New Orleans' fine alternative paper, Gambit Weekly, offers up a cheery (NOT!) cover story this week.
For folks like your Mighty Favog, born and raised in Louisiana -- where characters, crooks and eccentrics are mainstream fare -- this is more a matter of 300th verse, same as the first. Depressing, but what the hell else is new?
For folks like your Mighty Favog, born and raised in Louisiana -- where characters, crooks and eccentrics are mainstream fare -- this is more a matter of 300th verse, same as the first. Depressing, but what the hell else is new?
Jeremy Alford and Clancy DuBos report:
It's been said that when the rest of the nation zigs, Louisiana zags. Democrats took over Congress last fall right after Louisiana elected two Republicans to statewide offices. A major issue for the Democrats nationally was alleged corruption and cronyism in the Bush Administration. Less than six months later, Congressman Bill Jefferson, a New Orleans Democrat with his own section in the Winnfield hall, faces a 16-count indictment for racketeering, money laundering, bribery and conspiracy to bribe foreign officials. Jefferson is being stiff-armed by Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress -- at a time when his district and the rest of south Louisiana need all the help they can get from Washington.
Meanwhile, a handful of other state and federal investigations, along with scandalized mismanagement of post-hurricane resources, continue to paint Louisiana as a political backwater, if not a cesspool of corruption, cronyism and incompetence. It's not a pretty picture when taken in whole. Consider the following:
• The brother of state Rep. Francis Thompson, a Democrat from Delhi (and a hall-of-famer), was indicted last week for allegedly misusing funds as executive director of Poverty Point Reservoir District in Richland Parish -- a pet project of Rep. Thompson. Michael Thompson, who formerly served as mayor of Delhi, faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.
• The FBI launched a series of raids this month in connection with the state's much-ballyhooed movie tax credits. According to a whistleblower lawsuit filed by the former head of the Louisiana Music Commission, an economic development official no longer with the state allegedly accepted kickbacks in exchange for favorable treatment on some tax credits. In addition, Republican state Rep. Gary Beard of Baton Rouge was taken to task by The Times-Picayune for seeking film tax credits for work his engineering firm did for a proposed film studio that he controls. The film studio never paid the $798,250 engineering bill, but instead gave Beard's engineering firm a promissory note and then sought tax credits of approximately $320,000 for the engineering work -- or 40 percent of the fee. The state denied the tax credits, citing the fact that no money actually changed hands, among other reasons.
• The state's Road Home program, which is responsible for disbursing federal housing money, is now short between $2.9 billion and $5 billion of what is needed to complete its mission. ICF International, the company administering the program, has been criticized by Congress for alleged mismanagement, and last week attorneys filed a class action lawsuit against the company in state court in Baton Rouge.
• Subpoenas indicate that Louisiana's fabled Angola State Penitentiary is under investigation, particularly its popular rodeo, as well as the prison's potato chip contracts and massive farm, which was the subject of an award-winning documentary. The details are still sketchy, but former Prison Enterprises director Jim Leslie pleaded guilty last year to witness tampering in a case involving a man who accused long-time Angola warden (and political hall-of-famer) Burl Cain of shaking him down for a $1,000 donation to the prison chapel fund, based on reports.
• The state Ethics Board is considering a request by state Sen. Robert Adley, a Benton Democrat, to investigate Republican Rep. Mike Powell of Shreveport regarding a $12,334 contract for a political mailer. Powell suggests he never worked on the mailer, but Shreveport demographer and political consultant Elliott Stonecipher says he has paperwork proving Powell completed the work and manipulated the paper trail to keep his name out of campaign finance reports.
• A series of audits and reviews revealed earlier this year that the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state's insurer of last resort, is unable to produce accurate financial data because of software problems -- and hasn't reconciled its bank statements since 2006. The Legislative Auditor also concluded that state officials charged with overseeing Citizens may have broken the law by taking hunting and fishing trips on the agency's dime.
At a time when Louisiana sorely needs an image makeover, the Jefferson scandal, which has gained international media attention, and these developing stories seriously undercut the best efforts of our state's best citizens. Because the scandalous headlines aren't going away anytime soon, Louisiana faces an ongoing, uphill fight to change its widely-held and iconic association with corruption.
DO YA' THINK? As I said in an earlier post, the problem may not ultimately center on Congress' not wanting to give integrity-challenged pols in a dysfunctional state another flippin' dime, but instead the national government's will and ability to ignore popular calls for Louisiana's quarantine . . . or worse.
I jest, but only by half.
I jest, but only by half.
So, will Louisiana ever be able to shed its image as a bastion of corruption? Opinions vary, but crusaders like Brandt, Moret and Erwin contend lawmakers and others merely need to step up, close a few loopholes, increase transparency and generally avoid conflicts of interest. If that happens, they say, word will spread that a new days has dawned in Louisiana -- and that can be used in marketing and economic development initiatives.
"You just do it," Erwin says. "That's how you do it. That is how you move up on the lists."
Meanwhile, as Louisiana continues to beg the federal government for more money to support recovery efforts, the Beltway is paying close attention to the state's circus-like political atmosphere, says Brent Littlefield, a D.C.-based Republican strategist with Political Solutions. Littlefield, who is often interviewed on Fox News, cites a longstanding concern in Washington about corruption in Louisiana -- and he notes that the Jefferson indictment has only made matters worse.
Jefferson's case alone may doom Louisiana's fiscal prospects in Congress, but the other pending matters won't help, either. "That is why there has been great concern, although expressed quietly, over monies sent to Louisiana for the recovery," Littlefield says. "Similar concerns do not seem to exist for other states, like Mississippi, that have received recovery monies for disasters."
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, there's not a bloody thing wrong with Louisiana, and Louisiana politics, that a coterie of military firing squads couldn't ameliorate pretty quickly. But that's Not How We Do Things in this country.
No comments:
Post a Comment