Ballard: Here’s Mr. Jindal’s neighborhood

• By MARK BALLARD
• Capitiol Editor
• Published: Mar 1, 2009 - Page: 7B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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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.

Not to point out warts in his idyllic picture, but all that chirping around the State Capitol last week wasn’t coming from bluebirds. It was legislators and their lawyers looking for ways to circumvent Jindal and his Republican allies in the Louisiana Legislature to get $98 million in federal money for the state’s growing number of unemployed, and to influence Jindal’s list of road projects that would receive $308 million in federal money.

Jindal chief of staff Timmy Teepell — the governor returns from vacation tonight — said, fine, get two-thirds of 144 legislators to override Jindal’s veto and the Legislature can assert its will.

Then the joint legislative budget committee’s leaders, hand-picked by Jindal, scheduled a meeting for Wednesday to vote again on the governor’s road projects. It is the same list, without so much as a comma change, that legislators rejected on Feb. 20.

So much for the spirit of cooperation.

Jindal’s refusal to take unemployment — and possibly other dollars — from the $787 billion federal stimulus package has legislators and their lawyers looking for a legal strategy. They’re looking at the timing of when they would have to act, as well as how various clauses mesh, said state Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte.

The federal Recovery Act, for instance, includes wording that would allow state legislatures to accept the money that Jindal and four other GOP governors have rejected. Louisiana lawmakers could pass a concurrent resolution, which does not require the governor’s acceptance and thereby would not require a significant number of Republican legislators to vote against Jindal’s wishes.

Whether a concurrent resolution, trumps a law change, which Jindal can veto, would take a judge to sort out.

What’s more likely is that enough legislators will quietly tell Jindal they want a way to accept the money without alienating the Republican faithful.

It’s also possible enough legislators will voice support for Jindal that his position will prevail without a public fight.

The national Republican hierarchy argues that the stimulus package expands the theory of unemployment benefits as temporary money for people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. President Barack Obama wants to extend the period benefits are paid and include a larger pool of people, such as workers who had sacrifice their jobs for family reasons.

Jindal argues that to receive the unemployment money the way Obama wants, Louisiana law would have to permanently change permanently state law to allow more people to collect more unemployment benefits. When the federal dollars run out in a few years, the state’s trust fund would be stuck with the tab. As the level of the trust fund drops in the future, tax increases on Louisiana employers are automatically triggered.

LaFleur said the governor’s legal argument is flawed. The governor’s position on permanent law puts unemployment expansion on the same level as the Bill of Rights. Wording could be added in the statute that would ratchet down the expansion provisions as the federal money runs out.