Bobby Jindal says he's not running for president. That's probably because he's too busy acting like a king.
It's been a heady couple of weeks for the Governor of a state mired in a deep fiscal crisis largely of his own making and confronting an epic ecological and economic catastrophe that he had a hand in creating.
Jindal swept into Baton Rouge on the Friday before the final day of the legislative session to declare his support for the Senate version of the budget and House conservatives rolled over and gave him what he wanted. He ignored large majorities in both houses and strong public support for transparency in his office by vetoing a bill (HB 37) that would have made all state records relating to the BP Gulf Gusher available under the state's open records act.
Jindal acted with impunity towards the Legislature and the public with his veto of HB 37. In his veto letter (bottom of the page) to Clerk of the House, Alfred Speer, Jindal added insult to injury by giving a completely bogus explanation of his action:
The Deepwater Horizon incident is a man-made event with responsible parties that will create long-term challenges for the State of Louisiana. This bill would allow BP and other parties with potential liability to the state to obtain information retained by any state agency responding to this tragic event. Such access could impair the state’s legal position both in responding to the disaster that is unfolding and in seeking remedies for economic injury and natural resource damage.
Bobby Jindal will say anything to get what he wants. He wrecklessly ignores science on his berms project but calls for the Obama administration to listen to some scientists when it comes to the deep water drilling moratorium. You can read it all here.
Fox News' own right-wing nutbag Sean Hannity said the following last night:
If you're going to be a family-values candidate and a family-values politician, and you don't live up to that, I think you should resign.
Of course, Hannity said this in response to Nevada's Republican Senator John Ensign cheating on his wife with a staffer's wife, not David Vitter cheating on his wife, kids, and constituents with prostitutes, but the message is quite clear. Even conservatives (heck, especially conservatives) should be put off by one of their own not living up to their own standards. Conservatives should not stand with Sinning Senators, as much (if not moreso) for the hypocrisy as the sin itself. We'll have to wait and see how principled "family values" conservatives are on this issue when it comes to David Vitter.
Bobby Jindal ran for governor on a one-word campaign platform - "Ethics!" He raced around the state claiming that, if/when he became governor, the state would enact "the gold standard" of state ethics programs.
Immediately after his inauguration in 2008, Governor Jindal convened the Legislature in a special session dedicated exclusively to reforming the state ethics code. Sure, in some ways his legislative package weakened ethics enforcement, removed the process from the public view, and did absolutely nothing to eliminate pay-to-play in the form of corporate campaign contributions, but Jindal and his band of sycophants proclaimed the session a success, the state rid of a dread scourge, and purity restored to our governmental processes. Behold, our political savior!
(Dealing with a project from work that is a major pain in the butt right now. Hopefully, my share will be done tonight, and I can resume blogging regularly. Let this informative post from Mike Stagg tide you over ... - promoted by ryan)
Here's what a review of Jindal's campaign finance records and corporate records from the Louisiana Secretary of State's reveal:
On September 5, 2007, the Jindal campaign booked $30,000 in contributions that were directly related to David Voelker, with another $10,000 possible connected to him. There were four $5,000 checks from Voelker and members of his household. There were also two checks from LLCs he controls or shares control.
F/V Diversified LLC, which shares an address (and initials) with Frantzen/Voelker Investments LLC, also contributed $5,000 to the Jindal campaign that was booked on the same day. Records on file with the Louisiana Secretary of State list only one member of the F/V Diversified company — JSC Management LLC, which is managed by Richard C. Conway, Jr. The Jindal campaign booked a $5,000 contribution from JSC Management LLC on September 5, 2007, as well.
Ethics reform without campaign finance reform is a farce.
Governor Jindal continues to reward his largest contributors for their largess. This is the most blatant form of the kind of "pay to play" politics that Jindal railed against as a candidate. As governor, he's proven that ethics reform is for other people — not for him, his administration and his well-heeled, deep pocketed friends.
The Sunday edition of the Baton Rouge Advocate pulls back the curtain on the still legal, still ethical form of pay to play as practiced by Governor Bobby Jindal and his Republican patrons.
The subject is the brazen $15 million payoff that Louisiana taxpayers will make to GOP heavy hitter Gary Chouest. Chouest, his family and companies gave more than $135,000 to Republican causes in the recent state election cycle. It took Jindal only two months — had to get that ethics special session out of the way — to pay back Chouest's largess.
Here's how the story begins:
The first business to benefit from state economic development aid under Gov. Bobby Jindal is run by a man whose family and businesses donated at least $135,250 to the governor’s campaign and local Republican Party causes during the past year.
Jindal introduced the donor — Gary Chouest, of Galliano — as a leader of Louisiana business in the same March 9 speech when the governor proclaimed before the Legislature that the state’s political culture had moved beyond "who you know" motivations.
Jindal used part of the state's $1.1 billion surplus to put $10 million in a Terrebonne Parish port expansion. Jindal also gave an additional $4 million grant to the project.
The state Legislature approved both proposals earlier this month. The taxpayer dollars help Chouest’s privately owned companies expand a state-of-the-art shipbuilding facility and to upgrade the port where the new plant is located.
All the huffing and puffing of the great ethics special session charade is over and now it's back to business as usual in Louisiana politics as run by Republicans.
Lafayette's The Independent weekly's blog, The Ind, has a story today about how the Ethics Governor, the Ethics Speaker and the Ethics Republican State Senator from Lafayette are joining forces to raise money for Republican campaign finance lawbreaker Don Trahan.
Trahan, The Independent reported in December, accepted more than $23,000 in political action committee (PAC) contributions in excess of the limit allowed by state campaign finance laws. Trahan won re-election with that illegal money by only 33 votes.
Michot, who took exception to Trahan campaign literature that claimed the senator had endorsed him over his opponent Nancy Landry, defended his embrace of Trahan now:
This post originally appeared at www.louisianad2d.us
Governor Jindal might be the smartest guy in some rooms, but a sense of irony is apparently completely missing in the man.
Jindal brought his ethics campaign road show to Lafayette on Thursday. The new governor made an impassioned plea against "special interests" and others who drown out the voices of ordinary people in the political process.
Standing at Jindal's right hand in a Baton Rouge Advocate photo in Friday's edition was none other than Republican District 31 Rep. Don Trahan who, it has been revealed, used more than $23,000 in illegal contributions from political action committees (PACs) to secure his 33-vote win in the October primary.
Jindal has studiously avoided making substantive campaign finance reform part of the special session on ethics that he called and which will begin on Sunday. He gets downright antsy when the discussion turns towards campaign finance reform, probably owing to the fact that his own campaign has admitted to violations of state campaign finance laws.
(Sorry for the delay in promoting this. Internet service at my apartment was down for the last few days, thanks to Cox Communications. - promoted by ryan)
CityBusiness reports that Governor-elect Bobby Jindal has completed his appointments to his ethics advisory panel.
Based on one name, it appears that Jindal's version of ethics reform will not include campaign finance reform - an essential element of any comprehensive ethics reform effort.
By naming Deifenthal to the panel that is supposed to advise the Governor-elect on his much-anticipated ethics reform package, Jindal is sending a clear signal that he is not interested in reforming Louisiana's campaign finance laws.
Through the use of multiple LLCs under their control, a group of 28 individuals or companies made more than 100 contributions to Jindal's gubernatorial campaign which totaled more than $500,000. This method of using multiple LLCs to circumvent caps on campaign contributions has never been challenged before the state Board of Ethics, although it has been the subject of an advisory ruling based on a question submitted to the board in 2006.
Ethics reform that does not include campaign finance reform - particularly, the banning of corporate contributions from campaigns - leaves the door wide open for corruption. The Governor-elect is not interested in campaign finance reform and that undermines the legitimacy of his claim to be interested in ethics reform.
Turning Jindal's Ethics Campaign Gambit into Transformative Reform of Louisiana Politics
Bob Odom and Governor-elect Bobby Jindal would make a political odd couple in just about anyone's book, but the two have combined to provide Louisiana Democrats an opportunity to redefine themselves in a way not possible prior to now.
The elements at work here are the state's eagerness for ethics reform combined with the way Jindal has continued to hawk that issue since the election and Odom's decision not to contest the run-off against Republican Mike Strain.
Bob
Let's start with Odom's decision to drop out. It's no secret that Republicans were prepared to wage a campaign of innuendo against Odom based on charges that East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Doug Moreau brought against him almost five years ago.
Moreau, a Republican, fought doggedly to keep alive his case against Odom, even though the charges were repeatedly thrown out by the courts for various legal deficiencies.
Despite Odom's legal victory, in the court of public opinion he had been successfully tarred as corrupt - despite the fact that none of Moreau's charges ever stuck.
Odom is an astute politician and can read election numbers as well as anyone. He saw that his three Republican opponents in the October 20 primary took almost 60 percent of the vote in his race. His prospects for election were slim. So, rather than put his family and friends through what promised to be a mean and expensive campaign, he withdrew from the race.
In so doing, Odom also cleared the deck of old line Democratic state officeholders (Mitch Landrieu is squeaky-clean but a hybrid of old and new politics; he's still in office today probably because Republicans couldn't find anyone other than a bankrupt musician willing to seek the job).
Odom's departure opens the door for a new era of Democratic leaders who are untainted by scandal and who recognize that ethics reform is more than a campaign issue - it is essential for the state's economic well being.
Deep-pocketed GOP contributors to Bobby Jindal's campaign are using LLCs they control as printing presses for campaign funds.
They doth protest too much.
Bobby Jindal and Republicans up and down the ballot have for months been relentlessly proclaiming the need for ethics reform in Louisiana and their commitment to make that happen once they are elected to office.
But, a funny thing has happened on the way to the election.
A small but dedicated group of wealthy Republican supporters have apparently decided that ethics reform is so important that they are willing to violate the spirit and possibly the letter of Louisiana's Campaign Finance Disclosure Act (CFDA) in order to support the campaigns of Jindal and other Republicans appearing on the October 20th ballot.
A detailed examination of Jindal's campaign finance reports submitted through the September filing period reveals that 100 limited liability companies (LLCs) controlled by 28 individuals or companies have contributed more than $500,000 to the erstwhile Congressman's second campaign for governor. The use of multiple LLCs controlled by these individuals or companies has enabled them to contribute more to Jindal's campaign than the $5,000 limit on contributions set in the CFDA.
Because campaign finance laws are essential to ethics reform, it is more than a little surprising that Jindal (whose campaign has focused on ethics since it began its media blitz in the summer) has so readily accepted so much ethically questionable money. It reinforces the emerging perception — fueled, in no small part by the ostentatious money-raising efforts of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority — that Republicans are trying to buy this fall's Louisiana elections, and break the rules to do so, if need be.
Because the CFDA imposes responsibility for policing the legitimacy of contributions on campaigns, Republican candidates (like Jindal) who accept contributions from such questionable schemes may be exposed to significant fines and penalties should the contributions be found to be illegal.
Regardless of the legality, this kind of ethical and legal limit-testing is the kind of behavior that feeds the state's reputation as place where the rule of law has been replaced by a game of cat and mouse.
Does it seem like there's a new Republican scandal in the news every single week? Well, that may be because there is.
That seems like an awful lot of corruption, scandal, hypocrisy, impropriety, and jail-worthy crime, huh? A lot of corruption. One might say an entire Culture of Corruption.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign digs a deeper hole by trying to explain the difference in Republican reactions between David Vitter's scandal and Larry Craig's scandal:
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the Senate Republican campaign chairman, said Craig "admitted guilt. That is a big difference between being accused of something and actually admitting guilt."
"David Vitter never did that. Larry Craig did," continued Ensign on ABC's "This Week" program.
Whoa! Chairman Ensign is conceding that David Vitter has never admitted guilt for anything? Really? Either Ensign did not see David Vitter's press conference from almost two months ago, or Ensign will try to contend that Vitter never explicitly admitted to soliciting prostitutes, in which case every member of the media covering Washington DC and Louisiana politics should be on the horn to David Vitter's office to get a clarification.
Has David Vitter formally admitted (or will he now admit) that he solicited prostitutes?
(Yowza! I wonder if any GOPers are going to comment on this, or will it be swept under the rug because It's Okay IfYou're ARepublican? - promoted by ryan)
UPDATE III: Yup, there's more there. According to Hustler's Larry Flynt, Vitter's phone call to the DC Madam in occurred in 2001, which he did not reveal in his press release.
It gets better ... or worse, depending on how you look at it. Vitter's campaign commercials from his 2004 Senate campaign:
Notice how he says the following:
"In life's important moments, we are not Republicans or Democrats, we're parents."
How do you explain this one to your kids, Senator?
UPDATE: Go check out Right Hand Thief's post on this story. RHT goes further and explores one of the people - Victor Bruno - quoted in one of the articles about Vitter's apology. Could the Louisiana GOP be on the verge of a civil war?
Originally posted at Democrat2Democrat
Republican Senator David Vitter'sendorsement of thrice-married Rudy Guilliani for the GOP presidential nomination raised some eyebrows among the senator's rock-ribbed, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-constitution crowd.
A bit of the reason came out today when it was revealed that then-Congressman Vitter's phone number was one of those calling a Washington prostitution ring — er, uh, escort service.
Here's the lead of the Associated Press story as it appeared in the Washington Post tonight:
WASHINGTON -- Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized Monday night for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared among those associated with an escort service operated by the so-called "D.C. Madam."
Vitter's spokesman, Joel Digrado, confirmed the statement in an e-mail sent to The Associated Press.
Let's start with Odom's decision to drop out. It's no secret that Republicans were prepared to wage a campaign of innuendo against Odom based on charges that East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Doug Moreau brought against him almost five years ago.
Bobby Jindal and Republicans up and down the ballot have for months been relentlessly proclaiming the need for ethics reform in Louisiana and their commitment to make that happen once they are elected to office.
