Better Government Association

Extreme makeover

Louisiana could be undergoing a transformation the likes of which haven’t been seen since the fabled ugly duckling

By Seth Fox (Contact)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

LAethics1, a statewide coalition formed by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and could include about 30 organizations, is pushing an ambitious package of ethics reform bills this legislative session as part of a two-year plan to move Louisiana’s ethics code to the top of the Better Government Association rankings.

A subtle move up will do little for the state’s perception. “We’re trying to prove Louisiana in the 21st century is different than the one they remember in the 20th century,” BRAC CEO Stephen Moret says.

Because the BGA concentrates on state ethics laws as they are applied to the legislative branch, that is where the LAethics1 measures are focused for 2007. Therein lies the problem: Supporters are relying on lawmakers to agree to police themselves and pass the legislation.

It is unlikely that any bill—especially an ethics bill—will pass looking exactly the same as it did when it was filed, so those backing the reform package can only hope the measures maintain their original spirit.

Even though Moret is excited at the prospects that are in store if the reforms pass, he remains cautiously optimistic about getting the measures in place. If the various bills make it to the floor for a vote, Moret is confident they’ll pass, but there are plenty of pitfalls that could keep that from happening.

“If a couple of things fall our way, there’s a great chance we’ll get it,” he says.

One of a kind

Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association, knows the number of times a state has seen a business community take the lead on ethics reform. “Never once have a heard a peep from a chamber of commerce,” he says. “I’m fascinated simply by who’s leading the charge.”

Louisiana ranked 46th in the 2002 BGA Integrity Index, which the organization conducts every five years. While BRAC felt the ranking was not an accurate reflection of the state’s ethics code, it conceded that more favorable scoring would still land Louisiana no better than middle of the pack.

The LSU Public Policy Research Lab’s 2004-05 Business Image Survey asked 945 out-of-state business leaders, “What can Louisiana do to attract business?” The No. 2 answer, behind improving public schools, was “clean up image/corruption.”

The findings of the survey confirmed BRAC’s belief that political ethics play a part in economic development, making the cause one to champion. As a bonus, ethics reform is something that can be implemented rather quickly compared to the decades of work for the state’s bigger problems.

Stewart also noted another unique aspect of LAethics1 timing for the reform package. “The big jumps usually only occur in time of big scandal,” he says.

Traditionally, ethics laws are of minimal concern unless a public official is heading to jail. In that instance, Stewart says, good government groups are finally heard, usually in a partisan effort by whichever political party is not getting into trouble.

Stewart says he believes that a relatively quiet atmosphere in Louisiana would normally be a hindrance to passing meaningful ethics reform, but Hurricane Katrina has residents reassessing many things. “The same old political arguments in the past against reform seem petty,” he says.

BRAC has compiled a formidable coalition of business interests across the state in forming LAethics1. While some chambers of commerce in smaller, rural areas have been reluctant to sign on, Moret says every organization that has considered joining LAethics1 has voted to do so by a comfortable margin. Some of the more influential groups, such as the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry, voted to join unanimously.

Model reform

The buzz phrase surrounding the ethics reform package is “national model,” with LAethics1 targeting five core topics to pass this session (See page 24) to reach the top of the BGA rankings.

Moret (left) is expecting the hardest fight to come over financial disclosure, which would require all legislators to reveal their significant sources of income beyond the current requirement to disclose contracts with governmental entities. The bill, authored by Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, in the Senate and Michael Jackson, D-Baton Rouge, in the House, is being kept as general as possible, Moret says, to ensure proper disclosure is made while also respecting the privacy of part-time lawmakers.

The reform package was also crafted largely to simultaneously bulk up the Board of Ethics, which enforces the state’s ethics laws, and reduce the number of accidental violations with which the board has to contend. “It’s important for people to not violate the law,” Ethics Board chairman Hank Perret says. “Good, honest people come before us every month because they simply did not know what the law was.”

When BRAC began working on the legislation, the initial plan was to focus on the items that would directly impact Louisiana’s ranking on the BGA index. Enforcement measures that wouldn’t affect the rankings were added at the behest of Jay Lapeyre, chairman of the New Orleans Business Council.

“What resonates is people want to know they’re getting ethical behavior from their political leaders,” he says. “If you don’t have ethical government, you can’t begin to have competent government.”

Will they pass it?

Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, a former state senator, has seen success and failure in his past attempts at sponsoring ethics reform. Now that he watches the process from the outside, he is aware that LAethics1 is facing an uphill battle.

“I think it’s a combination of legislators natural tendency to feel like if it’s broke don’t fix it—or if it’s just for show or to satisfy good government groups, we ought not be enacting such laws because they’re unduly restrictive,” he says.

Supporters of the reform package think ethics has reached such a level of importance with voters that there will be pressure on lawmakers to pass the reforms even in the absence of headline-generating scandal. BRAC recently received results of a statewide poll by Southern Media & Opinion Research seeking the opinion of 600 voters on the topic of ethics. More than 87% of respondents answered that it was very important for Louisiana to become one of the top five states in ethics rankings; less than 2% said it was not important.

But there are ways for the bills to be killed in a manner likely to draw less attention to the lawmakers than a vote against it on the chamber floor. One of the preferred methods is “death by amendment,” where legislators transform the bill into something so onerous it would be ridiculous to pass or make the bill more far-reaching than was intended by the author. “Sometimes,” Dardenne says, “you accomplish both with the same amendment.”

Moret says the ethics reform package has the support of the governor, and he believes any diluted legislation stands to be vetoed. Louisiana political analyst John Maginnis, however, says that is unlikely unless Gov. Kathleen Blanco views the finished product as bad legislation. “The governor at that point is going to go with the will of the Legislature,” he says. “I don’t think she would go with the Chamber instead of what the Legislature wants.”

Moret sees the biggest challenge to the bills’ viability coming in committee, particularly Senate & Governmental Affairs, where the measures introduced in that chamber are all but guaranteed to end up. Because of the smaller size of Senate committees, it is possible for the fate of a bill to be decided by a small group of legislators.

A wild-card group in gathering support for the reform package will be the term-limited lawmakers. Those legislators are likely to fall into one of two camps. The first group will be those supporting the legislation because they won’t be around to be affected by it; the second group will be lawmakers leaving office who don’t care about ethics reform and don’t desire to leave a legacy.

The second group could potentially cause problems, since they won’t be around to take the heat should they vote against the measure, perhaps as a favor to an incoming lawmaker.

Reform strategy

Ethics reform bills go into the process at a disadvantage because many of the traditional avenues of gathering support aren’t available. Many of the groups that support the reform are good government groups that do not lobby. “A lot of these ideas have been out for a long time,” Moret says. “What makes us different is the mobilization aspect.”

The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana is one such group that offers suggestions for ethics reform, but because of its nature, does not lobby for specific legislation. “We’re delighted to see them push from another angle,” PAR president Jim Brandt says. “There’s a lot of work we see that still needs to be done.”

Besides acquiring the additional lobbying power of organizations like LABI, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber had to make strategic decisions on how to approach certain issues to help with their passage.

Two of the more common changes that frequently get proposed—and subsequently killed—are not being addressed by LAethics1. Moret says the topic of tickets to sporting events simply wasn’t a big enough deal to address compared to the other deficiencies in the code. The biggest draw, he says, is to LSU football, which does not provide free tickets but offers legislators the right to purchase them.

The coalition also chose not to address lawmakers having their meals purchased for them. Most legislators have other careers with schedules that need to allow them to conduct business over lunch, Moret says, and there was no easy delineation of what type of meal was appropriate and what wasn’t.

The coalition also made the decision to focus the proposed financial disclosure laws on the Legislature, with plans on adding similar requirements to statewide office-holders and upper-level appointees in subsequent sessions. While the move potentially reduces the number of people to come out in opposition of the measure, Dardenne says he thinks the decision could leave legislators feeling picked on.

Legislators can also expect large turnouts for committee meetings, with LAethics1 planning to keep a close eye on the fate of the bills and the lawmakers responsible for the outcomes. The coalition is confident that even failure will end happily, since the election year will provide voters with an avenue to elect lawmakers who make ethics reform a priority.

“If people don’t step up to the plate and pass laws holding the Legislature accountable, there will be hell to pay,” Lapeyre says.