[StBernard] Boasso aims to be 'The big guy for the little man'

[Westley Annis]

Boasso aims to be 'The big guy for the little man'
Posted by Ed Anderson, Capital bureau September 16, 2007 8:59PM
Categories: Elections/Politics
(Ths is the first in a series of stories looking at the candidates in the
governor's race.) 

MARKSVILLE -- Wherever gubernatorial hopeful Walter Boasso goes these days,
he tells potential supporters that he is a man on a mission, a lifelong St.
Bernard Parish resident whose world, like those of his 122,000 state Senate
district constituents, has been "changed forever" by Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita. 


Impatient at the pace of recovery, Boasso, 47, is positioning himself in the
Oct. 20 primary as a catalyst for change who will "get the state off of its
knees" as its next governor, by working to "level the playing field" for
consumers in their battles with insurance companies and working with
economic development leaders in all regions to keep businesses in Louisiana
and attract new ones. 

"I am disappointed, like everyone else is, in the leadership," Boasso said.
"I will have a 48-month window to take care of things." 


The one-term senator, who has represented all of St. Bernard and parts of
Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Tammany parishes since 2004, said he will push
for a constitutional convention to make government less bureaucratic, with
citizens involved as delegates. 

A Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat, the offensive-lineman-sized
Boasso was making a hand-shaking tour of the Avoyelles Parish courthouse
recently, explaining his food-stamps-to-multimillionaire life. When a woman
working in the parish housing office asked him why is he running for
governor, he proclaimed he is "the big guy for the little man." 



Boasso said he is "a businessman who got into politics four years ago to
help people" and saw a vacant state Senate seat as a way to do that. 

But stymied by what he saw as the slow pace of state government, the
compromises that had to be made in the legislative process to get things
done, and the agonizing recovery from the 2005 hurricanes -- as well as the
finger-pointing that has gone with it -- Boasso said the only job that
matters in the state now is governor because of the power it wields. 

Boasso said he entered politics with ideas to "change the system" and "got
an education in two days," discovering the influence that special interest
groups and lobbyists wield. "That is why Walter is not going to be sitting
in the Senate for the next four years, wasting his life. .¤.¤. When I got
there I found out if the governor says 'no,' it is 'no.' If the governor
says 'yes,' it is 'yes.' Leadership starts at the top; my job is to be a
strong leader." 

Some critics say Boasso's version of leadership is more of a hard-driving
CEO who is used to making final decisions on his own. 

"In my dealings with him, I have found him to be stubborn, at times and
obstinate," said Rep. Ken Odinet, D-Arabi, who opposed some of Boasso's
legislation, including his first attempt to unify all levee boards in the
New Orleans area under one superboard with a higher level of qualifications
for its members. 

Sen. Tom Schedler, R-Mandeville, a longtime friend, describes Boasso as a
"bull in a china cabinet. Walter is the kind of guy who marches to the beat
of his own drum, kind of his own guy." Schedler said as a senator, Boasso
sometimes did not "bring people into the loop" on legislation. 

Sen. Ken Hollis, R-Metairie, a friend of Boasso's who has donated to all of
the major gubernatorial candidates except ex-Sen. Foster Campbell, D-Elm
Grove, said that Boasso did not do things "the traditional way" in the
Senate and had his own rambunctious style. 

"He didn't want to be one of 39 (senators) and I don't think he enjoyed
being one of 39 when he was in the Senate," Hollis said. "He is more of a
take-charge type of guy than anybody I have seen in the Legislature." 

Hollis said it may be more difficult for Boasso to compromise because of his
CEO mentality but it is something he will have to do. 

To enhance recovery, Boasso said, he will propose legislation centered on
insurance needs, some of which are opposed by the industry. Boasso said that
he will ask lawmakers to adopt legislation to ban "cherry-picking" by
requiring companies to write homeowners policies in the state if they sell
it in other states and only offer more profitable auto insurance in
Louisiana. 

He said he will also seek legislation making it a crime for insurance
companies to delay paying claims, something Insurance Commissioner Jim
Donelon said would be unprecedented. 

"It will send the wrong signal," said Greg LaCost, assistant vice president
of the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America, an insurance
industry trade association. 

Boasso said that his family, his parents and his siblings in St. Bernard
lost everything. He just recently moved back into his home after months of
wrangling with insurance companies on claims. 

During the recent legislative session, Boasso saw his bill to give a
two-year tax credit to homeowners based on the pre-hurricane premiums and
the rates they are now paying pass the Senate 34-1 but die in a House
committee that killed dozens of tax-break proposals. He had to settle for an
amendment to another bill granting a tax credit of 7 percent of a homeowners
insurance just for 2008. 

Boasso said he also will push for automatic annual increases in teacher pay
tied to performance in the classroom. He advocates opening preschool
education to more 4-year-olds and expanding it to 3-year-olds to help them
get a better shot at learning and staying in school. 

Boasso, whose Chalmette business sustained $17 million in damages in the
hurricanes, has been offered $60 million for the operation by a Florida
company. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year, and Boasso,
its founder and chief executive officer, said it will keep 200 jobs in
Chalmette. Boasso is expected to remain with the company, the one he said he
started as a 19-year-old kid "with a garden hose and a box of Tide," as a
consultant for three years. 

Although Boasso has a relatively low batting average for passing bills
during his term -- he was four of 28 -- he said he has taken on the "big
boys" -- powerful special interest groups such as the river pilots, the
entrenched political levee board system and the various state-financed
retirement systems that have frequently lobbied committees to kill his
bills. On the river pilots and levee board issues, Boasso refused to back
down in the face of strong opposition, helping push the legislation through.


The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state's largest
business lobby, has ranked Boasso one of its most reliable allies, going
along on big-business issues 86 percent of the time, the third-highest in
the Senate in the 2004-07 period -- most of which the senator spent as a
Republican before switching to Democrat before the last session opened in
April. He has also gotten the co-endorsement of the Louisiana Association of
Educators, along with Campbell. 

The son of a union electrician who became disabled, Boasso grew up in what
he called a "Democratic, union home" and now describes himself as a
"conservative Democrat, who hasn't forgotten where I came from." 

Wayne Parent, a political scientist at Louisiana State University, said
Boasso fits in with most Louisiana voters, neither solidly Democratic nor
Republican. 

"He defies party labels," Parent said. "He is fairly typical of Louisiana;
he falls in the middle somewhere." 

Choking back emotion, Boasso said at a recent campaign stop in the Ascension
Parish community of Maurepas, "My whole district got wiped out in hours. It
changed my life forever. Once you see dead bodies in the streets and people
clinging to the roofs of their homes, it changes your life. .I had divers
from Israel, boats from Holland and Canadian Mounties (for the rescue
efforts) and all I got was four (Louisiana) National Guardsmen. 

"It was eight days before I had the Army in St. Bernard Parish." 

He said that played a large role in his switch back to the Democratic Party,
for which he has been criticized as a political opportunist. 

"My party (the GOP) left me in the water for days and lied to me," Boasso
said. "This whole (recovery) thing could be over if (President) George Bush
would use his pen" and approve relief aid for the New Orleans area as he
promised in a speech two years ago from Jackson Square. 

The last straw for Boasso as a Republican came when the state GOP failed to
agree on a system for endorsing candidates at a March meeting of the party's
governing board in Lafayette. A few days later the GOP's executive committee
voted to back two-term U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal. Party officials said that
most of the members of the GOP governing board submitted affidavits to the
party's executive committee indicating support for Jindal, who lost in the
runoff four years ago and has held a substantial lead in recent polls. 

A few weeks later, Boasso announced he was changing parties. 

State Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere said that Boasso is just being
politically expedient by jumping parties because he had no traction as a
viable alternative to Jindal. Shipyard magnate Donald "Boysie" Bollinger, a
stalwart of the state Republican Party, said Boasso as a Republican, "wanted
to run for governor four years ago, but I told him he needed more experience
and to wait 12 years," Bollinger said. "He was a true Republican in the
Senate; I don't know if he is true Democrat today." 

Boasso dismisses the debate. 

"There is no Republican way to govern, and no Democratic way to govern," he
said. "We are leaving party labels at the front door." 

Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson at timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5810.