Governor Bobby Jindal has etched his spot in the Louisiana governors’ hall of fame for his tactics in passing the education reform bills. Rumors have flown from Baton Rouge to all corners of the state that Jindal has bought and intimidated his bills into passage.
It should be noted none of this can be proven, but as Sherlock Holmes always said, “Lack of evidence is evidence in itself.”
It’s not circumstance that members of the Republican Party lose their spots on House and Senate committees after opposing the governor. It’s not a coincidence people who work for the governor find themselves without jobs for questioning him.
In my advocacy against some of these bills, I made calls to representative’s and senator’s offices. Among all the ones in Northeast Louisiana, only a few shared my concerns. An aide for Rep. Marcus Hunter told me that some members of the house were afraid to speak up, out of fear that the governor would use his political swing to push them off their committees.
How about the two previous Secretaries of Education? They didn’t really see eye-to-eye with the governor, and where are they now? They’re not standing in his way; that’s for sure.
The “yes men” are the most dangerous people in state. They’re the ones too afraid to oppose the governor because he might cost them a re-election. So they pass his legislation without question at the cost of our state.
Jindal is bypassing the legislative process and making a mockery of the people of Louisiana. We’ve dealt with men like this before. Edwin Edwards did similar things, and so did the master of Louisiana politics, Huey Long.
As a man who was elected on the premise of ethics reform, what’s being reported about him from Baton Rouge doesn’t seem to fit his platform. Jindal doesn’t look like he’s practicing what he’s preaching.
Jindal has not always been friendly to education in Louisiana. Just last year he vetoed a tobacco tax, but raised tuition. This year he’s destroying the public education system. He also appointed a man that’s not even qualified to be a principal to be the state superintendent of education. As a lame-duck governor, there’s no telling what he’ll do next.
Coercion and intimidation might have been a part of the old Louisiana political system, which Jindal promised to change, but in the new millennium Louisiana deserves honesty and integrity. I thought we cast aside the old way of doing things, but the governor seems to think otherwise. That is strange since he was the one who was supposed to be leading the way.
