|
|
Friday, November 20, 2009
- The Advocate eEdition
- |
- Wedding Forms
- |
- Newsletters
- |
- Text Alerts
- |
- Mobile
- |
- RSS
- |
MARK BALLARD
The high point of Gov. Dave Treen’s career, many agreed this past week, was creating the state Department of Environmental Quality. That accomplishment is worth noting, as the Jindal administration looks to make state government more efficient. DEQ is one of the agencies that the Streamlining Commission is considering dismantling.
LSU System President John Lombardi is a breath of fresh air among Louisiana officials.
Merging the state’s museums under a single umbrella seems to be a no-brainer. So, why are the State Museum on Fourth Street in downtown Baton Rouge and the Cabildo in New Orleans run by the lieutenant governor, while the Old State Capitol Center for Political and Governmental History is run by the secretary of state?
Back in late 1960s, when The Beatles were a staple of AM radio and not a video game, a systems analyst came from Ernst&Ernst Management Consultants of Cleveland to study Louisiana government budgeting.
The Commission on Streamlining Government returned from its listening tour last week with an earful of complaints by state employees. Like puppies in a veterinarian’s parking lot, state workers apparently can sense that the pain that accompanies strong medicine is in their near future.
State employees complained loudly about plans to cut their jobs in Alexandria last week. Shrimpers gathered on the State Capitol steps twice in past months. And, of course, there were all those vitriolic anti-health care reform rallies over the summer. The issues differ. The behaviors vary. But the theme remains the same.
I admit to tuning in local talk radio to hear the area’s perfect drivers address the failings of all other motorists.
Our summer of boorish behavior seemed to peak last week. In sports, tennis star Serena Williams threatened a line judge. In entertainment, singer Kanye West grabbed a microphone from singer Taylor Swift. And in politics, controversy continued over South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie” outburst during President Barack Obama’s speech before the U.S. Congress.
President Barack Obama last week described a private health system that fails to provide basic care for a large number of people, and offers limited choices for those who can afford insurance.
Within a mile of my home in Baton Rouge’s Garden District live 15 convicted sex offenders, according to the online state registry. Like many hand-wringing fathers, these periodic web checks are prompted by the news. In the most-recent story, convicted rapist Phillip Garrido of Antioch, Calif., was charged after the discovery of a 29-year-old woman whom he allegedly snatched off the streets as an 11-year-old.
Anyone attending many of these so-called “town hall” meetings on health care, as I have, would hear a recurring theme: the fear that revisions being suggested in competing bills before the U.S. Congress would lead to “socialized medicine.”
Tuesday shrimp fishermen gathered on the State Capitol steps to draw attention to the low prices caused by cheap imports.
Politics always has been played with spitballs and corked bats. New technology is taking the game in a new directions, though, really, it all kind of remains the same.
During the legislative session, on June 22, House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, challenged Gov. Bobby Jindal. But 50 members of the House voted against Tucker’s amendment that Jindal opposed and defeated an effort to require public access to records of the Governor’s Office.
A gathering on the sidewalks around the Baton Rouge federal courthouse quickly turned stormy last week.
Here’s something that’ll keep you awake at night: Just like this fiscal year, state government next fiscal year won’t collect enough taxes, royalties and other revenues to pay the government’s bills. But unlike this year, state taxpayers in 2010 also could face a health-care bill of about $1 billion that they have no choice but to pay.
This is how sausage is made at the Louisiana Legislature. Consider the successful effort to create some protection for witnesses in criminal cases. Such a program seems a timely idea given last weekend’s murder of Shelva Glasper, of Baton Rouge, the third witness found dead in a trial set to begin in September.
Last week I attended a “public square” meeting hosted by WLPB-TV and heard everyday people discuss a wide variety of issues addressed by the 2009 Louisiana Legislature.
Last Thursday could be one of those days in Louisiana history destined to be an essay question. Think about “Bloody Monday” in March 1929 when Louisiana House members literally brawled over an abrupt adjournment to avoid a move to impeach then-Gov. Huey Long.
Expect a fractious debate over the budget this coming week. But also note that, despite all the name-calling as legislators go hooting down one trail or another, very little will be said about the future of Louisiana.
In the seventh chapter of “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck’s narrator becomes a crooked used car salesman who reviews all the various tricks that hoodwink unsuspecting buyers. The passage is a great description of how the unscrupulous divert attention from just how bad the vehicle is he’s selling.
For fans of irony, the best moment of Zen for this general session of the Louisiana Legislature — fast reaching its midpoint — came last week when House Speaker Jim Tucker backed an amendment, then turned to an aide and asked “What does the amendment do?”
All across Baton Rouge over the past few days, families and friends have gathered at area colleges, universities and high schools to honor one of the monumental accomplishments in a person’s life: graduation.
Overshadowing much of the debate during the first two weeks of the Louisiana Legislature’s regular session is the question of whether the governor’s office should have to follow the same rules as other elected officials and publicly disclose its records.
For the past few months, state legislators have boasted of how they would
Monday at noon the Louisiana Legislature starts its annual session. Gov. Bobby Jindal will speak to the assembly at 1 p.m. The legislators adjourn no later than 6 p.m. on June 25th.
John D. Rockefeller once told how to grow the best American Beauty rose. The trick, he said, was to pluck off all but one bud, so that all the food and energy in the plant would come together to create one full bloom of beauty and fragrance.
My family is spending the next couple of weeks deciding what college my 18-year-old will attend. We’re comparing aid offers to sticker prices, wondering if our 529 savings plan will ever regain its value.
Probably because it’s the Lenten season, I got involved in a conversation at church last week about helping the poor.
Back in the late 1980s, the late Jim Finks, then-general manager of the New Orleans Saints, kept getting interrupted during an interview by phone calls, as he and some player’s agent angrily negotiated details of
Last week, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich took to the national airwaves to praise the “extraordinary” efforts of Gov. Bobby Jindal to put a new face on Louisiana by stemming corruption here.
It’s always a beautiful day in Mr. Jindal’s neighborhood. At least, that’s how Gov. Bobby Jindal described to the rest of the nation the self-sacrificing, bipartisan way Louisiana lawmakers go about repairing all manner of ills.
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal is traveling all over the country to raise money for his 2011 re-election run that, at least at this early date, appears unlikely to attract any serious competitors from the Democratic Party.
A lot of South Louisiana men and women have been fans of the Saints professional football team since All Saints Day in 1966 when the old New Orleans States-Item announced the birth of the club.
A great wailing and gnashing of teeth will start this week and last through the spring as state government tries to figure out how to reconcile a budget that costs roughly $1.65 billion more than is expected to be collected in taxes and fees for the fiscal year that starts in July.
At last Louisiana’s beavers can breathe easy. For all the promises of streamlined government and warnings of layoffs that accompanied Gov. Bobby Jindal’s $341 million “cost-savings” plan to balance this year’s budget, it appears the few flesh-and-blood, full-time state employees who actually will receive pink slips include the eight who work in the office that trapped 1,451 beavers last year.
If you need a friend, get a dog. It’s trench warfare out there pal.” That’s what corporate raider Gordon Gekko told his young protégé in the 1987 movie, “Wall Street,” starring Michael Douglas.
Conversations in the halls of the Louisiana State Capitol this past week voiced how irked state officials were about the gratuitous references about Louisiana in reporting about bad behavior in
Normally, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief of staff, Timmy Teepell, devotes his days to making pitches to legislators about the governor’s agenda.
The hurricanes in September toppled many a tree and damaged many a house. In November, hurricanes Gustav and Ike destroyed the congressional aspirations of state Sen. Don Cravins.
When I was younger and single, many — well, most — of my dates included long conversations about the effect of free milk on the future purchase of cows. In retrospect, this unwanted talk about consequences, mood killer that it was, inserted some caution into the excitement of the moment.
The state Public Service Commission recently became the latest government agency to consider banning free meals and entertainment paid for by special interests.
