• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol news bureau editor
• Published: May 3, 2009

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For the past few months, state legislators have boasted of how they would stand up to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

This session they would vigorously argue their ideas, they said. They would force the governor to accept them as equal partners in the debate to better Louisiana. They would assert their constitutional duties as envisioned by the founding fathers who created the balance of power foundation that has allowed this nation to flourish.

House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, predicted a lively involvement from an aroused Louisiana Legislature.

Jindal acknowledged, even welcomed, this new surge of participation. He — sort of —  apologized for creating ill-will last year with dismissive actions, such as imperially sending down directives for lawmakers and abandoning lawmakers when an outraged public criticized the pay raise efforts.

Despite all the stormy forecasts, when the legislators finally came ashore in Baton Rouge last week the winds they generated were soft and submissive.

Consider the fate of three bills that went down to defeat in the first 72 hours of the session:

For House Bill 75, the highest-ranking Democrat in the House was unable to sway enough of her colleagues to get out of committee the only revenue-generator that had a reasonable chance — a $1 tax increase on tobacco products. Speaker Pro Tem Karen Peterson of New Orleans had the backing of all manner of health groups, the AARP and even the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. But Jindal’s minions let it be known — they didn’t testify — that the governor opposed HB75 and it was defeated by four votes.

And then there was the proposal pushed by one of Jindal’s floor leaders, state Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston, which,  among other things, tried to tie fuel taxes to the Consumer Price Index, in order to provide another source of revenue for building and repairing roads and bridges.

Downs said he felt committee members had been persuaded. Then a young member of Jindal’s staff told the panel chairman that the governor opposed House Bill 456.

“It was like the air went out the room,” Downs recalled. “You could feel the shift.”

Abandoned, Downs withdrew HB456.

Then the “transparency governor” whacked legislation that would put his office under the same public scrutiny required of other elected officials.

On a 5-12 vote, members of the House and Governmental Affairs committee killed public records legislation that the full House of Representatives passed without dissent last year. Last year’s proposal died in the state Senate.

This year’s version, House Bill 169, would have allowed the public to learn with whom a governor was meeting, to get a glimpse at the motivation for an executive’s action. “That, they should not be allowed to do,” said Jindal’s executive counsel, Jimmy Faircloth, who is running for the Louisiana Supreme Court while lobbying the Legislature on behalf of the governor.

That argument — along with the others — were largely superfluous because Jindal’s deputies already had pressured enough committee members to oppose the legislation.

HB169 sponsor state Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, challenged the dozen legislators who voted against transparency on Wednesday but had voted for legislation with much the same wording in 2008.

“This is a totally different year,” replied state Rep. Mert Smiley, R-St. Amant.

Chatting about the experience a few days later, Waddell kept coming back to former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards. Waddell said that had HB169 been law back then, everyone would have known with whom Edwards met and could have asked what was in the suitcase early enough to impact the deals.

Maybe, the Shreveport Republican mused, that transparency would have curtailed the excesses that led federal prosecutors to send a Louisiana governor to prison and thereby stain the reputation of the state, he said.

Then, suddenly, Waddell pointed up to Jindal’s fourth-floor office and said, “Maybe they should just send us their whole agenda so that we can vote on it all at once. We could finish up, go home early and save everyone a lot of money. What do you need us for?”