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Scandals show need for reform
A sex scandal that was the downfall of the governor of New Jersey -- an adulterous affair with a younger man, who was put on the state payroll for a time -- made national news, but what did it have to do with Louisiana? Nothing at all, except that Louisiana kept coming up in the commentary on the scandal. "Louisiana North," one pundit called New Jersey.
Sadly enough, such references to Louisiana are not confined to the New Jersey scandal. When a small-time financial scandal brought down the governor of Connecticut, state officials commented that the case deserved action lest the state gain a reputation like Louisiana's.
We have become the platinum bar for political scandal.
And if Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other influential Louisianians can be believed, this reputation hurts our state -- right in the pocketbook.
Blanco and her newly appointed chief of the Department of Economic Development have said that Louisiana's efforts to woo new job-creating businesses are hurt by the state's reputation as a place where palms have to be greased to get things done.
DED Secretary Mike Olivier told the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge that, in 17 years working as an economic development official in Mississippi, he heard many times from companies that would consider Gulf Coast states for business sites -- but not Louisiana.
He called it the "patronage" issue, an odd phrase coming from any political appointee. But it is clear what he meant, the sense that there is no level playing field for business in Louisiana, that businesses paying for preferential treatment will get it. And those that don't pay suffer.
"The patronage issue is one that scares away companies," Olivier said. "We've got to change that. She (Blanco) is changing that."
Another key player in economic development is Dan Juneau, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. "I am not naïve enough to believe that corruption has disappeared from Louisiana," he wrote this week in a column for state newspapers. "But I do believe that the levels of corruption here are no longer abnormal when compared with most states."
We hope that the latter is true, but we wonder if the problem is really being addressed as the priority it should to be.
At one level, Louisiana certainly isn't as tolerant of corruption as it was during the administrations of Edwin W. Edwards, now a guest of the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Juneau puts that in economic terms: "When oil and gas was king and we had the 'embarrassment of riches' in state government, voters sometimes were inclined to laugh and joke about corruption in government. Now, oil and gas revenues make up a much smaller portion of the state budget, and taxpayers are paying more of the freight for services. Higher fees and taxes have hit them in their pocketbooks and, once that happened, corruption became much less of a laughing matter."
That is probably true enough, but that feeling does not necessarily translate into action unless given direction from the state's political leadership.
Blanco's concern about political scandal is commendable, and she pushed some ethical reforms in the 2004 Legislature. But she is also willing to acknowledge that the state ought to do more to make its ethics law much stronger -- and it appeared this year that the Legislature was sometimes unwilling to embrace more wide-ranging proposals, although it strengthened at least one of her original bills.
The governor said she will push for new ethics reforms in the Legislature, and we hope that the Legislature takes to heart the concerns expressed by Blanco and others who are in direct contact with businesses that could employ thousands of Louisianians.
The reforms that are needed aren't a secret, and have been pushed for years by good-government groups. The urgency of taking up their recommendations, such as those from the Public Affairs Research Council, is obvious -- as is the need for effective enforcement of the ethics code.
Financial disclosure reports for legislators, for example, are standard in some form or another throughout the United States, according to Blanco's aides. But they couldn't find support in the Legislature for a bill to make that law in Louisiana.
Maybe next time. But change requires action.
The lesson of the comments provoked by the New Jersey scandal should be that Louisiana can't have a middling range of ethics laws, and its officials can't have a reputation "no worse" than other states.
Rather, to change our state's image for the better, we need to look at the toughest possible ethics laws in the country and model our statutes after them. Then we need people tough enough to enforce those laws despite political flak. And we ought to have officials, appointed and elected, who hold themselves to the highest ethical standards, not just staying within the lines of the law.
We want to become the platinum bar against which honest government and fair dealing can be judged.
