Political Horizons for May 4, 2008

• By MARK BALLARD
• Capitol news bureau
• Published: May 4, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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When the Founding Fathers debated the best way to organize the United States, Thomas Jefferson argued that the executives and legislators on the state level would provide the purest and most-satisfying form of government.

He described a structure in which neighbors sent one of their own — someone they dined with, someone they prayed with — as their representative to ensure their wants and dreams were part of the calculation when the larger world made law.

The Louisiana Legislature may have failed to reach that ideal during the past week.

On Thursday, House members pummeled one of their own — Rep. Walker Hines, D-New Orleans — for trying to close a loophole that allows legislators to skirt the recently enacted $50 limit on what lobbyists can spend on lawmakers.

It turns out that under the new limitations — of which the legislators and Gov. Bobby Jindal brag — lawmakers can —  on a single night and all at lobbyist expense — spend $50 on predinner drinks, take $50 worth of appetizers out on the patio, head to the dining room for a $50 entrée, down a $50 dessert by the fire in the lobby, then retire to the bar for $50 worth of cigars and brandy. Legislators can do this every single night of the year and do it again for lunch.

The House committee killed House Bill 432, which would have limited allowed $50 expenditures to 24-hour periods — and criticized Hines for bringing it up in the first place.

Rep. Mert Smiley, R-St. Amant, told Hines that to the extent there is a problem, it’s the media’s fault.

Rep. Tony Ligi, R-Kenner,  said not a single constituent had complained to him about the heretofore unpublicized loophole. He said he was worried that the actual reporting of all these feasts would add to the already overwhelming workload of the state Board of Ethics, which is charged with ensuring that the lawmakers and lobbyists report the information.

The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana reported Wednesday that language inserted into an ethics law passed during February’s rocket session, made Louisiana’s code one of the nation’s most difficult to enforce, particularly given the lack of resources thus far allowed the Ethics Board by Jindal and the state Legislature.

Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, whose district includes Jindal’s home, took personal privilege in the Senate chamber Tuesday to argue that, indeed, by virtue of their status as legislators, it should be harder for the ethics board to find that legislators failed to follow the rules the legislators set for themselves.

Rep. Rick Gallot, chairman of the House committee that oversees ethics legislation, agrees with Martiny. The Ruston Democrat said he expects the Ethics Board to ask for  money to hire the additional investigators and attorneys needed to enforce the new, higher standard.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee forwarded legislation that would make secret most documents involving the governor and his staff.
Though Jindal yakked up his “gold standard ethics reform” with TV talk show host Jay Leno on Monday, he spent more than a week ducking local press questions about all the loopholes and surprises in those ethics bills. The most seminal image — also televised — showed the governor’s press secretary’s body blocking a television reporter who tried to ask those questions as a door closed on a silent Jindal.

When he finally spoke about ethics Wednesday, Jindal said he wasn’t a lawyer. But Jindal also said he would veto any legislation that chips at the ethics package, on which he was elected in large part to fulfill the public’s Jeffersonian dream of an accountable government at the state level.