Louisiana political columnist John Maginnis is speculating that seniority and stroke with fellow lawmakers — and eventually caving on his threat to have a roll call vote for speaker of the House — led to Lafayette Rep. Joel Robideaux’s surprise appointment as chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. Many political watchers thought Robideaux would be ostracized by the administration and its hand-picked leaders in the Legislature for his temerity late in 2011 after Jindal bestowed his preference for speaker on Lake Charles Rep. Chuck Kleckley.
In a column titled “What Standing Up to Jindal Gets You,” Maginnis contrasts Robideaux’s plum appointment with the scant scraps thrown to freshman Sen. Barrow Peacock, a Shreveport Republican who was the lone vote against Sen. John Alario — also Jindal’s pick — to be Senate president. Peacock will languish the Labor and Retirement committees comes next session while Robideaux will lead arguably the second-most powerful committee in the House behind Appropriations.
Maginnis’ column was published today in The Daily Advertiser, but due to space limitations, the most observant part of the column — Jindal’s willingness to stare down lawmakers and punish uppity solons — was cut off. According to Maginnis:
Robideaux has some muscle, while Peacock, at this point in his Senate career, has only feathers.
But this is also about Jindal. Robideaux is not the first to discover that if you bring something to a fight, this governor would just as soon avoid one. That could be more so going forward. The governor is at the peak of his power now, but, as the second term wears on, lame-duck status inevitably sets in.
The more Jindal looks to extend his career beyond Baton Rouge, the more he will want things to go smoothly at the State Capitol, and the more he may concede to keep the peace. Lawmakers who are paying attention might be looking for where they would take a stand. Yet they should pick their fights wisely...
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed