Louisiana: The State We're In; 301; Reporter Show

Production assistance for the following program was provided in part through contributions to Friends of LPB. The race for the governor's mansion has been picking up steam this month as candidates continue to crisscross the state. And the big topic up for discussion among the candidates is what to do with any future surplus in the state treasury. This week Louis Lambert proposed that the state sales tax not be collected during certain months when a surplus exists, while Sonny Mouton would like to drop the gasoline tax. Paul Hardy wants to do away with property taxes for homeowners, while Bubba Henry, who favors income tax rebates, warns there's no such thing as a free lunch. As for Republican Dave Treen, who now appears to be the front runner, he's saturating the state with TV ads and calling for an elections integrity commission to deal with vote fraud and other irregularities. Two men who might be the subject to the scrutiny of such a panel have not had a good month this August. State Senator Gaston Gerald was convicted of attempted extortion and Congressman Buddy Leach must now find a new lawyer for his defense against federal vote buying charges. These subjects and more are up for discussion this week on this month's reporters'

edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. Good evening and welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. Well, the temperatures may not indicate it, but fall is just around the corner. In Louisiana this year that means not only football season but another favorite spectator sport in the state. Political campaigns are finally gearing up. With us to talk politics with three capitol reporters: Bill Lynch of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Dan Even of the Associated Press and Rafael Bermudez

is with the Baton Rouge State Times and Morning Advocate. Well, gentlemen, let's talk first about the governor's race. It seems that's what everyone is really interested in and Raf, you at the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate State- Times has done a poll. But what are? Are there some surprises in that? No. Well they're not any real surprises. The poll that we had conducted two weeks ago showed that Treen and Fitzmorris were ahead. Just as earlier polls had shown, Hardy was third followed by Lambert and Bubba Henry and Sonny Mouton pretty far behind. But some of the questions, the response to some of the questions that we asked indicated that the race is still open and there is a lot of room for movement. So it's not locked up by any means. I think that perhaps some people don't know how those polls are done. Everyone has a poll. Every candidate comes out and says this shows "x" I'm doing better. And this one is one, of course, not sponsored by a candidate. How do you, how do you do it? Right. This poll was commissioned by the Morning Advocate and State Times. It was conducted by a firm

in Houston called Staples Research Center, and it consisted of interviewing through the telephone a thousand persons who had a record of voting in recent elections. And we asked a list of about 15 questions. Some of them were what we call warm-up questions to know how much the persons being interviewed know about the election, if they're following it. Great care is taken to see that the sample is done at random and that it represents a cross-section of the people that do participate in elections. You said that really there were a lot of undecided people, people who were maybe leaning in the direction of one candidate. Has that been the experience? Is this unusual? Last time, do you remember? We hear a lot that some of the people who are back in the pack, say Mouton or Henry, that in the Bennett Johnston- Edwin Edwards race that that Edwards was had a low percentage late in the race. Is that true?

No, I don't think so. Edwards was out front this time. Eight years ago Edwards had moved to the forefront. Bennett Johnson was the one who moved up in the latter stages, I believe. Is it surprising, do you think, that there are those? Were you surprised that there were people undecided this point or is the campaign just gearing up now? It's. The undecided can be a deceptive term. The undecided, the hard undecided, was only like 12 percent, I think. But when we asked people were they definitely decided, then that slipped quite a bit and less than half of the people had definitely made up their mind. Even though they listed a candidate, they were subject to change. But, by the way, the one who, the candidate who received the strongest definite support was David Treen followed by Louis Lambert. Their definite was much higher than the others Raf, did your poll go into negative factors on the candidates? No, we just asked in this case, we only asked how much we know, how much the people knew about the candidates. But, no, it didn't go into the negative factors.

I think, of course, you can take figures, you can take statistics and interpret them in various and sundry ways. Of course, that was your job to write some of the, some of the articles and one of them I suppose you would think that Dave Treen would have a solid Republican support anyway. Is that why his those in favor of him and his party? Traditionally people classified as Republicans don't necessarily have to be registered as Republicans. Like in Louisiana only about 5 percent of people are registered as Republicans but there's a much larger group that votes as the Republicans vote and they're typically much more loyal than Democrats towards their candidates. So that probably accounts for it. And they tend to be a more affluent group. Of course everyone, you know, Dan, I've heard everyone writes these interpretive kind of stories and a lot of game plans of some candidates we keep hearing is that Fitzmorris is going to fade. Then one of the other candidates is going to come up. That he had good name recognition and he has

not to this point. Is that is that you're? And that's been a consensus that he would fade but the polls seem to indicate that he isn't fading which, I think, would give a lot some of the people in the 3, 4, 5 positions allowed a case to worry and I would think in the last 60 days there would be some significant moves done by those people to make some kind of a pronouncement that would move their candidacy. I can't say there's been a consensus on Fitzmorris. Fitzmorris doesn't agree with anyone. And I don't really agree with it. I don't see where Morris's is going to fade. Somebody's going to have to catch him and I don't believe Fitzmorris himself is going to suddenly start losing votes. His strength is strong, strong in New Orleans, super strong, and he's also strong in other parts of the state. In South Central Louisiana, he's strong. He has a considerable following in North Louisiana and it's not surprising. And all this talk over the months, they said by April that it would begin to show up

fading. Well, obviously, the reverse has happened. He's gained a little bit. And he's not showing any signs of slipping like people have claimed. What I meant by consensus, I meant the consensus of the other candidates. I think that's how they've geared their campaigns. Don't you believe that's true? Well, I'm not sure how some of them geared their campaigns because they don't seem to be moving much at all. I think one of the things, of course, we've talked about polls and we've certainly seen a lot of TV spots and everything. It seems like, to my way of thinking, that this week we saw a lot of the candidates, some number of the candidates saying it's time to talk issues. I mean specific issues and one of the things we saw when we had a press conferences by Louis Lambert. Bubba Henry had a major speech. Treen had a pronouncement had to air. All of them are perhaps getting into this is where I stand on something rather than education is important etc. One of the interesting things was there are various ways of handling a proposed state surplus.

Louis Lambert's man had an interesting concept, one that worked well, I think, for another candidate. I think was in Wisconsin. What was that he had a proposal? His proposal was to declare a two-month moratorium on collection of the 3 percent state estate sales tax. He would do it in January and August and this is his way, his way of rebating any state surplus there would be. But he also says that he would have this rebate only if he after the money was pumped in what he calls his five primary areas which would be energy, education, I think industrial inducement, highways and roads and projects like that. So there's a chance that there would not be any surplus to give back. Do you really see something like that happening? Or is that just another election-year gimmick? I think that in this case he did have statistics and it had been thought out. It wasn't just sort of thrown out. I think that he seemed to have indicated they had done some research in this area and that I think an idea similar to this -- a moratorium on state income tax -- had been tried somewhere else. I think it is someone who'd been elected governor of

maybe Wisconsin, is it? And so this seems to be an idea that has worked elsewhere. Are we going to see a commercial on Lambert walking the streets of Wisconsin? Maybe so. But this seems to be a well thought thought out issue. One of the, another proposal, of course, has been. We see Paul Hardy say he wants to abolish state property tax. For residents. He wants to abolish residential property taxes, not commercial or other types. One of the things that's interesting is that so many of the candidates are proposing tax reductions or tax cuts, tax breaks, as a way of spending the surplus. But as most people also know, it hasn't really been that much of an issue in the past because we're so low-taxed in Louisiana. Compared to other states, we pay practically nothing in property taxes almost nil right now. Sales tax is about average. Income tax is below, way below average.

The question was asked, I think, is this a real issue that the people of Louisiana are upset about? Is this something that they want their taxes cut? And I think that is certainly, you know, as you point out ????? I think people have said about taxes that may not be state and local taxes. There's no place people are really upset about the state tax situation at this point. There's certainly no uprising. People don't seem to be concerned about many issues, if any at all. One of the issues that certainly Paul Hardy is hitting on, and he is saying he's talking about right to work. Now I've heard differing opinions on that. Is right to work still an issue in Louisiana? Well I think it is like, like any other issue. You know people are just not falling all over themselves to divide up between this candidate and that candidate on the basis of issues. Of all the issues in the race, I think right to work probably stands out as much as any or even greater than all the others. It is an issue. iI's a big issue with the labor people because they want it, but it's more of an issue on the

local elections trying to elect representatives and senators that it is at the governor's level and for very good reason. It appears to me that most of the candidates in the race for governor are doing nothing more than giving lip service to support of right to work. For instance when Paul Hardy says I'm for right to work. I was the first candidate, the only candidate, to come out unequivocally for right to work. But then he qualifies that. When you ask him if the Legislature passes a repeal of the right to work law, will you sign it? He says, Yes. Well, of course, if he if he is against if he's for right to work, he's going to be against the bill to repeal it. It only stands to reason that what he's saying is really just what he's doing is really paying lip service. Quite a number of the other candidates are. I just use him because he was so strident on that issue. Most, a number of the candidates, if you go down the line. Dave Treen has said he's in favor of right to work.

He'd veto it, I believe. Bubba Henry says he's in favor of right to work but he voted against it, did he not? He did vote against it. That's correct. He says now he'd like to see it work. He says it has been working for three years and I don't think he's committed himself to signing or vetoing, not to my knowledge. Is there a great deal of difference between all the candidates' positions? On that position, I'd have to say between Treen and the others? Treen says he'd veto it. So that was a tremendous difference between that and what the others are saying. Of course, I thought it was interesting that the major unions in the state AF of L-CIO, the Teamsters and the chemical workers got together and said that these are the three acceptable candidates, didn't they? (Beth and a man talk over one another) The AF of L-CIO has done that in the past. They have. They don't in Louisiana as I

recall. They haven't necessarily endorsed one candidate for governor. They have a list of acceptable candidates. I don't know if it means that the others are unacceptable. I assume it does. And interestingly enough since Henry voted against right to work but he wasn't on the unacceptable list so maybe that tells you more than some of the other positions. And then Fitzmorris was endorsed, was he not, by the New Orleans? I mean I mean Lambert was endorsed by the New Orleans AF of L-CIO. Yeah. I think, you know, talking about Lambert in the I mean Henry and the AF of L-CIO. I think a great deal of that is basic animosity between Henry and Victor Bussie. You know when Henry was serving as speaker of the House the last eight years, he pretty well controlled the activities in the chamber and one of the greatest irritants to Victor Bussie was the inability for him to lean over the rails and to muster his supporters on the floor of the chamber. It really, really bugged him and I think there was a great deal of personal

animosity developed over that situation. I think it's interesting to see how the newspapers, the media, everything where we keep calling it that package candidates and all this and sometimes we are perhaps in the TV are guilty more more than newspapers. How are you all going to be covering the campaigns? What's your game plan? Are we going to see lots of stories? Are we going to see lots of issue-oriented stories? Personality stories? We're not to campaign against any candidates. We're going to do it to ????????? The Times-Picayune people are right now in the process of developing a series of articles on what we consider to be some of the primary issues that haven't really been discussed. Right to work's among them and we're in the process of interviewing all the candidates and trying to put it all together into some sort of cohesive method that people can understand. We'll talk about right to work. Paul Hardy he says he's for this, Treen says he's for that. Mouton and so-and-so. So you can discern differences? Well, yeah, you can if you put it, you know, if you put it down A, B, C, on a given issue.

Try to ask them all the same question so it will all come out the same way. You don't always get the same answer, you know. You don't get answers to every question. Some are a little more evasive than others. And we're also going to try to be interviewing candidates and traveling around with them a little bit just to see how they perform on the road as well as the normal coverage like, you know, we went to Henry's meeting here in Baton Rouge the other day. We're going to try to do all that. I'm sure every other paper in the state will be doing much the same thing. What do you do for the wires? I mean you are the ones you feed also all the radio and television stations. We're pretty much in the same do what Bill's paper is going to do. We do a daily wrap-up. It's called Louisiana Politics and just kind of brings everything together and go out and spend a day with each of the gubernatorial candidates and also do biographies and issue papers on each of them, where they stand on this particular subject and others.

I know you've covered other campaigns this as as we all have. And does it? What's it like spending a day? Do you think if you spend a day with a candidate you can really get a feel for their campaign? Not if you go in cold. You have to have done some research. on most of the Capitol reporters know these candidates and have known for many years and have been following them closely. So they go in there pretty much knowing. I think what happens when you travel with them, you see them under stress. You see them when they don't normally have reporters around them because you'll travel in the car with them, in the plane with them, when they're trying to relax or read and you can pick up how they talk to their staff, you know, how friendly they are, how are unfriendly they are to their staff. If they're grouchy. Often the family travels with them, the wife. I think you can pick up little insights. Well they might not be quite so relaxed. Better than a staged, formal kind of situation. Well, if enough reporters go with them, sooner or later they crack. I guess that's one way of looking at it. I think, moving from elections to come

perhaps some some politicians right now are in fairly deep trouble. They alluded to it at the beginning of the show. It seems there are number of grand juries across state looking in at a number of issues. State Senator Gaston Gerald of Baton Rouge was involved in a trial just recently indicted on five different counts and convicted on one attempted extortion. You were at that trial. Do you think that that's the end of that one? Do you think there's more coming? Not not by any means at all. I think that was really just just the start of it. The U.S. attorney here says that the grand jury within the next month is going to look into five separate cases and some of those were ones that were brought out in the general trial. Also other information that was developed in the grand jury that led to the indictment. So I think that we're going to see quite a bit develop out of that trial and the grand jury. One of the things that's been interesting and a number of people have mentioned it. We're talking about in many cases federal grand juries as opposed to state prosecutors. You took that right out of my mind.

It's incredible to me that we have here in political governmental corruption cases. It's the federal government doing its job rather than the local district attorneys. I've yet to understand that except perhaps there's personal political involvement at the state level. Of course one and one instance of course in the grand jury looking into Congressman Buddy Leach. That of course in a difficult Vernon Parish when you had a DA ,a judge, etc., involved. What what is the status on that? What is Congressman Leach doing right now? Where are you in the judicial process? Congressman Leach is just waiting now. He had to switch Mr. Gravel, I believe, as his attorney and so but I think the interesting thing about that that particular investigation now is that it seems to have spread to all eight parishes involved in that particular Fourth District. The U.S. grand jury met yesterday and is meeting, I understand, again today and has subpoenaed all the absentee ballots both from the first election and the runoff election and so it seems that

that particular scandal could spread to the entire district. Regardless of the outcome of the trial, it seems to me that the publicity that has attended to it will cost Buddy Leach his seat probably in the next election if he's not removed before then. There's a good chance that young Buddy Roemer, who ran third in the race, will become one of the strongest candidates for that seat. Of course, Jimmy Wilson, former state representative, is the one who brought all the allegations. Does that then rebound on him because he brought them? No, he's going to be strong if he runs, but I really believe that young Roemer is looming as a very viable candidate.. One of the things that it has brought up, it seems, ???? once again and we've heard in the past of course when you have voting irregularities or difficulties that something needs to be done. There needs to be a commission. Dave Treen mentioned that there ought to be an elections integrity commission. An interesting statement by Ben Jeffers this week, who is running for secretary of state. He suggested that some of the

people, some of the poor people, black people in Vernon Parish perhaps did not know that it was illegal to sell votes. Did that that coming on. Did you run that as a wire story? Yes, it was. It didn't come as a surprise to me because I think he put it in perspective or he said that many of the people involved in these allegations of vote buying are people who have never moved any time in their life. They've spent their entire lives within 10 miles from their hometown and it's just I think he was alluding to the fact that for many of these people it's just a way of life. They've been selling their votes their whole lives? That's correct. And perhaps I've talked to a history professor about that who talked about the sort of a tradition of this in Louisiana and it's poorer people, in many cases, were the ones who were forced to vote a certain way and it has been a historical problem in Louisiana history. That's also a federal grand jury ????????. Speaking about

another grand jury. Well, here in Baton Rouge, the U.S. attorney is looking into charges concerning Commissioner of Agriculture Gil Dozier. Charges that we had raised during the session. What's that case about? Who wants to field that one? The little bit I recall about that. I haven't written betry many stories about that situation. There was an accusation that Dozier tried to extract some money from a person in exchange for a market permit, warehouse permits, auction barn. Representative Loy Weaver raised that issue. Of Homer. Right. He's from North Louisiana. He raised that issue during the Legislature and, as you well know, the local district attorney, Ossie Brown, investigated and came out with an announcement that he could find no wrongdoing. He

clarified that later. He clarified that later to say he could find no wrongdoing in his jurisdiction, I believe. So hence we have not only the grand jury investigate the federal grand jury investigating here, at Weaver's request probably. We also have grand juries and district attorneys looking at Dozier's activities in other parts of the state. At least three other parishes. An interesting charge was raised this week by another a local businessman. And I don't know whether that will be brought before the grand jury or not. Butch Baum? Butch Baum. It's before the federal grand jury now. and he said, suggested that he had been asked for a campaign contribution and he had rented office space to to the commissioner and it was changed. But he, of course, is is working with involved with Dave Pierce's campaign. In every election year. charges are are usually forthcoming more so perhaps than in other years. Do you find that true? Yes. I always find it true. The question is: let's say Dozier gets indicted.

That's not a difficult thing to happen. Will it have an effect on his election? Gaston Gerald seemed to suggest to reporters afterwards that he, even with a conviction, was confident that he would be re-elected by the people of his district to the state Senate and then which is interesting. Well it doesn't speak well for the people of his district perhaps. Well, Gaston Gerald does have some opposition and it's too early to tell how that campaign's going to shape up, but I think at least one of his opponents is going to be campaigning very actively. It'll be a campaign. I think, interestingly enough, if we have a number of grand juries we were speaking of. Jesse Jarreau. Perhaps we should give some background on him. People in the rest of state aren't familiar with him. Suggested that he had a falling out with Governor Edwards and he has had charges concerning carpet in the Superdome. I'm going to

give that one to you. That's in your area of the state, Bill. Well. I guess Jesse Jarreau kind of equated with a latter day Clyde Vidrine. You know. He really, if these charges are true, he really should have presented them to the grand jurors who asked questions about them five or six years ago. That was really the proper time to do it. Nonetheless he was one of, he was involved. He was one of Edwards big supporters. And as you said he had a falling out with Edwards. As a consequence he decided to step forward and bear his soul. He contacted United Press International and they wrote they wrote a very good story based on information that he provided. The story you have the background on that. The story is that Jarreau says he had been given a situation to do the carpeting in the

mansion after Edwards took over as governor in 1972 and he was supposed to have a no bid contract and make a killing on that. But some publicity leaked out or something and Edwards decided he'd have to donate this, Jarreau would. And so he wound up getting $3,000 back out of the $25,000 he put into the carpet and supposedly Edwards said I'll take care of the latest situation and the come carpet was to be the latest situation. And according to Jarreau specifications with Edwards' help were fixed in such a way that the company he represented was bound to get the bid and did get the bid and he got $80,000 out of it as his fee or commission or finders fee or whatever you want to call. Of course, he told, he told this story now in New Orleans to a grand jury that is said. We don't know what he told the grand jury in New Orleans. But we never got a????? so that . You know that was one of the accusations Jarreau made,

by the way, that Edwards seemed to have all of inside information as to what was going on in both the state and federal grand juries. Well you know that's his commentary and I don't know what he said that or not. But certainly it has has not been accepted as of yet. We have and I think a number of further developments will be taking place in some of these grand juries and I know they'll be a number of other political developments as we began covering them. And perhaps we'll be back to talk about some more politics on another show. Thanks for being with us, gentlemen. And I thank you for joining us on Louisiana: The State We're In. I'm Beth George. Good evening. The preceding has been an LPB production.

Production assistance for the preceding program was provided in part through contributions to friends of LPB.