What Is The Price Of Louisiana Corruption?

The following article, that was posted in the The Advocate's opinion section says it all regarding the changes that have to be made, in Louisiana, in order to increase Louisiana's socioeconomic base and make it more conducive to future business opportunities:

Our Views: A real price of corruption

The cost of doing political business-as-usual is too high.

If there’s one thing Louisiana voters know instinctively, it’s that times have to change.

One anti-incumbent voter in the statewide runoff elections said he’s worried about the cost of good-ole-boy politics.

“That’s what I call the Southern mafia, and that’s going to have to change in Louisiana,” Dalton Cooper, 46, told The Alexandria Daily Town Talk. “Until we change our corrupt culture nobody is going to do business with us.”

Cooper’s view does involve a broad brush: A number of state senators and representatives who backed reform measures for years were among those term-limited out of office in this year’s election. There is a lot to be said for expertise, in government just as much as in business.

But the dramatic changes in state politics during the past year show that a tide is definitely flowing in the direction of reform.

Term limits for legislators is just one element in the equation. The dramatic primary victory of Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal might one day be looked upon as a landmark in the transformation of Louisiana’s economic and social prospects. But to do that, Jindal and his followers have to tackle the deep-rooted skepticism of voters such as Cooper.

They’ve seen too many politicians caught with hands in the public bank accounts, or long-term political families who accept gifts and a lifestyle of privilege as perks of power.

Jindal plans to have a special session of the new Legislature early in the new year. It will focus on changes in ethics laws, toughening the statutes and putting more teeth into enforcement.

Jindal’s plans cannot be seen in isolation as high-minded expressions of good government. Instead, tougher ethics laws should be seen as a vital first step in a concrete new business plan for the state.

As an Ivy League-educated son of Indian immigrants, as a Rhodes scholar, the young governor-elect is in himself a unique salesman for a Louisiana turnaround. But he is staking the reputation of his governorship at the very outset on getting from the Legislature the tangible proofs that he can carry to national and international business leaders — ethics laws that are evidence Louisiana is going to be a safer place to invest for the long term.

At a hearing of the transition committee impaneled by Jindal to consider ethics law changes, several witnesses talked about the impact of Louisiana’s reputation for political corruption.

While the Baton Rouge Area Chamber does not talk about communications with specific companies interested in this area, BRAC President Stephen Moret told the panel that one prospect did not even list Louisiana as a potential state for a major project. Louisiana is not a safe place to invest, the BRAC representative was told.

A survey of business leaders by LSU’s Public Policy Research Lab found that the state’s history of corruption lives on, in a negative view of the state for economic growth.

There are, as Moret and Jindal note, probably more important factors hurting Louisiana’s economic competitiveness, but ethics laws are likely the easiest to change.

However, easy is a relative term. One of the more significant reforms blocked during the administration of Gov. Kathleen Blanco was personal financial disclosure for legislators. Early on in her term, Blanco had to get one of her personal friends to sponsor the bill, as lawmakers were so cold to the idea.

That attitude has changed in part because of the advocacy of Moret and his allies in the ethics law push of the 2007 session, and by the fact that many legislative candidates pledged to support ethics law improvements.

But before Jindal’s salesmanship is successful with the business world, much less folks such as Cooper in Alexandria, the new governor has to pass meaningful ethics bills.

If he can do so, there might well be a tangible payoff, in terms of jobs and new industries.