BusinessReport.com

Legislators returning to the State Capitol next year might wish they had passed the major ethics bill that died on the calendar in the recent session. That’s because they will face new measures on income disclosure for elected officials and regulation for lobbyists that are tougher than the modest, recently failed reform attempt.

New rules for lawmakers and lobbyists top the agenda of the nascent Blueprint Louisiana organization, which aims to be influential in state elections this fall. That subject also leads the first policy paper released by gubernatorial frontrunner Congressman Bobby Jindal. The other candidates already have or most likely will make tougher ethics legislation their top priorities.

That candidate consensus could fill what was missing in last session’s ethics push—the strong backing of the governor. Gov. Kathleen Blanco was not interested in irritating legislators with bothersome income disclosure requirements while trying to get two-thirds of them to agree to her massive spending plans.

Also working in favor of measures to improve ethics in politics is that, compared to the other challenges facing Louisiana, they are the easiest and cheapest to achieve.

That comes through clearly in reading over the progressive agenda put forward by Blueprint Louisiana, a group organized and financed by some business people and civic-minded individuals who are trying to make a difference in a political system that’s been resistant to change. They convened focus groups of interested citizens around the state to rank problems and develop solutions that are backed by research and couched in political reality.

Instead of getting lost in trying to reshape every facet of Louisiana government, Blueprint sets five major goals for the next governor and Legislature:

• Adopt stronger ethics laws for legislators and lobbyists;

• Expand early education to all eligible children;

• Develop work force training more relevant to the economy through the community college system;

• Revamp public health care to be more centered on patients than on charity hospitals;

• Invest hundreds of millions more each year in new highways.

Different from past good-government exercises, Blueprint organizers are putting up some money to promote the agenda and the candidates who commit to it, as well as for lobbyists to work on passage of bills next year. While the proposals are not radical or divisive, a Blueprint architect concedes, “The devil is in the details.” Yes, and in the status quo. And in the budget.

Blueprint estimates that adopting all five points would cost about $650 million a year more than now, but it does not suggest what taxes should be raised or programs cut to pay for it all.

Making pre-K schooling available to all at-risk children would cost $90 million more and would involve coordinating or folding in other programs, like the federally funded Head Start, which could be problematic.

The plan for expanding health coverage to the uninsured is based on assumed savings that might or might not materialize. Getting there would still require spending hundreds of millions more to replace teaching hospitals in New Orleans and Baton Rouge in order to make them more attractive to Medicare and private-pay patients.

In its biggest-ticket item, Blueprint would plow more than $600 million a year more into highways by shifting transportation-related revenues from other areas of the budget without recommending how those new holes would be filled. The logic is sound, but it still amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul, and Peter has friends.

Not to criticize someone trying to solve thorny, long-standing problems, but such massive budget reworking starts and usually ends with the governor, and legislators follow. Organizers could sign up every legislative candidate for the plan, but those assumptions and unanswered questions, once faced in the reality of a legislative session, could give elected lawmakers defensible excuses for not building out from the blueprint. So even if this plan achieves the foundation of consensus, construction could take a while.

That takes us back to the top of the agenda. Compared to what’s farther down the list, improving ethics laws could be the lightest lifting the next Legislature has to handle.