Political Horizons for Feb. 8

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Feb 8, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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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.

John Gillam, who scored a touchdown on the team’s very first play, was my first childhood hero. Then there were Tom Dempsey and Archie Manning.

But the Saints also were Hank Stram, the hope of 1979 turning into the 1-15 season of 1980, Russell Erxleben and trading Archie.

Year after frustrating year, fans hold to the belief that it’s not the Saints, it’s their owners from Texas.

To this day, whenever visiting Houston, I spit in the fountain built by the family who owned the Saints until 1985 when Tom Benson, a San Antonio car dealer, bought the team.

So there was more than a little trepidation last week when Gov. Bobby Jindal acknowledged that he was negotiating in secret to continue a deal that requires Louisiana taxpayers to subsidize the Texans who own the New Orleans football team.

The Saints’ lease with the state of Louisiana runs through the 2010 season. Under the current terms of the contract, the state pays the Saints $23.5 million per year not to leave New Orleans. The formula promoted as a cost-free way to pay off Benson never worked and the state has been dipping into the general fund to meet its contractual obligations.

There’s reason for taxpayers to fear the new contract now being negotiated in secret.

First, it was Jindal’s patron — Gov. Mike Foster — who brokered the original deal that guaranteed the Saints roughly $250 million. Whenever Benson would come to Baton Rouge to negotiate with Foster’s successor — Gov. Kathleen Blanco — his luxury car sported a Jindal bumper sticker.

But what should set off the most alarm bells is that Jindal has always found it easier to say transparency than to practice it.

For instance, Jindal is reluctant to require much of his personal, highly paid staff to file the financial disclosures that he demands of most other government officials.

He kept his office excluded from many of the public-records and open-meetings laws that apply to all other state and local agencies. He even has extended executive privilege to the book that guests sign at his reception desk.

State Sen. Rob Marionneaux Jr. recalled how the present deals that Foster drafted and that Blanco renegotiated were presented in their final form. While there was much talk about — and votes on — particulars, the full Louisiana Legislature never officially weighed in on the package, he said.