the donor — Gary Chouest, of Galliano — as a leader of Louisiana business in the same March 9 speech when the governor proclaimed before the Legislature that the state’s political culture had moved beyond “who you know” motivations.

Jindal used part of the state’s $1.1 billion surplus to put $10 million in a Terrebonne Parish port expansion. Jindal also gave an additional $4 million grant to the project.

The state Legislature approved both proposals earlier this month.

The taxpayer dollars help Chouest’s privately owned companies expand a state-of-the-art shipbuilding facility and to upgrade the port where the new plant is located.

Yes, it will create jobs, but it fails to pass Jindal's own test for ethical conduct as laid out during his campaign. Louisiana, candidate Jindal was fond of saying, cannot afford even the hint of corruption.

Looks like that was just for public consumption. Governor Jindal has apparently re-calibrated his ethics standard a bit.

Chouest, The Advocate points out, ran circles around Louisiana campaign finance laws in making those contributions to Jindal and other Republican causes:

But, it’s the connection between public investment and the way the Chouest family made private political contributions that sparked criticism.

State law limits contributions by individuals and corporations to $5,000 per candidate per campaign.

In a practice often called “bundling,” a single businessman gives the maximum $5,000 in the names of a number of different entities he controls.

Chouest gave $5,000 on May 18, as did other family members, according to the financial disclosures submitted to the Louisiana Board of Ethics by Jindal’s campaign.

Additionally, companies in which Chouest is listed as a president or chief executive officer on corporate records filed with the Secretary of State’s Office, also donated the maximum $5,000 amount to the Jindal gubernatorial campaign.

Chouest’s companies further donated to the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority and the Republican Party of Louisiana.

Both organizations contributed to Jindal’s campaign and provided mailings of campaign literature that personally attacked Jindal’s opponents.

The Chouest-related contributions that could be tracked through public records totaled at least $135,250.

This is a practice that is rampant in Louisiana politics. Again, The Advocate:

About one-third of Jindal’s $14.5 million campaign war chest came from bundling, according to the Ethics Board disclosures.

Twenty-five businessmen gave donations in excess of $20,000 through different corporations to Jindal’s 2007 campaign effort alone, plus another $20,000 or more to state Republican Party efforts.

Jindal's recent Ethics Extravaganza special session of the Legislature did absolutely nothing to rein in the practice of bundling. It's apparent why he wouldn't touch a system that has worked so well for him and his Republican cohorts. So stark a break in Jindal's ethics effort demonstrates the partisan nature of the effort as well. Republican funding sources can continue to bankroll elections unmolested in the new squeaky-clean era of Jindal.

In short, if they're not touching the dough, the ethics game is all for show. Again, The Advocate story has quotes laying out the bigger picture:

Wendell G. Lindsay Jr., the Baton Rouge lawyer who heads the state’s branch of Common Cause, said bundling donations, such as Chouest’s, creates the appearance that the elected official is beholden to his contributor.

“Our system is legalized bribery,” Lindsay said.

On a national level, the self-styled citizens lobby is working to end bundling. In Louisiana, the group backed Senate Bill 31 and House Bill 42, which would have required identifying donors’ employers on contributions of $250 or more.

Elliott Stonecipher, a Shreveport demographer, argued for doing away with bundling in Louisiana when he testified before Jindal’s transition committee that developed ethics legislation.

“This is the quid pro quo,” Stonecipher said of the link between Chouest and Jindal. “I believe that this is a smoking gun, and to hear Jindal say, ‘I’m going to follow the law’ without addressing campaign finance bundling, well, that’s a way to game the system for your own advantage.”

The Advocate article also points out that Jindal's ethics transition task force looked at campaign finance reform, but dropped it because it was too hard. The degree of difficulty might have had something to do with the fact that there were bundlers on the ethics task force who were not interested in having their own ability to influence elections limited.

The mainstream media is catching on to the Jindal ethics scam. Word has it that there will by money for other GOP heavy hitters coming via the budget in the upcoming regular session of the Legislature.

Now that the pattern has been recognized, it will be interesting to see how Team Jindal resorts to delivering the goods to their political friends.

Jindal, Tucker, Michot: Ethics Schmethics! And, Pay to Play is Thriving in the Jindal Era

All the huffing and puffing of the great ethics special session charade is over and now it's back to business as usual in Louisiana politics as run by Republicans.

Lafayette's The Independent weekly's blog, The Ind, has a story today about how the Ethics Governor, the Ethics Speaker and the Ethics Republican State Senator from Lafayette are joining forces to raise money for Republican campaign finance lawbreaker Don Trahan.

Trahan, The Independent reported in December, accepted more than $23,000 in political action committee (PAC) contributions in excess of the limit allowed by state campaign finance laws. Trahan won re-election with that illegal money by only 33 votes.

Michot, who took exception to Trahan campaign literature that claimed the senator had endorsed him over his opponent Nancy Landry, defended his embrace of Trahan now:

Michot characterizes the event as a way to help re-build Trahan's re-election war chest and a way to show unity in the Acadiana delegation. "A lot of legislators are having fund raisers right now; there were four last night in Baton Rouge," Michot says. "Most of them spent all of their money on their campaigns."

First elected in 2003, Trahan narrowly defeated independent Nancy Landry in the October primary to become the most senior member of the House from the Acadiana area. Tucker subsequently named him Education Committee chairman. "He's in a key leadership position in the House," Michot says.

Michot says he is expecting Democratic and independent legislators to show up at tonight's event. "I'm working hard to see that we work together as a group and bring some funding to Acadiana," says the senator, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee.

For Jindal, who appeared in a pre-ethics session press conference in Lafayette with Trahan by his side, the appearance at the Trahan event is further evidence that his talk of wanting to end corruption in Louisiana was, at best, hollow.

Trahan won his election with money he could not have otherwise legally obtained. Yet, the worst thing that will happen to him is that he might be fined. He will keep the fruit of his corrupt campaign practices — his seat in the Louisiana Legislature.

For all the talk about ethics, nothing in Jindal's ethics call addressed campaign finance reform. Nothing will increase the penalties on campaign finance law-breakers like Trahan. And, nothing that came up in the session gave any indication that the Governor or his leadership team is remotely interested in campaign finance reform. The current system is working quite well for them, thank you!

And, as if to prove just how the "pay to play" system Jindal bewailed during the campaign is thriving, New Orleans CityBusiness had a story today about how Jindal's call for the second Special Session includes $1o million that will benefit Edison Chouest, the company headed by Republican heavy hitter Gary Chouest.

Sure, there may well be an economic development angle to this, but, judge by the standard that Jindal himself set on the campaign trail, it is suspect. It was candidate Jindal who said that Louisiana could not tolerate "even the hint of corruption."

Providing state funding for a project of a major contributor to your party certainly raises the prospect of a hint of corruption.

Republicans were quick to call it back in 2004 when Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard, a big supporter of then newly-elected Governor Kathleen Blanco, won a contract to build the Union Tank Car facility that Blanco recruited to Alexandria. There were state dollars involved there. Bernhard was a contributor to Blanco's campaign. The hue and cry went up.

In the Port of Terrebonne deal announced today, state dollars are involved. Chouest is a big contributor to Republican causes and campaigns in Louisiana.

Where's the hue and cry on this?

Does a double standard on ethics exist in Louisiana? Are certain act corrupt only when they involved Democrats?

What is certain that Governor Jindal and his Republican friends have done nothing to end "pay to play" in Louisiana politics. In fact, they've just made sure that their particular form of it is protected for at least another four years.

Jindal Campaigns for 'Ethics' in Lafayette with Finance Law-breaker Trahan at His Side

Governor Jindal might be the smartest guy in some rooms, but a sense of irony is apparently completely missing in the man.

Jindal brought his ethics campaign road show to Lafayette on Thursday. The new governor made an impassioned plea against "special interests" and others who drown out the voices of ordinary people in the political process.

Standing at Jindal's right hand in a Baton Rouge Advocate photo in Friday's edition was none other than Republican District 31 Rep. Don Trahan who, it has been revealed, used more than $23,000 in illegal contributions from political action committees (PACs) to secure his 33-vote win in the October primary.

Jindal has studiously avoided making substantive campaign finance reform part of the special session on ethics that he called and which will begin on Sunday. He gets downright antsy when the discussion turns towards campaign finance reform, probably owing to the fact that his own campaign has admitted to violations of state campaign finance laws.

Jindal is resisting making personal payment on the fine. Instead, Baton Rouge Business Report publisher Rolfe McCollister, who was Treasurer for Jindal's campaign, has said he will pay the fine.

That matter itself is raising ethical issues as this article in Thursday's Times Picayune about an exchange during a Legislative Joint Governmental Affairs Committee demonstrates:

Third-party payments

One of the sharpest exchanges came when House Speaker Pro-Tem Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, questioned whether "third parties" such as campaign treasurers should be allowed to pay ethics penalties that are assessed to a candidate or a campaign committee.

The question appeared directly aimed at Jindal's admitted failure to make timely disclosure of $118,000 in Republican Party contributions, which faces a July hearing before the Board of Ethics. Jindal's campaign treasurer, publisher Rolfe McCollister, has offered to pay a $2,500 fine to settle the matter.

"How do we permit a third party to pay a fine for me? That seems totally inconsistent with good ethics," Carter said.

When Waguespack said the administration will not be offering a bill during the session to ban such third-party payments, Carter said she would file one herself.

In yet another bit of irony, McCollister -- whose offer to pay Jindal's campaign finance penalty is raising ethical questions -- is also head of Believe in Louisiana, the newly-formed group of Jindal backers who are airing commercials across the state calling for support for Jindal's ethics package. For all their claims of transparency, Believe in Louisiana does not provide a list of officers, nor has it published a list of contributors. It was set up as a 527 — a political issues interest group, but not a PAC -- so it falls outside the coverage of Louisiana's campaign finance laws, meaning (among other things) there are no limits on the size of contributions that can be made to this group.

That Jindal would allow Don Trahan to stand next to him while he pitched his ethics package in Lafayette demonstrates a certain obtuseness about the role of campaign finance reform in ethics reform. Perhaps that's understandable coming as it did from a man whose campaign for governor reported raising more than $12 million, including direct contributions from corporations doing business or seeking to do business with the state government he now heads.

The Advocate article on his Lafayette stop contained this passage, quoting Jindal:

He said that, while special interests have lobbyists to push their concerns with state legislators, the people of the state do not.

Jindal called on people from around the state to call and e-mail legislators to support the ethics package and to go to Baton Rouge to push their legislators to support it.

“The reality is this is going to be a hard fight,” he said.

“Don’t kid yourselves.”

Those special interest lobbyists are also the people who direct the PAC money that pushed Trahan over the top, both in the amount of PAC money he received and in his race against independent challenger Nancy Landry. They were business PACs — the same sources that supported Jindal's campaign.

If Jindal's ethics push is to be taken seriously, he's going to have to come to grips with the fact that the only way to truly end the "pay to play" era in Louisiana politics is to tackle campaign finance reform. That will mean penalties with teeth for blatant violations like those of Trahan and his campaign. That will also mean banning direct corporate contributions to political campaigns.

If he can't deliver real reform on his signature issue, that's going to mean much bigger trouble for other initiatives down the road.

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!

The Ethics of The Speaker-elect Questioned in Court

The more things change . . .

As we stand on the verge of the beginning of the Jindal era and it's laser-like focus on ethics (or, at least, a version of it), the ethical behavior of House Speaker-elect Jim Tucker has been called into question in a Plaquemines Parish state court.

The Governor-elect has made removing "even the hint of corruption" the standard of accountability to which he wants Louisiana's ethics laws to hold elected officials. A lawyer representing the ex-husband of Tucker's wife is charging that Tucker used his position as a legislator to craft a law so-narrowly drawn as to apply almost specifically to his wife's divorce dispute.

The Times-Picayune has the story:

A Belle Chasse divorce lawyer asked a Plaquemines Parish state district judge Friday to compel state Rep. Jim Tucker and 11 other legislators to testify about their involvement in legislation that he accused the Algiers lawmaker of advocating to help his wife's custody battle.

An attorney for the Louisiana House of Representatives, meanwhile, argued that the state Constitution gives the 13 lawmakers a legislative privilege that protects them from having to answer questions about their actions in writing, amending and voting on bills.

So, Tucker is trying to hide behind the theory of legislative immunity in order avoid testifying on the matter. The T-P story indicates that Tucker has been less than forthcoming about the legislation all along:

Tucker, a Republican expected to be the next House speaker, spoke in favor of House Bill 501 during a May hearing of the civil law and procedure committee. He said the proposed legislation by Rep. Jeff Arnold, D-Algiers, would help victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita who were forced to move to another parish in the middle of a custody suit. He gave the example of a parent who would have to drive from Shreveport to New Orleans to attend court proceedings.

Married in 2006

The bill, which was signed into law June 22 by Gov. Kathleen Blanco, required district court judges to transfer custody and child support suits to the parish where the parent moved. It only pertains to a divorced person who moved to another Louisiana parish between Aug. 26, 2005, and Aug. 15 of this year, whose former spouse lived in another state before the hurricanes, and whose lawyer files a motion requesting the venue change before Dec. 31.

Tucker did not tell the committee that his wife, Marisol, fit that scenario.

The couple married in July 2006 and moved to English Turn. Marisol Tucker previously lived in Belle Chasse.

By not telling the committee that the legislation applied to his wife, Representative Tucker — at the very least — hid a conflict of interest from his peers.

Here's a definition of conflict of interest:

A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below—but it still exists.

Tucker's 2007 behavior, it seems, flunks the Jindal 'hint' test when it comes to ethical behavior. Tucker appears intent on compounding that lapse by having the Clerk of the House assert a claim of legislative immunity in court:

House Clerk Alfred "Butch" Speer, representing all the legislators named in the motion, deflected Hufft's characterization of the 2007 legislation as so narrowly defined as to pertain only to Tucker. He said it applies to anyone whose former spouse lives out of state and who moved, because of the hurricane or for any reason, between the two dates listed in the law.

Speer said the 2007 law stands on its own, and Hufft would have to make any challenge to its constitutionality without additional comment from its drafters or those lawmakers who voted for it. He said the legislative privilege is integral to the separation of powers.

"It is there to ensure that when legislators are functioning within that process they can do so without always having to look over their shoulders and wonder who's going to drag them in front of a court or in front of an administrative tribunal or a court reporter and say, 'OK, why did you vote that way? Who did you talk to? What facts did you have and did you know that?'"

There is more than a bit of irony here that Tucker (the man who will be expected to crack the whip in the House of Representatives on the Jindal ethics agenda) enlisted the assistance of Rep. Arnold on this issue when Arnold was a key player in an earlier ethical contretemps that the leader of Jindal's transition team, Baton Rouge Business Report publisher Rolfe McCollister, railed against in the run up to the election.

In a March 2007 column entitled "Slaughter the pigs at the trough," that appeared in the Better Government Association's website McCollister attacked Arnold, Speer and the concept of legislative privilege exempting lawmakers from the state Code of Ethics for Elected Officials. That case involved Arnold and another legislator casting votes on bills that directly affected family members who served as assessors in Orleans Parish.

Here's what McCollister wrote about that case then:

They just don't get it

"What signal does that send to children? What signal does that send to the rest of the people of the state? What signal does that send to the rest of the people in this country who are helping rebuild Louisiana? That the ethics rules that this Legislature passed apply to everybody other than themselves."

These were the recent comments of Hank Perret, chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics, as the board considered a lawsuit filed by two members of the state House of Representatives which seeks to assert their immunity from investigation and prosecution by anybody except the House itself when alleged conflicts of interest take place during a legislative process. The Times-Picayune reported that "the Ethics Board at its meeting last week said the petition, if successful, could set a precedent that would damage the state's ethics standards. The board voted unanimously to fight the petition." Good for them.

The lawsuit is by State Reps. Jeff Arnold and Alex Heaton, who opposed bills introduced to consolidate the seven assessors offices in Orleans Parish into one. Arnold's father and Heaton's brother are Orleans assessors.

House Speaker Joe Salter is supporting the lawsuit, saying the legal principles are too important to ignore. He told the Times-Picayune, "This petition is strictly about the constitutional mandate that prohibits any entity outside the Legislature from investigating and censuring members for performing these duties as legislators."

That might be fine, Joe, if 1) you had not passed laws establishing the Ethics Commission to oversee such behavior; and 2) the people had any faith the legislators would investigate or actually censure such action. This is like the fox guarding the hen house.

Fact is, if we look at history, House Clerk Butch Speer told the Times-Pic that in his 30 years he can only remember TWO times when the house had used its power to remove a member--and that was after they had been convicted of criminal corruption and bribery. BIG whoop! That was a tough decision I am sure--and it makes my point. The legislators don't and won't hold their own accountable. I am sure many are thinking, "Next time, it could be me."

I think Ethics Board member Delgado Smith said it best: "They (legislators) are the ones who should be setting the example.

So, Speaker-elect Tucker — one of the leaders-to-be of the coming Jindal ethics initiative — has descended to using the same arguments of the Good Ole Boys in order to prevent his conflict of interest from being discussed in court.

To quote the great Peter Townshend: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

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.

Bob Perry's Money, Two Governors, and the Republican Governors Association

For a man determined to remain behind the scenes, Texas homebuilder and mega-GOP donor Bob Perry apparently just can't help himself.

The Austin American Statesman (a Cox Newspaper) had an editorial in its Thanksgiving Day edition that examined questions raised by Bob Perry's $1 million contribution to the Republican Governors Association and that association's subsequent contribution to Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry's re-election campaign last year.

Let's let the paper tell the tale:

Even by Texas standards, the Republican Governors Association’s argument that it isn’t a political committee is absurd. Not only absurd, it’s obscene.

Just before last year’s election, the association gave Gov. Rick Perry $1 million in his hard-fought bid for re-election. But the group didn’t report the donation to the Texas Ethics Commission as required under Texas law. And Perry didn’t list the individual donors behind the large gift.

Turns out that most of that money came from controversial Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who has had his fingers in a lot of GOP fundraising pies in recent years. Bob Perry’s money was behind the scurrilous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ads that undercut Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Now the governor is saying that concealing Bob Perry’s name was an oversight, a clerical error. And the Republican Governors Association is saying it isn’t a political committee, so it didn’t have to disclose the donors. Sorry, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

This year-old episode not only quacks, it stinks. And Travis County Attorney David Escamilla is reviewing the circumstances of the two $500,000 contributions dumped into Perry’s treasury in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Perry won re-election against three major challengers in a close contest. He attracted only 39 percent of the vote, but there’s no runoff in the general election. That eleventh-hour money surely helped in a tight race.

These revelations come at a bad time for Rick Perry and the governors association. Perry is climbing onto the national stage as the 2008 presidential primaries approach, and he could possibly lead the group next year.

There can be heavy civil penalties for violating the campaign finance law. One of Perry’s 2006 opponents, Democrat Chris Bell, has filed suit alleging that the contribution was in violation of Texas law. If Bell prevails and the donation is found to be illegal, Perry’s campaign could be forced to pay double the gift amount.

In addition to a possible $2 million penalty, the candidate accepting the money also could be guilty of a criminal misdemeanor. That is a heavy weight hanging over Perry’s head.

More bizarre still is the Republican Governors Association’s argument that, although it raises and donates money to GOP candidates, it isn’t a political committee. The law isn’t precise in its definition, says Ben Ginsberg, the association’s attorney.

The relevance of this episode to Louisiana are numerous. Let's start with Bob Perry's $100,000 contribution to the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM) in 2006. Then, there is the matter of the $10,000 Perry and his wife ($5,000 each) gave to the Bobby Jindal campaign on August 29 of this year. And, the governor-elect benefited from the help of the Republican Governors Association in his campaign.

Wonder if Bob Perry pushed some cash into the Republican Governors Association to help the Jindal campaign? Or, is that the kind of help he only reserves for Texans?

For an ethical guy, the governor-elect sure runs with a crowd where the aroma of ethical impropriety is stronger than that mere hint he says he wants to eliminate.

Jindal's Ethics 'Reform' Panel Undermined by Diefenthal Inclusion

CityBusiness reports that Governor-elect Bobby Jindal has completed his appointments to his ethics advisory panel.

Based on one name, it appears that Jindal's version of ethics reform will not include campaign finance reform — an essential element of any comprehensive ethics reform effort.

Edward "Ned" Deifenthal of Metairie used a number of Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) under his control to make a series of contributions to Jindal's campaign in late 2006 that came to a grand total of $25,000. He also personally contributed $5,000 to Jindal's campaign. He also contributed $75,000 to the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, as well as a number of Republican campaigns for the Louisiana Legislature.

By naming Deifenthal to the panel that is supposed to advise the Governor-elect on his much-anticipated ethics reform package, Jindal is sending a clear signal that he is not interested in reforming Louisiana's campaign finance laws.

Through the use of multiple LLCs under their control, a group of 28 individuals or companies made more than 100 contributions to Jindal's gubernatorial campaign which totaled more than $500,000. This method of using multiple LLCs to circumvent caps on campaign contributions has never been challenged before the state Board of Ethics, although it has been the subject of an advisory ruling based on a question submitted to the board in 2006.

Ethics reform that does not include campaign finance reform — particularly, the banning of corporate contributions from campaigns — leaves the door wide open for corruption. The Governor-elect is not interested in campaign finance reform and that undermines the legitimacy of his claim to be interested in ethics reform.

Money And Deception

The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM) sprinted into today's election with a fresh infusion of cash.

In a special report filed with the State Board of Ethics Campaign Finance office on Friday, the LCRM reported receiving a $100,000 contribution from Koch Industries of Wichita, Kansas, and $2,500 from Michael T. Gray of Metairie.

Like most of the corporate contributors to LCRM, Koch is a privately held company that has its roots in the oil and gas industry. Like the others, it has deep and close ties to the Republican Party. Koch, in fact, has been a direct beneficiary of the Bush administration's willingness to ignore environmental laws and their violation, though the company proclaims itself a solid steward of the environment.

Michael T. Gray appears to be a member of the family that runs Gray & Company, which has already contributed $100,000 to LCRM. Maybe they made him pick up the tab for another working dinner at Drago's?

Meanwhile, the LCRM has been active in the field. In House District 31 in Lafayette and Vermilion parishes, the LCRM dropped no fewer than four direct mail pieces in support of incumbent Republican Don Trahan. One piece, featured a photo of Trahan along with pictures of retiring District 43 Representative Ernie Alexander and Senator Mike Michot, urging voters to keep "Lafayette's Winning Team." The flip side featured glowing quotes about Trahan from Alexander and Michot.

The only problem is that Michot is not backing Trahan. The Senator, who was re-elected without opposition, made that clear in statements to the press and through robo-calls throughout the district on Friday, which declared that he had not authorized the statement and had not endorsed Trahan.

The overall quality of the four pieces the LCRM dropped for Trahan was poor. They have the look of canned copy, with the appropriate name and photographs dropped in where needed (as detailed in Michot's complaint, "appropriate" would not be the correct word to use here).

The tone, certainly when compared to the LCRM's spring offensive in the House District 94 special election, was tame.

That was not the case for radio spots the LCRM has run in the Alexandria area against Democrat Chris Roy. According to the blog, CenLamar, the spots are so vicious that the intended beneficiary, Republican House candidate Lance Maxwell, has tried to distance himself from the LCRM and its ads.

Man, it sure would be nice to have an MP3 copy of those ads! The LCRM pieces for Trahan will be posted later today.

Anyone else who receives LCRM-sponsored materials (it will say so on mailed pieces) please forward them to this site via email link on the homepage and we'll continue building the archive of what we're calling "The Trail of Smears."

CREW slaps Vitter with Ethics Charge

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser's website has an Gannett News story this afternoon reporting that the watchdog group Citizens for Reponsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed an ethics complaint against Senator David Vitter.

Here's CREW's press release:

19 Jul 2007 // Washington, D.C. – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Senate Ethics complaint against Senator David Vitter (R-LA) asking for an investigation into whether he violated the Senate Rules of Conduct by soliciting for prostitution.

On July 9, 2007, it was revealed that Sen. Vitter's telephone number was included in the so-called "D.C. Madam," Deborah Jeane Palfrey's, list of client telephone numbers. Sen. Vitter confirmed that he had sought Ms. Palfrey's services, saying in a statement, "this was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible."

Two other women also have alleged that Sen. Vitter engaged the services of prostitutes. According to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam," Senator Vitter visited a New Orleans, Louisiana brothel several times in the mid-1990s and a woman who worked as a prostitute under the name of Wendy Cortez has claimed that several years ago, Senator Vitter was a regular client of hers.

Engaging the services of a prostitute violates both District of Columbia and Louisiana criminal law.

The Senate Ethics Manual provides that certain conduct may be improper even though it does not violate specific Senate rules or regulations. Such conduct has been characterized as "improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate." This rule is intended to protect the integrity and reputation of the Senate as a whole. The Ethics Manual explains that "improper conduct" is given meaning by considering "generally accepted standards of conduct, the letter and spirit of laws and Rules..."

Whether or not Sen. Vitter is ultimately adjudicated to have broken any criminal laws, the Senate may still discipline him for improper conduct as it has other members in the past.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, "Senator Vitter's solicitation of at least one prostitute was not merely, as he has stated, 'a serious sin,' it was a violation of criminal law." Sloan continued, "The Senate Ethics Committee should commence an investigation into Senator Vitter's conduct and hold him accountable."

Gannett said Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate ethics committee, declined comment.