A Call for True Believers

Qualifying for state and local Democratic party positions opens today across Louisiana and the future of the party is riding on who among us will step forward to lead the effort to build this party.

Build is right word because there has never really been a Democratic Party in Louisiana. There has been a Democratic banner under which candidates have run for office, but there has never been much of anything resembling an actual party organization. There have been factions and organizations built around personalities, but there has not been a party organization per sé.

That is one reason why the Louisiana Democratic Party is in shambles today. It has never been more than a device to aid in the election of the top Democrat on the ticket in any particular election year. This year, there was no Democrat at the top of a statewide ticket — in fact, there was not a statewide ticket. There were House and Senate caucuses that managed to stave off Republican efforts to win veto-proof majorities in the Legislature, but there was no party behind any of those efforts. The state party was a mailing permit and a checking account.

This is just what the party was in 2010, only this time there were no statewide Democratic candidates on the ballot that could in any way be considered to have been standards bearers of what passed for the party this year.

The qualifying that opens today provides the opening to begin to change that.

The 210 seats on the State Central Committee are open for qualifying as are the 986 or so seats on the various parish Democratic Executive Committees.

These are the bodies charged with building and maintaining the party at the state and local levels. Based on the results over the last four years, the leadership at the state level has been an abject failure. That failure has many sources, but none more glaring than the fact that the party has not appeared to stand for anything; or, if it did, it could not articulate it. As a result, the party sat in silence as what passed for public policy debates took place (can there really be a debate when only one side is talking?).

For the Democratic Party to have a future in this state, we need committed Democrats to turn out at Clerk of Courts offices across the state and qualify to fill those state and parish party committee seats.

But, not just any Democrats need apply.

What we need now are true believers. Democrats who burn with a passion for our party and its principles (see "What It Means To Be A Democrat" for some ideas). Democrats who stand ready to build a political organization that will provide the boots on the ground for Democratic candidates at the local, state and federal levels. Democrats who will fight the Republican assault on working families, minorities, teachers, public employees and others rather than seek an accommodation with those who are out to dismantle the essential public services that are the pathways to social mobility in this state and this country.

We need zealous Democrats to turn out to qualify for these positions, run strong Democratic campaigns for those seats, and then to engage in the work of party building after those elections are settled in March.


In the church that is the Democratic Party, the state central committee and the parish executive committees are akin to the clergy. They are the keepers of the flame of the party, where the passion must be the greatest and the belief must be the strongest. Why? Because the members of those respective committees swear oaths of office to promote and build the Democratic Party in this state.

As in religions, there are many levels of faith and conviction in our party as is the case in other political organizations.

But, when it comes to party committees, the job calls for the efforts to be focused on building the party and advancing its mission — not in finding middle ground with our opponents.

That is the work of elected officials who serve in the Legislature and other government positions.

We need to look no further than our opponents to catch a glimpse of what the role of party organizations are relative to elected officials — parties put the stake in the ground on issues; elected officials find the middle ground that is somewhere inside of where their party put that stake. One problem with our side is that our party has not put often enough and thus ceded the defining of the terms of the argument (the framing, if you will) to the other side. A result of that has been a radicalization of the other side because not enough of their crazy ideas have been challenged.

Democrats who care about the future of this state, who care about the future of the middle class here, about access to public education, about access to public services, about the ability of their children to find rewarding and challenging work in this state, need to commit to at least four years of work aimed at protecting those things that encompass what we have long stood for as a party and as a people.

We need you to turn out to qualify. We need you to commit your time, effort, and creativity to the task of building a political organization that can first stem, then turn the tide of greed-driven anti-social behavior that masquerades as public policy that spews like an uncapped gusher from our opponents in the party that now appears dominant in our state.

We did not get in this mess overnight. We won't get out of it overnight either. But, if we commit to work harder and smarter to reverse this we can, because as a great American once said, "the arc of moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."

If you're ready to fight for your party and your state, go qualify for a party position this week — and let's get to work!

Jindal's Budget Cuts to Kill More Jobs than Drilling Moratorium

All summer long, Louisiana residents were subjected to non-stop lying and yammering by Governor Bobby Jindal and his allies about the potential threat to Louisiana jobs posed by the deep water drilling moratorium. Although the job losses never materialized, the mere thought of them had Jindal & Co. speaking in apocalyptic terms about Louisiana's economic future in the wake of the temporary drilling shutdown.

In contrast to his previous agitation regarding the possibility of job losses, the Governor seems eerily serene as he prepares to unleash new rounds of state budget cuts that will cut services and cost jobs in both the public and private sector.

In a note to supporters last week, Jindal reiterated his opposition to any form of tax increases. He also took credit for all good news in the state and laid blame for any bad news at the feet of others. That's just the way he rolls.

But a funny thing happened while Jindal was on an out-of-state jaunt: some inconvenient facts escaped into public view.

Turns out that the Governor's plan to close Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge will cost about 400 people their jobs. That fact came via testimony from the hospital's CEO before the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee. That number is significant on a couple of scores.

First, according to the LSU Health System's 2008 annual report (PDF — the most recent one available), there were 1,266 full-time employees at the hospital. So, about one-third of the people working at the hospital will lose their job as a result of the shut down. Ostensibly the hospital is being closed to save money, but LSU VP for the Health System, Dr. Fred Cerise has pointed out that the shift of services to private hospitals will actually drive up the cost of Medicaid services in the Baton Rouge area due to higher reimbursement rates the hospitals are being promised by the state to take the increased patient loads resulting from the closure.

The other reason that the job loss number is significant is that it is larger than the actual number of jobs affected by the deep water drilling moratorium. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation was selected to administer a $100 million fund created to help those who lost their jobs as a result of the moratorium.

Fewer that 400 workers applied for the funds.

So, this single example of Jindal's focus on dismantling public institutions will have a larger negative impact on jobs than the moratorium he so passionately excoriated, yet his allies have not rented any large arenas to rally the populace against the extermination of these jobs.

More Job Losses Are Coming

House Speaker Jim Tucker and Jindal don't agree on much these days, but they do still appear to share a desire to dismantle much (if not all) of the state's public hospital system now run by LSU. Three hospitals are run out of the Shreveport Health Sciences Center in Shreveport (Shreveport, Huey P. Long in Pineville, and E.A. Conway in Monroe). The rest of the system is run by the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. The hospitals run there Earl K. Long in Baton Rouge, Bogalusa Medical Center, Leonard Chabert Medical Center in Houma, University Medical Center in Lafayette, Walter O. Moss Regional Medical Center in Lake Charles, the Interim Public Hospital in New Orleans, and Lallie Kemp Regional Medical Center in Independence.

The two systems employ about 13,000 doctors, nurses, aides, orderlies, and staff.

In the minds of Jindal and his Republican legislative allies, just about all of those hospitals and most of those jobs are on the cutting table.

Coming on the heels of the most recent session where Jindal successfully pushed for the privatization of three state mental health hospitals, the people running these hospitals feel threatened, particularly those at the smaller hospitals.

Last Friday, State Rep. John Bel Edwards, Sen. Ben Nevers, and Tangipahoa Parish President Gordon Burgess took part in a meeting at the hospital about the facility's future. The hospital handled more than 100,000 cases last year. Beyond the essential healthcare services it provides to its patients, 39 percent of which did not have health insurance last year, Lallie Kemp (like the other hospitals in the LSU system) is an economic engine in that region.

According to Rep. Edwards, Lallie Kemp has a $90 million annual economic impact on Independence and the surrounding area in the Florida Parishes. In the 2008 annual LSU annual report, the hospital was listed as having 400 full-time employees or their equivalent.

Although Rep. Edwards said he knows of no current plan to close or cut back services at the hospital, he said that the planning for a 35 percent cut in state funding Jindal has ordered all departments to plan for could change that dramatically.

The loss in access to care would be devastating to the people in that region. But those losses could pale in comparison to the economic impact on communities closing of Lallie Kemp or any of the other public hospitals in the LSU systems would have.

Still, Jindal insists that no taxes will be raised and that the state will make do with the revenue base it currently has.

The Medicaid Rebellion

Jindal's initial DHH Secretary Alan Levine confected a plan to bring private insurance companies into manage the Medicaid program and to reduce funding for the program but claim that the quality of care would not diminish. Brazenly branded "Making Medicaid Better" the plan has met with fierce opposition from the provider community (doctors, hospitals, ambulance providers, etc.).

Why would providers object to cutting funding for care to the poor? Because Medicaid (like Medicare) works by paying providers to deliver care. That is, the money for these 'public' health programs goes directly to private providers (some also goes to public providers like the LSU hospitals).

Shrinking funding while extending new hands in the till to manage the care delivered will result in reduced funding for providers. You can do the math. Reduced funding for providers results in fewer providers willing to deliver the services which, in turn,  results in reduced access to care.

The Medicaid program in Louisiana is huge; in excess of $7 billion flows through the program annually, but the vast majority of the money is federal money as Louisiana has one of the most generous federal match ratios in the country due to the fact that we are a poor state and have had strong champions for the program in the Senate.

The Louisiana Hospital Association, fighting proposed budget cuts in 2009, said a $200 million cut in Medicaid funding would cost Louisiana nearly 2,000 healthcare jobs. Although those cuts were staved off at the time, succeeding budget shortfalls have resulted in far more money being cut from Medicaid since that time.

With Jindal's refusal to consider new funding sources and a budget shortfall approaching $2 billion anticipated at the start of the next fiscal year (and with Jindal still not having made good on his pledge to revised the State Constitution to ensure that not all cuts come solely from healthcare and higher education), new cuts in Medicaid are going to result in significant job losses in both the public and private segments of the healthcare delivery system.

Higher Education Remains Targeted

Higher education is the other segment of the state's budgets that are not constitutionally protected. Jindal has been taking heat publicly for his cuts in this area, owing in no small measure for the affection many alums feel for their old schools.

While large segments of our state like to sneer at the 'pointy heads' in academia, higher education has significant economic impact on the communities fortunate enough to have such institutions in their midst. As a native of Eunice, I can tell you that I shudder to think what that city would be like economically today were it not for the presence of the LSU-E campus there.

The University of Louisiana System put together an economic impact fact sheet (PDF) a couple of years ago when Jindal first locked in on his 'no new taxes for any reason' strategy of pursuing his national ambitions.

The economic impact of LSU on the Baton Rouge area is immense and its impact on the entire state through the AgCenter, the LSU Hospital System, and other initiatives is at least as large as the UL system's.

Jindal maintains that the universities are not delivering enough value, that people take too long to graduate, if they do at all. It might do the Governor some good to actually talk to the people who are working their way through college. He would learn about the kind of balancing act they have to do among work, family and school. He might also take a whack at explaining how increasing tuition is going to make those students move through the system faster.

But, as a man with no ties to any higher educational institution in the state, it's all just about numbers to him.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

This summer, Jindal was all about jobs — when he wasn't killing oysters or generally making a nuisance of himself (see page 20) during the BP Gulf Gusher. But the jobs he was worried about were the oilfield service jobs of people employed by his biggest political backers — the Bollingers and the Chouests. His concern, one could convincingly argue, was not about the jobs at all, but about the threat Jindal believed the moratorium posed to his benefactors.

Despite the fact that he is the child of public employees, Jindal exhibits a peculiar disdain for their work and their well being. No doubt his judgment on the worth of these workers and services is clouded by his national Republican ambitions which makes tax increases an anathema, a fact that has been compounded by the rise of the Tea Party wing within the Republican Party.

The complicating factor for Jindal is that 2011 is a statewide election year and his national ambitions cannot be advanced if he cannot get re-elected here.

Democrats are not well positioned now, but neither was the national party in 1991 before Bill Clinton challenged George H.W. Bush (or, 'Bush the Intelligent' compared to his son).

People who value higher education are going to have to step up. Dave Treen is dead and it's doubtful whether another intervention at the Mansion can prevent the new author from pushing ahead with his plans to slash programs.

Jindal was elected, in part, by people who believed that he was a problem solver who understood the value of education and knew how to manage healthcare. He's proven that he is none of the above.

The forces of opposition to his policies are firming. It remains to be seen if someone can step forward and give voice to that opposition in a way that either forces Jindal to change his path — or costs him re-election.

Strange things have a way of happening on the way to coronations in a democracy.

Say Anything: Bobby Jindal's Hypocrisy on Science Gushes in the Gulf

Bobby Jindal's public life can be seen as a marathon wrestling match between his intellect and his political brain. The intellect is evident by the biology degree from Brown and the year-long stint at Oxford. Yet, when Jindal's political brain gains the upper hand, science gets tossed overboard as it did when the Governor signed legislation that allows the teaching of creationism in Louisiana's public schools.

Most of the time, Jindal is able to put enough distance between his intellect and his political brain to keep the differences, if not muted, then in the background. But the strain of dealing with BP Gulf Gusher and its attendant political opportunities sent Jindal into a full bi-polar eruption on science this week that calls into question the governor's mental stability.

The issues that provoked the eruption were two issues where he has staked a lot of political capital. The first issue is the berm building venture that Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser whipped up and that Jindal then rode back into the national spotlight as the 'can-do' governor. The second is the six-month deep water drilling moratorium that the Obama administration ordered in the wake of the BP Gulf Gusher.

Berms — We Don't Need No Stinkin' Science

The berm venture showed Jindal at his political best. Seeing an opportunity and talking about it until incessantly until the issue either died or he got what he wanted. In this case, he got some of what he wanted when Admiral Thad Allen recommended that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approve the construction of six berms along the coast in the hope that they might help stop some of the millions of gallons of oil that continue flowing into the Gulf from what was BP's well.

In the weeks leading up to Allen's recommendation, what is most striking about Jindal's effort on the berms is the fact that there is no hint anywhere that he and Nungesser consulted with any scientist about the project. The Governor certainly did not contact any of the scientists at any of the various coastal and estuary research centers at the state's public and private universities. He did use LUMCON as the backdrop for a press briefing but apparently never responded to an offer from the scientists there to serve as information resources to the Governor on any of the state's response efforts to the Gulf Gusher.

In fact, the only public record of Jindal and Nungesser ever having heard from scientists on the berm plan was at the June 1 meeting to discuss the matter in New Orleans, where scientists attended (at Allen's request, apparently). The fact that anyone would question their brainchild so infuriated Nungesser that he left the meeting and attacked the scientists during an encounter with reporters who met him outside the meeting room. Jindal at least stayed in the meeting but the scientists and their concerns left him unfazed.

There are no verifiable reports that our Governor sat through the meeting with his hands over his ears. There was, though, no indication that anything the Governor heard in the meeting made any impression on him, either. Jindal went into the meeting committed to dredging for berms, regardless of the facts. He maintains that position today.

That is apparently why the dredging has now been shut down. The Department of the Interior ordered it shut down after several days of trying to get the state-hired contractor to carryout the work in the manner defined in the permit and in a way that does not endanger the barrier islands the berms are intended to bolster.

According to the Times-Picayune account of the shutdown:

The state's contractors were told by the Army Corps of Engineers to shut down dredging operations Tuesday evening, after the Interior Department in Washington expressed concerns that if the state continued to dredge in the current location it could pose long-term risks for the current barrier island system. Federal officials said they had already given the state more than a week to get sand from a more distant borrow site, but that contractors have continued to ask for more time.

Predictably, Jindal erupted, railing against bureaucracy — and ignoring the science. "Get out of the way; move this bureaucracy out of the way," Jindal was quoted by the Times-Picayune as saying.

Earth to Jindal: It's the science, stupid!

The Times-Picayune explains:

Tom Strickland, assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said that if the department had allowed the state to continue digging where it was digging, officials feared it would approach a "tipping point" with an "impact on that island chain that may never be restored."

The concern with the current borrow site is that sand circulating in the island system could become trapped in the borrow pit, thus accelerating land loss throughout the Chandeleur chain. According to the federal government, a site a mile farther offshore poses less of a risk.

"We're acting in good faith. We have a good working relationship with the state on so many elements of this," Strickland said. "We are going to continue to work with the state."

The problem is that the bureaucrats that Jindal and his pal Nungesser are attacking have based their decision on the hydrology of the barrier island ecosystem. What separates the people at the Department of the Interior from Jindal and Nungesser is an appreciation that the dredging has, all along, carried with it the real possibility of doing more harm to the already ravaged coast than good.

Politicians Jindal and Nungesser, having ignored the science throughout their touting of this plan and their dismissal of the science is what led to the temporary closing of their berm building operation.

The dredging for the berms is shut down precisely because Jindal insisted on ignoring what the science was telling the Department of the Interior about the currents around the barrier islands. He did this fully aware of the possible consequences, despite being warned repeatedly that it was critical.

The shutting down of the berming operation falls on Jindal's political brain overriding his intellect on the matter of science.

Moratorium — You Must Listen to the Scientists!

The second issue that runs parallel to the berm issue is the deep water drilling moratorium. Jindal has been opposed to it all along, owing in no small part to the fact that it will heavily affect some of his staunchest financial backers.

When Hornbeck Offshore, Bollinger Shipyards, Edison Chouest and other deep water oil service companies filed suit against the moratorium, Jindal had the state file an amicus brief in support of those companies. The plaintiffs list read like a list of heavy hitters from a Jindal campaign finance report.

When Judge Martin Feldman ruled against the moratorium and in favor of the service companies, Jindal pounced but in so doing revealed a disturbing disconnect in his thinking.


In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon shortly after Feldman's ruling, Jindal — the man who steadfastly rejects the scientific concerns regarding his berm building project — lashed out at the Obama administration for — get this — ignoring what scientists were saying about the safety of deep water drilling.

"Listen to your own scientific experts that met with Secretary Salazar yesterday, to say they never recommended a six-month moratorium," Jindal implored the White House. "Listen to the same experts who said that six month moratorium was not necessary to improve safety in the Gulf,"

So, ignore the widely recognized science on the berms, but heed a small group of scientists who were miffed that the Obama administration actually exercised more caution than they recommended on the moratorium.

Do you think that this caution might have something to do with the fact that the Gulf Gusher that prompted their being called in on the issue remains uncapped more than two months after it started? This despite the fact that the best minds in the industry are tackling this problem.

Or, perhaps that the emergency response plans of the other companies paying for drilling in the Gulf looked frighteningly similar to BP's non-existent flawed inadequate plan?


Unprincipled Certainty In Pursuit of Ambition

Jindal's split personality on science has always been there, but it took the close interweaving of these two issues to bring it into such sharp focus. What it really reveals is that he is a rank opportunist perhaps unrivaled in this state's rich history of rank opportunists.

Clearly, any argument he makes is valid only so long as it works for him. It is a strictly utilitarian, unprincipled approach to truth. It is whatever he says it is. The fact that he can debase the value of science one minute while extolling it the next on a subject related to the first topic puts Jindal well outside the moral certitude crowd of modern day conservatism. The only thing Jindal is certain about is his desire to become president. His own advancement is the only principle he holds dear.

What his bi-polar approach to science demonstrates is that he will say anything so long as it fits his purpose and advances his personal cause. For proof, look no further the fiscal conservatives he just betrayed in the Louisiana Legislature.