The Legislature has given themselves a 123% raise. Should Governor Jindal veto?

Thoughts?

 

no pay raise.

 

I am going to gather all of my co-workers up at 3 pm this afternoon, we are going to vote on a 123% pay raise. If it passes we will forward it to the boss. Whatever his decision is for my pay, I want Jindal to mirror with the legislature.

 

What kind of system do we have where this is allowed to happen? Blah.

 

The automatic increases more than anything is what incenses me. And Duplesis's picture in the paper says it all.

UNFRICKINBELIEVEABLE!!

 

This pay hike the legislature gave themselves sparked a wave of overwhelming negative public reaction across Louisiana. Every newspaper I read immediately posted editorials calling this a bunch of BS and demanded that Jindal veto the bill immediately (even the LSU student newspaper).

To me, any typical average Joe who happened to be Governor of Louisiana would have immediately vetoed this pay hike. Doing so would have made him an immediate hero of legendary lore. In other words, the Governor vetoes this sucker and he is at least guaranteed his 15 minutes of fame as the most popular person in Louisiana history. Obviously, that a very tempting offer, an offer that I believe your average person would jump all over.

So why doesn't Jindal veto? I tend to think he is not vetoing because he is strong, because he has a very strong backbone, and is willing to take a humiliating public hit for what he thinks is best for the future of Louisiana in the long-term, regardless of his own personal fame (but I'd still like to know more about that--I have no idea what Jindal thinks is best for the future of Louisiana, but it seems to me that it is something he is pretty devoted to if he is willing to take this huge credibility hit as a personal sacrifice that will benefit his overall objective).

A lot of the political commentators I've read think that Jindal struck a deal with the legislature to allow them to give themselves this pay hike in return for the new laws he has pushed and the new laws he'd like to see passed.

For example, one commentator (Jeffrey D. Sadow, professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport) pointed out that the new ethic reform laws that Jindal pushed that got passed "potentially could make for less lucrative livelihoods and more burdensome reporting for some legislators," and that part of the deal was that if our some of legislators actually had to potentially be somewhat more honest politicians, then at least they deserved to be paid more for it. For example, when the House passed this pay hike, the guy that ran the entire show that made this happen in the House was the Speaker, who, while he was up there telling his fellow representatives why they had to pass this thing, argued that this pay hike was needed because, among other reasons, "Our ethics reforms have eliminated lawmakers' ability to do business with the state." Awww, poor lawmakers, shame the ability of some of them to make money off of their legislature position has been somewhat hampered (potentially).

But then again, I also hear that Jindal's ethics "reform" was rendered toothless by the legislature, because the legislature only passed it after amending it so that the burden of proof needed to prove an ethics violation in court is so high that it would be virtually impossible to punish a legislator for an ethics violation unless you had a slam-dunk case against him (which is no small feat in the world of American law enforcement and prosecution).

Anyway, I'm curious to know if anybody knows what is going on here. The whole situation doesn't make a lot of sense and is very bizarre.

 

oh, wonderful. our ethics commission here was rendered pretty much impotent with bad legislation a few years ago also.

i hate to see this going on. so much for "change".