Wednesday, June 22, 2011
On June 16 the Louisiana House of Representatives voted unsuccessfully to override Gov. Bobby Jindal’s mindlessly ideological veto of a bill renewing 4 cents of the state’s tax on a pack of cigarettes. The tax was devoted to underwriting health care and, supporters pointed out, renewing it could have helped leverage an additional $38 million in federal funds for health care in one of the most unhealthy states in the nation. That’s $50 million up in smoke.
The House needed 70 votes to override the veto — the exact number of reps who voted for the renewal in May. But, fearing reprisals from the governor, putting party over principle (in fairness, two Democrats also defected) or merely divorced from their senses, 11 reps changed their votes and sided with Jindal.
Speaker Pro Tem Joel Robideaux’s 180 we understand: He’ll need Jindal’s support in next year’s bid to become House speaker. But we don’t condone it. With Rep. Nancy Landry giving Lafayette a pusillanimous pair, the Hub City accounted for nearly 20 percent of the override’s failure.
Robideaux and Landry were joined in betraying their better angels by Reps. Robert Billiot, D-Westwego, Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, Charles Chaney, R-Rayville, Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge, Frank Hoffmann, R-West Monroe, Kay Katz, R-Monroe, Thomas McVea, R-Jackson and Thomas Wilmott, R-Kenner.
Contrast how two Republicans accounted for their override vote: Landry acknowledged that her stepmother died of lung cancer and she didn’t believe the renewal was a new tax. Yet, she sided with Jindal because, she told Gannett, she’s “going to be, hopefully, working with the governor another four years” and she “didn’t think it was worth a challenge to him.” Ruston’s Hollis Downs stuck to his principles, voting for both the renewal and the override. Downs cited his father’s death from emphysema: “I would dishonor his life if I didn’t do everything I can to reduce smoking.”
Let’s not forget that Jindal, when he was secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, defended such consumption taxes as a means of reducing smoking and covering state health care costs for smokers — you know, the mark of a “just society.”
Kudos to Lafayette Parish Reps. Bobby Badon and Rickey Hardy, who voted to renew and override. The latter took advantage of the House’s epic failure by pointing out, a pack of smokes in one hand and a textbook in the other, that while Louisiana is lowering the cost of smoking — arguably an enticement for young people — we’re raising the cost of higher education.
We hope these 11 state reps can sleep at night.
No, wait, we don’t.
[Editor’s Note: Democratic state Rep. Harold Ritchie of Bogalusa made an 11th hour maneuver Monday, tacking his cigarette tax onto SB53, a proposed constitutional amendment to dedicate more tobacco settlement dollars to TOPS. Given the opportunity to redeem themselves, Robideaux and Landry instead voted against the cigarette tax amendment, which passed 59-40, but later voted for the TOPS bill. If the Senate concurs with the House, the constitutional amendment will go to a vote of the people. Follow The Independent online for updates on this story.]
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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