By Andy Duet
WASHINGTON, DC- Louisiana today is progressing toward a new renaissance, re-birth, and recovery after the damages of past statewide political corruption scandals and two disastrous hurricanes, according to Gov. Bobby Jindal.
“We’re working hard to restore the people’s trust in state government and we want to send a message to the nation that Louisiana is open for business,” Jindal told members of the National Press Club. “Come to Louisiana, come invest, come create jobs, come home – there are opportunities here. Workplace development is one of our top priorities this legislative session.”
Jindal was joined in Washington by state Senate President Joel Chaisson II and Speaker of the House of Representatives Jim Tucker as a demonstration of the new spirit of unity in state government across Democrat and Republican Party lines.
Jindal said the two legislative leaders have helped to make tremendous strides in the last two legislative sessions while passing new laws fighting corruption and governmental waste.
“None of the reforms that we’ve gotten done so far could have been accomplished without their leadership and help,” Jindal said. “But this isn’t about Gov. Jindal or Representative Tucker or Senator Chaisson – – this is about Louisiana’s future. We may never get this chance again. History will look back on us and say we either made the right decisions for Louisiana to move forward or we wasted the best opportunity in our lifetime to fix the problems of our state.”
Jindal likened the recovery of the state’s post-hurricane conditions as “the ability to draw on a blank sheet of paper while again thanking the nation for its generosity in both personal and financial efforts to help New Orleans and southwest Louisiana continue to recover from the storms’ damages.”
“The hurricanes were not good things – we lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of billions of dollars in damages – but we have a chance to re-build better than before,” Jindal said. “It would be a mistake to pretend that the storms caused all our problems. We had challenges even before those storms and we started addressing those challenges with the help of Speaker Tucker and Senate President Chaisson – we declared war on corruption. Yeah, the thought may be a laugh to some people to bring Louisiana to setting the gold standard for ethics – it’s not the first thought that comes to mind – it sounds like a White House Correspondent’s skit. But we did it. We proposed dozens of bills and the legislature worked long and hard to pass dozens of bills and we’ve moved in many independent surveys from the bottom of the lists in governmental integrity to the top.”
Jindal told members of the Press Club that Louisiana was a wealthy state of abundant natural resources but had a long-standing reputation of political corruption and poor leadership which was detrimental to the growth of the state and the prosperity of its citizens.
“You’ve all heard of Louisiana’s colorful history – stories and jokes for years about past governors and other elected officials. One governor’s official theme was ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ – but the problem was they didn’t roll for all of the people of the state,” Jindal said. “This election last fall was an historic election – not only was it the first election after the hurricanes, but it was the first following major effects of term limits. Sixty new members of the House of Representatives out of 105 were elected along with many new statewide office holders. I went across the state telling voters we’ve got to change, we must change, we can change, we will change.”
Jindal said his first two major goals after election were to wage a war on corruption and incompetence in government. He began an aggressive ethics reform platform along with elimination of taxes for business investment, utilities and public debt through the legislature.
“Even before Katrina and Rita, we were the only state in the South losing 30,000 persons per month from Louisiana,” Jindal said. “We had more people leaving than coming in. We had to make changes in the state.”
He continued by saying that the legislature passed a comprehensive disclosure package for both statewide and local governmental officials.
“The public can see the assets, liabilities and income of all elected office holders,” Jindal said. “It’s important so that the taxpayers will know that their elected leaders are serving their state – not just themselves. The Center for Public Integrity had us rated at 44th worst in the country to now being first in the nation with a 99 out of 100 points rating – higher than any state has ever received in their history of doing their surveys.”
Legislation was also passed prohibiting office holders from doing any business with the state along with new regulations over the power of lobbyist in the affairs of government.
Jindal said the public can now see on statewide websites how much lobbyists earn, along with their affiliations of who and what they are lobbying for in Baton Rouge.
“It’s a new day in Louisiana,” Jindal said, tongue-in-cheek. “We want to change everything but the food. I don’t mean that quite literally – – we’ll save a couple of other things as well.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Andy Duet is a former news reporter for St. Charles Herald-Guide who now lives near Washington D. C.)
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