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.

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.