Political Horizons for June 28, 2009

• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 28, 2009 - Page: 7B

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Last week I attended a “public square” meeting hosted by WLPB-TV and heard everyday people discuss a wide variety of issues addressed by the 2009 Louisiana Legislature.

Young, old, black, white, the faces of Louisiana sat primly under hot lights, dabbed with pancake powder but still voicing opposing opinions that were sometimes eloquent, sometimes not. But they were always polite despite their near universal disagreement on most issues.

Everyone, however, could find common ground: the abysmal performance of legislators and Gov. Bobby Jindal during the two-month session that ended Thursday.

Their common theme was that lawmakers, Jindal included, have been acting too partisan, too interested in their own political futures and not very focused on the problems of the state’s residents.

These members of the public couldn’t quite put their fingers on the problem. But then neither could the legislators, whose frustration more and more frequently turned to personal sniping as the session drew to a close.

On the final day a slew of Louisiana House members took the microphone to say aloud what they had been grousing about for so long: administration supporters — they hold a majority in the Legislature — consistently voted to shut down debate whenever an alternative to Jindal’s worldview was voiced.

State Rep. Jane Smith, of Bossier City, whose voting record as head of the GOP legislative caucus could generally be described as lockstep with Jindal, scolded her colleagues about the chaos and lack of civility borne of disappointment by elected officials unable to speak their piece.

State Rep. Ernest Wooton, of Belle Chasse, is a former sheriff and one of the longest-serving Republicans in the House. Though he once had to be restrained during an argument in a hallway outside the chamber with Jindal’s lawyer, Jimmy Faircloth, Wooton voted with the governor more than 95 percent of the time. Still, Wooton took to the podium to criticize Jindal and House leaders for basically sending down instructions and not allowing much input even from the 60 or so supporters.

“I’d like a little more recognition for the fact that we are part of the process,” Wooton told his colleagues.
Perhaps Senate President Joel T. Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, said it best when he told the House last week to “man up.”

For all the whining about being subservient to Jindal — and this is certainly not the first Legislature to kowtow to a governor — the members have the power to assert their independence: They can vote against the governor’s wishes.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis quotes John Adams as saying the legislators who created our nation were imperfect men who improvised and patched things together. But the Founding Fathers were a reflection of whom could participate in politics at the time: white, middle-aged men; property owners with varying degrees of education; planters, merchants and lawyers, a lot of lawyers, Ellis writes in his 2007 book, “American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic.”

The most telling description of Louisiana’s current legislators is that fewer than 20 of the 144 lawmakers — 105 in the House, 39 in the Senate have been elected since 2005. About one-third were born in the 1960s and another third, born in the 1950s. Lawyers account for 35 of the 144, by far the most commonly reported occupation. There are 20 more self-described “businessmen.” But the two chambers also have five financial planners, 13 retirees, a half dozen bankers and an equal number of salesmen, a couple of engineers, a few farmers and a funeral home operator.

The key difference between then and now, historian Ellis says, is that Founding Fathers were expected by voters to behave like statesmen rather than demagogues. Playing to popular sentiment for political gain was unseemly back then. Statesmen made decisions in the long-term interests of the people, rather than short-term personal goals.