Does appointment meet legal requirements?

St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis was just appointed as the new head of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness ("GOHSEP").

Davis said: "…[H]is experience in dealing with Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill and the recent fish kill in the Pearl River makes him ‘a good fit’ for his new job…." Times Picayune, December 1, 2011.

Those experiences over the last 6 years might be a "good fit", but the law requires more.

LA R.S. 29:725(C)(2) states: The director shall have had at least ten years of emergency management experience or equivalent experience in emergency operations.

One might also think that the person holding this position would need some military experience to handle the Homeland Security part of the job, but that’s not required.

Details have never been important to the "Roads Scholar" when it comes to making political appointments. Also, this political appointment carries a huge amount of patronage as all the employees of GOHSEP are also political appointees and not part of Civil Service.