In Louisiana’s political jungle, the state Legislature enters its ninth and final week of gritty, carnivorous politicking. State lawmakers battle each other between side chats and partisan huddles in a hot and humid summer where the fate of Louisiana higher education lays in a heart of darkness — Gov. Bobby Jindal’s looming budgetary veto.
The House has made its intentions clear: It’s ready and willing to march into an override session and topple a governor’s veto for the first time since 1993. The Senate’s intentions, however, are less defiant.
While members of the House have refused to play into Jindal’s “no tax” promise to Grover Norquist, state senators fear an override is not possible within their marble-slated chambers.
In an attempt to meet Jindal’s pledge, the Senate created the SAVE Act, which would enact a phantom tax and tax rebate. The legislation easily passed the Senate but hit a brick wall in the House. State Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, blocked the SAVE Act from entering the Ways and Means Committee and so dived the Legislature into the depths of a political jungle.
Through a series of vengeful political tactics, the Senate tacked their defeated legislation on to Robideaux’s film tax credit bill. This would force the House to accept the provisions originally in the SAVE Act or risk the nearly $120 million in revenue from Robideaux’s bill.
Higher education’s funding depends on the passage of the Senate’s phantom tax and tax rebate, and here is where my beliefs on political integrity conflict with my efforts to protect LSU from a budgetary guillotine.
To oblige in Jindal’s phantom legislation is to soil the integrity of our state’s Legislature. Passing legislation that completes absolutely no purpose other than allowing our governor to keep his detrimental promise to a lobbyist is unethical and a slap in the face to Louisiana citizens.
To hold on to legislative integrity and strike down the provisions from the SAVE Act is to risk dire cuts to higher education, despite the Legislature’s astonishing willpower to cut tax incentive programs. Failing to override Jindal’s veto may turn the higher education doomsday scenario into a reality.
On Friday, state Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, and Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, began a shouting match after LaFleur proposed to change the name of the SAVE legislation to the DUMB legislation.
LaFleur’s efforts are valiant, but the majority of the Senate sides with Donahue, who authored the SAVE bill, in order to stop Jindal from vetoing the budget. The Senate voted 34-5 in favor of a bill with the SAVE higher education tax credit in it, sending it back to the House without going through Robideaux’s Ways and Means Committee.
If overriding a veto in the Senate is not a reality, the House must consider passing the legislation with Jindal’s bogus tax credit attached.
The House cannot ignore the political reality that a veto may kill the Legislature’s budget — and with it higher education. Unless the public steps up and pressures state senators to stand against Jindal in a special session, then political ideology cannot win out in the voting decisions of state representatives for the sake of LSU and other higher education institutions.
While the SAVE tax credit is a disgusting mockery of the lawmaking process, if you want to win in Louisiana politics you have to scratch, claw and compromise your way out of a political jungle where lions are kings and lambs are fodder.