Jindal bill vetoes include disclosure of contributors

• By MARSHA SHULER
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jul 11, 2008 - Page: 4A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed more bills Thursday, including one that would have required disclosure by the governor and other elected officials of their hiring or appointment of campaign contributors.

“I support the bill’s expansion of transparency, but have concern about a drafting error,” Jindal wrote in his veto message for House Bill 176.

But the bill’s sponsor said Thursday that there’s no error.

State Rep. Neil Abramson questioned Jindal’s commitment to “disclosure and transparency in the political process.”

HB176 was designed so the public could see whether “political jobs and appointments were political paybacks and patronage, or legitimate decisions. My bill was true transparency, real ethics reform and a good government bill,” the New Orleans Democrat said Thursday.

“Despite the amendments made to my bill to deal with the governor’s concerns, the final version of my bill can still be read to require the governor, himself, to make the disclosures and that unfortunately might be the ‘technical’ reason (for the veto),” Abramson said.

Abramson had filed similar legislation during Jindal’s February ethics special session. It died. He proposed the legislation again in the 2008 regular session and got it passed, including changes suggested by the Governor’s Office.

“My concern is the governor is for ethics reform and good government when it doesn’t apply to him,” Abramson said. “My bill applied to all elected officials across the board, yet my bill was singled out because it included the governor’s office.”

Under HB176, elected officials from voting districts having a population of 5,000 or more people would have been required to include on their annual disclosure report information about campaign contributors whom they later hire or appoint.

“By all accounts, including confirmation from (Abramson), the bill was intended to require that elected officials report information about their own contributors, not those of another elected official,” Jindal wrote.

Yet, he wrote, language in the proposed law “states otherwise” and could be read to require disclosure by officials of other officials’ hirings and appointments.

“I respectfully decline to sign into law a bill containing penalties based on an expectation that the individuals subject to those penalties will act according to what the Legislature intended, rather than what it plainly stated,” Jindal wrote.

Also Thursday, Jindal vetoed State Police-backed legislation that would have allowed an exception to state nepotism laws when it involved the hiring of police cadets.