Louisiana: The State We're In; 435

Production assistance for the following program was provided in part by Kaiser Aluminum. We're going to have that reform. I'm determined that we're going to have that reform. And we're going to have that reform starting in this session. The battle over the Capitol Outlay Bill became a test of political strength for the train administration and the Senate this week. That issue was whether the governor could keep local projects out of the bill and still get a piece of legislation. Welcome to this edition of Louisiana State we're in. The fussing and feuding at the state Capitol is over.

And this week we have politics and more politics as we examine just what went on during the special session of Louisiana legislature. The governor had his work cut out for him this week, guiding a Capitol construction plan through the legislature. But it weeks in, his attention was focused on the plight of Louisiana's farmers. Dream joined state agriculture commissioner Bob Odomfrauding and formally asking the federal government for small business administration loans to help Louisiana farmers suffering under the summer drought. But it estimates that farm production is off some 50% and that 56 parishes require some kind of federal aid. Well Saturday is election day in Louisiana. The only statewide race is state representative Woody Jenkins challenged to incumbent U.S. Senator Russell Long. There have been predictions of low voter turnouts accepting some areas with hotly contested local races. One of the most heated battles is in the fourth congressional district where Congressman Buddy Leach is facing five opponents. This week the state's Chief Elections Officer Secretary of State Jim Brown talked about the public's attitude toward campaign financing and election reform.

And embarrassment of riches and as a consequence, the public doesn't perceive this spending, it's almost a necessary evil. The politicians have to spend that kind of money to get elected to public office. That's what it costs to run for mayor and that's what you have to spend to be governor. And who really cares? Things are going good. I'm not paying too much in taxes. We're spending a lot of money in Louisiana. Our unemployment rates, nothing like it is nationwide. So why should I really care what those guys spend. As long as I can spend $57 from my property taxes, I don't care what they do. And quite frankly, I think that's the box in which those of us concerned about the cost of running for public office that are proposing some limitations to find themselves in. There's not a heck of a lot we're going to be able to do until the legislature feels like there's a real pressure being built in the general public. And although we read about it in editorials and I think if you sit down with average person on the street and say, oh, it's got rages, they shouldn't spend that kind of money. It still is not the kind of genuine response that brings about reforming the legislature. The thing that's going to deter massive irregularities is fear.

Fear that you're going to get caught and fear that something's going to happen to you. And how you instill that fear is with some hard-nosed prosecution. It goes right back to the Fourth Congressional District. It's very quiet, very few absentee votes. I think it's fear up there, but everybody's afraid of the shadow up in the Fourth District quite frankly. And so I don't think you're going to have a whole lot of problems because a federal grand jury has come in and cracked the whip. Brown also said there's a certain crisis mentality in Louisiana. He said the public was concerned after charges of voter fraud and last fall's election for governor. But now the pressure for change is diminished. Well, there may be some changes developing at the State Middle Hospital in Jackson. Attorney General William Guston announced this week that there may have been some wrongdoing at that hospital is first reported by New Orleans newspaper Gus Cummins came at a press conference on Tuesday. Already our staff has conducted an excessive 76 interviews. We've opened 14 separate files on.

Louisiana Attorney General William Guston told reporters this week that the State Justice Department is making progress in their investigation of alleged complaints that patients may have been abused at the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson. Those charges first surfaced when a newspaper reporter worked undercover in the facility and then detailed the alleged abuses in a series of articles. On Tuesday, Attorney General Guston said their probe has been narrowed down to focus on 14 deaths and 27 complaints, mostly involving physical abuse. But Guston said they are still a long way from proving any cases. I feel at this time and I'm just projecting that we probably will be able to establish that in a very few cases, maybe two or three, that crimes have been committed. But we also feel that it's going to be very difficult at this time to establish sufficient proof to accuse anybody, simply because of the nature of the way the things happen.

Guston also said he helps to have the major part of the investigation ramped up within 60 days. Well, Ron, the big story this week is certainly politics. The special legislative session is over and the state has a capital outlay bill. But those facts don't tell the whole story. Tonight, we have a report on the governor's attempts to reform a highly political process and are all the political maneuvering that goes on behind the scenes in any legislative session. I'm with the capital outly process. Do it like the people sent us here to do. I'm determined we're going to have that reform and we're going to have that reform starting in this session. I don't believe because people disagree that that's conflict. I think we're operating like a Chinese wildroom. I couldn't come back to a session and do what you're doing here today. I think we ought to try to make one last outbreak before we go to battle.

Our drawers out there. This is the story of a political duel, a struggle for power and money at stake more than $1.1 billion. And why should you care? Well, the outcome determines what sort of roads and bridges you drive on, what kind of schools and universities are built, how many parks and tourist attractions you might visit, and what level of hospital care some of you might receive. These are only a few of the items contained in the state's construction plan. This week at the state capitol, the governor and the legislature met to decide the fate of those projects. Center resolution number four. But there is another element to this story. For this is not only about a duel for money, it is a story about a political power struggle between the new Republican governor and the entrenched democratic president of the state Senate. At stake is not only $1 billion in spending, but the political out that each man will carry for the next three and a half years. Governor Dave Trine, six months in office, set out the terms

for this political conflict. When he gave the legislature tight guidelines for approving a capital outlay bill in the special session, ruled out by the governor were local projects and a second billion dollars in spending that was a part of the outlay bill that failed in the final days of the regular session. If the governor set the terms for this conflict, it was Senate President Michael O'Keefe and his close associates who drew the battle lines. On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee began hearings on the House passed spending bill and quickly moved to consider a sweeping amendment that would rearrange priorities for spending and rescue some of those local projects ruled out by the governor. But before the committee could take action, Governor Trine appeared for George members not to hastily approve any amendments that were in defiance of the rules he sat down. But still, it's not responsible for you, even though you know something perhaps about the projects in your area to vote for the inclusion in this bill of projects that have not had some analysis. And there isn't one member of this committee in my judgment, nor

anywhere in the administration, that can tell you that a substantial number of these items that are added have had some sort of evaluation to determine whether or not the people's money should be spent on those projects. I suggest to you that this is the opportunity for us to have reform in the Capitol Outlay process. But if the governor made his point, the committee wasn't interested. The vote was six to two to adopt the amendments with only Senator Fritz Winhorse to Gretna, a loyal supporter of the governor speaking out in support of the administration. Substitute bill type amendment. That's all listed. It's a substitute bill. On the cash portion of the Capitol Outlay bill, it amounts to a substitute bill. I think it's wrong. I don't think it's been properly handled. I don't want to be part of its object to it. Call the roll. The governor's reaction to the vote, however, showed no surprise. And as he left the committee, he treated his hint of a veto threat for reporters.

He's determined to keep the bill within the spirit and the letter of the call. And the bill in its present posture is not. It is violates the call. There are violations of the highway priority problem. And there are violations of the spirit of what I'm trying to do, and that is to reform the Capitol Outlay process to eliminate these substantially local projects that have not had the proper evaluation and analysis and the bill in its present form violates all of those things. And so it's not likely to survive in that form. If the governor was somewhat subdued in his reaction on Monday, he had a chance to polish it up on Tuesday. But he called reporters to the fourth floor to hear a point by point attack on the Senate amendments. We have found just by a cursory examination, and I'm being conservative in this estimate, that more than 60% of the items put into the bill, and either the cash or the bond section by these amendments, have failed to meet the minimum basic requirements for evaluation.

And the governor let it be known that he wasn't about to budge and he had struggled with the Senate. We urgently need reform of the Capitol Outlay process. Indeed, I think that is the message of the Senate and of the House in passing the bill, which is before the House Committee now, or will be shortly, to reform the process, to require identification of projects, whether they're local or statewide, and to have an evaluation made of these projects before they go into our legislation. We're going to have that reform. I'm determined that we're going to have that reform, and we're going to have that reform starting in this session. Although the governor sounded as if he were declaring war on the Senate in one moment, he later made it clear that he wasn't blaming any individual members of the Senate for trying to cash in on the state treasury. I want to underscore that I don't blame the individual Senator, who fears that he's got to get his slice of the

watermelon. This amendment is the son of watermelon, I guess it's a clone, I think, related to the cloning process has been developed. But I understand about watermelons. We had them in Washington. That saber rattling on the fourth floor must have been felt on the first floor in the Senate chambers, for as the Senate began the task of considering the capital of Lebel, two influential members made a public call for conciliation. leadership get together with the government. And for one last time and see if there is not some resolve, whereby we can hopefully come to some general understanding. And if it takes some of my projects to help make things work, I'll do whatever I can. But I don't necessarily want to be in the discussion, but I want to try to make one last effort before we go to battle to

come up with a peaceful solution. Senator law, I sent it to Raven. Mr. President, members of the Senate, I would like to echo what Senator Losllo said. I've been here for quite a while, and I have never seen this body in the confusion that we're in at this moment. And I'm a great believer that time will heal a lot of things. And I, too, Senator Losllo would like to suggest that the leadership of this body and the House get together with the governor and make one last effort to see that if we can come up with something that we can all live and go back home to our people with, maybe we can. If we don't, we'll just have to bite the bullet the best we can. But the battle was on, with Senator's Tom Casey in Fritz Winhorse leading the train charge against the Committee of Amendments. They were not the only ones attacking the leadership of Senate President Michael O'Keefe, however, Senator Ted

Hickey of New Orleans joined the fray because of his irritation at being excluded from the O'Keefe circle when the amendments were drawn. O'Keefe seems to have all the answers. Casey has more information than I have. And I wonder if I'm representing my people. I don't know that I'm one of these 39 people here. It seems to me there are a lot more people who have a lot more knowledge of what's going on than I may be because it's of my stupidity. Maybe it's because I haven't been involved. It might be because I haven't been invited. And I want to let everybody know now. And when I get ready to make my pitch, I'm going to make a pitch. And that's not going to be very pleasant. I've never seen anything we're operating like a Chinese fire drill. One says this. As the struggle continued, there was some movement from the Senate. Some of the obviously local projects, like the renovation of the Strand and Orpheum theaters, were traded in for a new construction at the school for the Deaf.

And language crucial to allow the governor to place a cap on spending was restored. And so when the Senate finally passed the Capitol Outlay bill, the governor had retreated from the threat of calling and other session. Are we still under the threat of a possible veto of the entire bill? Well, that always exists until the bill finally reaches my desk. But I think with the clearing up of language about priority five in the bill, the chances of veto have been of the entire bill have been substantially lessened. And I'm more optimistic now that we will not need another session. Wednesday morning at the State Capitol was supposed to bring house action on the Capitol Outlay bill. Instead, it brought a long meeting between the governor and his office in a crime anguish from one member of the house. You're telling me that the part they cut out was the all system bridges on the parish roads. We don't have any money in there that 33. You have $10 million left. $10 million for the whole state. For the parish bridges, right?

And some others have got that. I can't believe the Senate did that. I just can't. The Senate did a lot more to the bill and house members face a decision on whether to accept or reject it. But first, the house amended and then passed a bill, informing the rules for writing Capitol Outlay bills in the future, and to assure that the Senate would give favorable consideration to the House changes. Speaker John Hinkle held up action on the Senate version of the Outlay bill. Once the compromise had been made on the reform bill, the house moved ahead. This ways and means committee chairman, John Lario, argued for acceptance of what he called an imperfect bill. It's not pleasing to us at this point, not to all of us anyhow, nor was the original bill that left this house pleasing to all of us at the time. But it was the best that we thought we could produce for you at that point. The option I'm going to recommend to you is that we go ahead and accept and approve the amendments that were adopted by the Senate.

While it's rather imperfect as it stands before us now, it's probably the best we can do for the people of this state today. When the House had considered the Capitol Outlay bill last week, the membership had grudgingly gone along with the Governor's tight guidelines, but now the Governor had given the okay to accept some of the Senate's changes. And that didn't sit well with several representatives. Because see, I can't stand up here today until you that I like this bill that I have here before me today. I couldn't do that and go back home and face my people that sent me here. And V.J. Bell is not going to do that. And they have some projects in here for our area. It's my Senate to put in there. But you know what? I can tell my people back home that I'm not going to concur with this bill because I couldn't go back. I couldn't come back to a session and do what you do in here today. I feel a little bit like that Aggie Coyote who got caught in a steel trap and chewed off three legs and was

still in a trap. Very frustrating. But even though other members of the House shared the feelings expressed by Bella and Weaver, they said it was time to go along with the bill because there was no alternative. The bill is not perfect. But any means, it is a bill that we ought to concur in, however, because we have no other alternative, none whatsoever. If we send that bill back to those senators, no telling what's going to happen to them. Mr. Lario has now moved to concur. Wonder Clark opens a machine. Those of you who are in favor of concurring will vote. Yes.

Those opposed will vote now. The special session is over with the final vote. The Capitol Outlay bill is passed. But as the dust settles on this political fray, there remain some unanswered questions. We pose to four legislators. What will be the fate of local projects called pork barrel by some, a necessity by others? Well, I think the governance is that he has no objection to local funding of local projects. And I don't know of any great number of legislators that do. And in fact, in my opinion, every project is local. It's in some area. For some reason, some are considered less state than others, but it's all paid for by the state for the citizens of the state. And I would say that makes them all state projects that are in local regions. If the governor indeed line item vetoes every local project, what's your going to reaction going to be to that? If he does it, because he thinks it's not the type of project the state should support and finance, I'll have no call.

If he does it, because he wants to show us that he's going to have his way, then I would have some differences opinion with the governor. Tell you one thing we're going to have when we come back. We're going to have a surplus in the state government, because when the government of vetoes all of these line items, it could be well over $100 million of local projects that we're going to have to deal with next year. And the capital-outlay process that we're presently discussing right now will give us some guidelines on what to work with in the future. And I think that this is going to be a big help. If the future holds the promise of surplus funds, the pressure to spend that money will be great, even though a reform bill to bring a business like an orderly process to spending that money was passed in this session, how successfully can that be carried out? I was originally opposed to meat processing plants. My country friends say that meat processing plants are very beneficial that they have educational benefit and that they are perceived as being very much needed by the people in the rural areas.

I am willing to give a little bit to the rural legislators on that issue when they're willing to support my med school and my inner loop and my university. And I think it takes some give and take for the political process to work. It's hard to change the way things have always been done. It seems that there is a national inclination for people to say, but that's the way we did it before. That's the way I've gotten the project. Did you sense that frustration in the house? Oh, yes. Just as you say, you know, we're creatures of habit. In the past you got a project sometimes on merit, many times on politics, many times on the way you voted. And many times out of frustration, if one fellow would put in a amendment for a senior citizen center, you'd say, well, hell, I bet I better go put one in. I'm not even having old people, many in your area. But now where the governor did get what he wanted, and I think what most of us wanted, some reluctantly,

was a passage of a bill to reform that process. And it's not perfect, but it's a long way from what we had. It's not perfect. Everyone said it's not perfect. It's a change. But I wonder if you can take the idea of taking politics out of this process, is it possible? No, you know that you've been around hell. I'm going to have to know that you can't take a hundred and forty full of practicing politicians and make them all statesmen overnight. There are also the political questions. Questions of power. Has this special session given the governor increased authority over the legislature, or has this waxing of strength by the Senate caused the creation of a new power base? It's obvious that the Senate worked together better this time, and it's ever probably in its history. And it was independent, it was cooperative, and it was responsible. And I think that's a good omen for the state of Louisiana that we'll have an independent conscientious, cooperative,

and responsible Senate. And I think the men feel something that they've never felt before. They're the men that were elected to do their job, and I think they feel good about it. Well, certainly the Senate is claiming independence, but the Senate's independence and allegiance is toward someone else and not towards the governor. That's someone else being considered President Michael O'Keeves. And why do you think that's happened? Because evidently, Michael Keeves has seen fit to grab that void that may have existed when the governor tried to say, well, look, I'm going to let the House do what they want to and the Senate do what they want to. And you just can't do that in state government. I mean, somebody's got to provide the leadership. Michael Keeves is providing it in the Senate, and the House is letting the governor provide it. Do you think Dave Tring learned any lessons this time? We talked about his maturation as a governor. What lessons do you think he learned this time? Well, I think he learned a lot.

You know, he and I are pretty good friends. He's a very deliberate and very intelligent man, very sincere man, and I think he learned a lot of things about a lot of people. I'm going to translate into a different next time. Oh, yes. I think so. I think that this governor has not yet learned how to use his powers effectively. I think he's learning, and I expect that he will be much more effective in the next session. And finally, what does this special session promise for the future, despite some wailing and gnashing of teeth, the capital outlay bill was passed, taken as a whole, was it a positive or negative experience? Well, contrary to a lot of people's opinion, I think it's great. I think there's been a show of legislative independence. There's been a lot of give and take in the last day, especially between the Senate and the governor. And I think that we're moving in the right direction. I think we do not have any one group of our body, or that says it's going to be this way,

and it's that way. And I think we're moving toward a compromise, which will be best for the state. It's very difficult as you've previously pointed out to make change. So if we would even pass the capital outlay bill, yet passed a reform bill so that we'd have a procedure in the future, it would have been worth it. We'd save what it costs in one silly project. Looking back on it, though, do you think this week was kind of a political test for both the Senate and the train administration? Oh, I think it was a test for each to see if they could do their job properly, and I hope that those observing will come to the conclusion that they're both done their job fine. As of now, no one knows the answer to which projects the governor will veto, nor for a certainty how legislators will react to those vetoes. But one thing is certain, the special session may have ended, but the legislators will be back, and that holds the promise of future political rules. peppers and potatoes. and they kill the tables. They kill.

Thanks for watching. Happy Kyler Hallmann. Good morning to me. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Will the meeting bell to responsible for skinors? eni Howl compact pods. We're going to have that reform starting in this session. You know, we portray that as a political duel, but as any school child knows, from your civics classes, that the three branches of government envision that balancing of power and that it will ever be thus, especially in between the House and the Senate, a balancing if a money bill has to begin in one chamber and move to the next chamber, it's always going to have that sort of conflict. It's just set up to be that way. And also set up to be that way is that the governor will have the bottom line authority on how any budget is handled and spending matters in the state. But more than just the spending issue here, they went from a $2 billion to a $1 billion capital outlay bill is the issue of reform. And I think that was perhaps the most overriding issue

throughout all of this. Of course, a number of those legislators said that the governor learned some lessons in this session and in this interim period when the legislature is not in session, he can learn about the powers that exist between sessions. That is, public works, monies that are at his discretion. The interim emergency board all sorts of things that he can learn to exercise in his time as governor. It'll be interesting also to see how this reform or so-called reform process operates because it's scheduled to begin in November as people try and submit those local projects and get the necessary paperwork approved to try and get them through this year. Of course, I heard one legislator say that a local project and a pork barrel was all in your point of view. He said a pork barrel project was anything that was in someone else's district. And we're going to talk more about that special session and some of the elections that are coming up this Saturday and report us for next week. I'm Beth George. I'm Ron Vlog. Good evening. A production of systems for the preceding program was provided and part by Kaiser alumina.

Thank you. Thank you.