"a streetcar named Opportunism'

Sweeteners for the South

Excerpt:

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.

On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping -- the bill survived Saturday's procedural test without a single vote to spare -- and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn't enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.

After Landrieu threw in her support (she asserted that the extra Medicaid funds were "not the reason" for her vote), the lone holdout in the 60-member Democratic caucus was Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Like other Democratic moderates who knew a single vote could kill the bill, she took a streetcar named Opportunism, transferred to one called Wavering and made off with concessions of her own. Indeed, the all-Saturday debate, which ended with an 8 p.m. vote, occurred only because Democratic leaders had yielded to her request for more time.

Comment: Previous post (how it was done)

Buying off Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu

The $100 Million Health Care Vote?

Excerpt:

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Comment: Read the entire article for the legalese!

Bayou Boy Wonder

Bayou Boy Wonder - Louisiana elects a reform governor. What's next?

Excerpt:

Mr. Jindal jumped into this year's campaign promising to shake up a state government whose antigrowth policies have prompted Forbes magazine to rank Louisiana 49th out of 50 states as a place to do business. Even before Katrina, it was the only Southern state with more people moving out than in. The "bright flight" of the state's most promising young people became the most important symbolic issue of the race.

Mr. Jindal applied the political lessons he learned from his 2003 loss. Back then, it was generally conceded that he lost some northern Louisiana parishes in part because he failed to campaign enough there to dispel lingering concerns about his ethnicity (he is Indian-American). This time he visited northern Louisiana 77 times, and it paid off. He carried Rapides Parish (Alexandria) with 54% of the vote, up from 44% four years ago.

One reason Mr. Jindal was able to win votes across ethnic and demographic lines is that while he treats his Indian background as an overall plus, he won't trade on it. He has in the past left the space for "race" on government documents blank. "I'm against all quotas, all set-asides," he says. "America is the greatest. We got ahead by hard work. We shouldn't respond to every problem with a government program. Here, anyone can succeed."

Mr. Jindal is full of ideas for how to improve government. He plans to use his health-care expertise to help the uninsured obtain health insurance. The way to do that, he says, is to work with the three-fourths of the uninsured who have jobs. He proposes insurance pools in which small businesses can join together to get lower-cost premiums and giving the private sector a greater role in provision of health care for the poor.

He plans tax cuts and an expansion of school choice. Part of his philosophy is that the federal government can't be Louisiana's salvation. "New Orleans has suffered from the trauma of three crises," he told The Wall Street Journal last year. "First was Katrina, second was the levees breaking, and the third has been a case study in bureaucracy and red tape at its very worst."

Bureaucracy busting is Mr. Jindal's specialty, and he has already announced he will call the Legislature into special session shortly after he is sworn in and demand an up-or-down vote on his anticorruption agenda, which has 31 points. "Ethics reform is the linchpin for change," he told supporters Saturday night.

But while he prepares to take office with high hopes and good wishes, there are some sobering obstacles that could impede his agenda. Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of elected officials per capita convicted of crimes. That means that some power brokers will have real incentives to preserve the status quo. In 2004, the agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans office described Louisiana's public corruption as "epidemic, endemic and entrenched. No branch of government is exempt."


Earlier CFG: Conservative wins Louisiana Gubernatorial

Comment: I think he looks like Bobby Kennedy! But he sounds like Reagan!

Updated: Denny Burk: An Historic Election in Louisiana

Conservative wins LA gubernatorial

Louisiana elects first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction

Excerpt:

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal became the nation's youngest governor and the first nonwhite to hold post in Louisiana since Reconstruction when he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents.

Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a November 17 runoff.

...

When he takes office in January, Jindal will become the nation's youngest governor in office. He pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those "feeding at the public trough," revisiting a campaign theme.

"They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go," he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

bobbyjindal.com

Meet the Next Governor of Louisiana

Biography

List of Governors of Louisiana

Comments: The news is not that he is "non-white" ... but that he is a conservative Republican. And the lesson is this: consistent conservatives who stand for values and against corruption and waste are very electable!