[StBernard] Lawmakers blew it, watchdog declares

[Westley Annis]

By Ed Anderson
 
BATON ROUGE --
 Lawmakers missed an opportunity during the recent legislative session to
pass stronger ethics laws and start the debate on possibly downsizing state
agencies and consolidating governmental functions, the head of a
governmental watchdog agency said Monday. 
 
Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana, said although
"it was fairly remarkable" that Gov. Kathleen Blanco got lawmakers to pass a
measure to merge the two state court systems and their related offices in
New Orleans, and to give citizens of the state the right to decide whether
New Orleans should have one assessor or seven, overall "it was a very
disappointing session." 
 
"Our Legislature is not really a reform Legislature," Erwin told the Press
Club of Baton Rouge. "They are not willing to make wholesale changes." He
said lawmakers were "dragged kicking and screaming" to vote for the
court-system merger and possible reduction of the Orleans assessors. 
 
Erwin pointed to a bill that would have cut in half the amount of time
legislators needed in office to qualify for a 75 percent state subsidy of
their insurance premiums for life. Lawmakers passed the bill, but Blanco
vetoed it last week. 
 
"It shows that is the type of thing they are thinking about" instead of
spurring recovery from last year's hurricanes, he said. "What does that say
about the state and the Legislature right now?" 
 
Erwin said the public is demanding changes and reform, and lawmakers are not
giving it to them. "The public is ready for it," he said. "The public is
farther ahead than the politicians." 
 
The areas of change that should be addressed, he said, include laws that
would prohibit lawmakers and other public officials, as well as their
families and businesses, from getting lucrative contracts dealing with
hurricane recovery; a ban on cockfighting; overhauling higher education by
possibly closing or merging schools; streamlining state governmental
agencies; and banning lawmakers from getting free tickets to sports and
cultural events paid for by lobbyists. 
 
Bills dealing with those subjects either were not filed or were killed in
the session that ended June 19. 
 
But Rep. Gil Pinac, D-Crowley, an administration floor leader and chairman
of the House Commerce Committee, said some of the changes that have been
made -- such as overhauling the Orleans Parish school system in a
post-Katrina world -- have to be given time to work. 
 
"We are in a position of economic survival," Pinac said. "Time has got to
pass to see how some of these things come to fruition. . . . We did good
things for the state of Louisiana. Was it as aggressive as some people
wanted it to be? No. 
 
"It was a fair session. We didn't shoot the moon out of the sky, but that
was not the agenda the Legislature wanted to address." 
 
Erwin said although lawmakers abolished the so-called "slush funds" for
rural and urban lawmakers, many of the programs they financed wound up in
the state budget. He said lawmakers were right to appropriate $150 million
for hurricane-evacuation programs, although some have called it a slush fund
for the governor. 
 
"We want to make sure now it doesn't get raided and used for inappropriate
purposes," he said. 
 
Erwin said the Legislature did not tackle overhauling the health-care system
in the New Orleans area or the rest of the state, but that might have been a
good thing. "I wonder if the Legislature is the best body to be taking the
lead" on that issue, he said.