Our Views: Striking out on reforms
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When the LSU Tigers staged their come-from-behind rally in the bottom of the 9th against Rice University, Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha went wild. It wasn’t the first time the LSU baseball team snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at the College World Series. Amid the deafening noise, the announcer shouted: “It’s deja vu all over again!”
Subtract the enthusiasm and we’d say about the 2008 Legislature: It’s deja vu all over again.
We don’t expect a bottom-of-the-9th, two-out rally for good government before the session expires Monday. The state’s lawmakers, many of them new to the State Capitol, and a new governor have squandered much good will since taking power in January.
For all of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s “reform” agenda, expectations have been dashed because of the last-minute bench-clearing brawl over huge pay raises for lawmakers. The governor has been an unheroic figure, a wimpy umpire allowing himself to be shoved aside in the stampede for higher pay.
Self-interest is the word that most voters will attach to this Legislature. And that’s not just about pay.
Lawmakers have loaded up appropriations bills with special-interest grants that are today’s equivalent of the old legislative slush funds. Jindal’s promised to veto many of them. We’ll see. After all, this is the same governor who said he had to acquiesce in the pay raise or both teams, House and Senate, would have put their cleats into his legislative program.
When lawmakers earlier this year in a special session approved changes sought by Jindal for ethics laws, there was much whining about the dreadful burden of it all — on legislators. They made significant changes that made ethics laws harder to enforce, and spent a great deal of time adding ethics reporting requirements to every level of government they could think of.
Just like legislators of old, they see ethics laws as a persecution. Lawmakers were obsessed with spreading the pain around. A culture of self-interest — it’s all about us — has survived the turnover of many seats because of term limits.
What is striking about this Legislature is how little it has changed the reality of Louisiana’s situation, economically and socially.
If all goes according to Jindal’s desires, the new budget will include a significant improvement in eliminating one-time money in the operating budget. That’s the kind of step forward that we’d like to see a lot more of. And many of Jindal’s proposals for new or expanded state programs — most of them responsible, although some are not — attack real state problems, from the poor reading skills of public-school students to mental health treatment in devastated New Orleans.
Still, many of these plans and programs involve relatively small appropriations and, as Jindal and other top officials will say, are only placeholders for more needed in future.
In terms of boldness, this regular session had little or no evidence of it. The pay raises might be better described as brazen rather than bold.
Brave new world? Lawmakers have publicized their cowardice in rolling over for a new version of legislation promoting creationism in public school classrooms. That bill got three — count ’em, three — votes against it in the House and passed 35-0 in the Senate. Guts, that’s not.
Jindal’s administration has gotten a very good national press, and we’re happy if that makes Louisiana seem a more attractive place to invest. The ethics hoopla may have its problems in the details, but in terms of showing a better face to the world, it’s a good thing. The details will bother no one, unless of course the shiny new ethics laws are not aggressively enforced in future.
Once Jindal’s first budget is in place, the Legislature has gone home, and — maybe —the white hot public anger over the dirty bargain about pay raises subsides a bit, there will be time for a regrouping of the governor’s administration. It’s wandering all over the base paths now, bobbling balls left and right, failing to tag even the slowest runners. We hoped for more.
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