Our Views for Nov. 2, 2008
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| Advocate Columnists |
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One big step on long road
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Perhaps it’s kind of like the Bowl Championship Series, wherein one can win lots of games and still not be No. 1. That’s probably how coach Jindal and his team felt when the latest rankings about ethics in state government came out.
In large part because of the legislative financial disclosure laws pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and good-government groups this year, Louisiana vaulted to No. 5 in the states in a ranking of its ethics laws. That’s from No. 46 in the last rankings in 2002.
In the Ethics BCS, we should be No. 1. Even the ranking groups, two of them, say that’s the case, but one of them hasn’t yet updated its ranking. The major ranking is the Better Government Association, which bases its rankings in part on a conflict-of-interest ranking by the Center for Public Integrity.
CPI’s input into the Ethics BCS isn’t published yet, but when it is, BGA officials said, Louisiana will be No. 1.
It’s worth celebrating.
“We are especially pleased that Louisiana’s overall BGA ranking would in fact be No. 1 in the country, and our conflict-of-interest laws would be No. 1 also when BGA accounts for updated CPI rankings and the totality of the sweeping ethics reforms we put into law earlier this year,” Jindal said.
Do rankings make Louisiana the most ethical state in America? No, don’t take that bet and expect to bank away your winnings in U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s freezer.
But we believe the improvements in ethics laws — some of them, we note, also pushed and passed by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco — have established over time that Louisiana is ready to turn the page on a history of cronyism and corruption.
We are far from the ideal. Witness the prosecution of Jefferson, the New Orleans congressman accused of stashing bribe money in his freezer.
And the BGA rankings don’t mean the No. 1 state has perfect ethics codes, but rather the best of those so far passed among the states. To use a baseball analogy for the Jindal Tigers, we’re tops in the league, but we’re not pitching the perfect game yet.
Louisiana ought to continue over the next few years to push ahead on this front. The Jindal administration had some bills with merit that were waylaid in the hurry of this year’s ethics special session. Issues involving transparency and open records in the Governor’s Office and elsewhere must be improved if Louisiana is really willing to boast about being the best in ethics laws.
Effective enforcement is an issue, too, given drastic changes in the structure of the Board of Ethics this year.
We hope good-government groups that helped to push this issue last year and this year will look at ways to do better. While most in government considered the Jindal transition teams of fall 2007 to be window dressing, the ethics panel was outspoken in favor of reforms. Maybe the governor should call those “wise men” back into session and talk about a new, improved ethics agenda.
Jindal wants to use these ethics ratings to promote Louisiana as a good place to do business. This will help, but the promise of follow-through will burnish this championship crown.
-30-
In large part because of the legislative financial disclosure laws pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and good-government groups this year, Louisiana vaulted to No. 5 in the states in a ranking of its ethics laws. That’s from No. 46 in the last rankings in 2002.
In the Ethics BCS, we should be No. 1. Even the ranking groups, two of them, say that’s the case, but one of them hasn’t yet updated its ranking. The major ranking is the Better Government Association, which bases its rankings in part on a conflict-of-interest ranking by the Center for Public Integrity.
CPI’s input into the Ethics BCS isn’t published yet, but when it is, BGA officials said, Louisiana will be No. 1.
It’s worth celebrating.
“We are especially pleased that Louisiana’s overall BGA ranking would in fact be No. 1 in the country, and our conflict-of-interest laws would be No. 1 also when BGA accounts for updated CPI rankings and the totality of the sweeping ethics reforms we put into law earlier this year,” Jindal said.
Do rankings make Louisiana the most ethical state in America? No, don’t take that bet and expect to bank away your winnings in U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s freezer.
But we believe the improvements in ethics laws — some of them, we note, also pushed and passed by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco — have established over time that Louisiana is ready to turn the page on a history of cronyism and corruption.
We are far from the ideal. Witness the prosecution of Jefferson, the New Orleans congressman accused of stashing bribe money in his freezer.
And the BGA rankings don’t mean the No. 1 state has perfect ethics codes, but rather the best of those so far passed among the states. To use a baseball analogy for the Jindal Tigers, we’re tops in the league, but we’re not pitching the perfect game yet.
Louisiana ought to continue over the next few years to push ahead on this front. The Jindal administration had some bills with merit that were waylaid in the hurry of this year’s ethics special session. Issues involving transparency and open records in the Governor’s Office and elsewhere must be improved if Louisiana is really willing to boast about being the best in ethics laws.
Effective enforcement is an issue, too, given drastic changes in the structure of the Board of Ethics this year.
We hope good-government groups that helped to push this issue last year and this year will look at ways to do better. While most in government considered the Jindal transition teams of fall 2007 to be window dressing, the ethics panel was outspoken in favor of reforms. Maybe the governor should call those “wise men” back into session and talk about a new, improved ethics agenda.
Jindal wants to use these ethics ratings to promote Louisiana as a good place to do business. This will help, but the promise of follow-through will burnish this championship crown.
-30-
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