Recall requests coming into Sec. of State's Office

Recall requests coming into Sec. of State's Office

Thursday, June 19, 2008

BATON ROUGE (AP) -- Requests for recall petition applications are the latest evidence of voter anger over a bill doubling state lawmakers' pay -- and over Gov. Bobby Jindal's refusal to veto it.

Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's office received about 10 calls requesting recall petition packets since the raise was approved on Monday, "which is about 10 more than normal," spokesman Jacques Berry said Thursday.

Berry said the callers will get a packet with forms and instructions on how to gather and file signatures to force recall elections. But who, if anyone, becomes the target of a recall petitions will not be known until applications are turned in.

Getting a recall election set is difficult. Louisiana law requires gathering signatures from one-third of a district's registered voters in 180 days.

"We've never had a multiparish official recalled in Louisiana ... It's never gotten to the point of an election," Berry said.

Registered voters in the New Orleans-based district of Sen. Ann Duplessis, who sponsored the pay raise, number more than 56,000, meaning well over 18,000 verifiable signatures would be needed for a recall election. House Speaker Jim Tucker, who backed the raise in the House, has more than 23,200 registered voters in his district, so more than 7,700 signatures would be needed.

To get Jindal's name on a recall ballot requires more than 960,000 signatures according to registration figures on the state elections Web site.

Past recall efforts against governors have gone nowhere. A woman upset with then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco's response to the 2005 hurricanes started a drive in January 2006, ending it in July without revealing the number of signatures gathered.

In 1991, a Baton Rouge lawyer, unhappy when the governor's race came down to a runoff between scandal-plagued former Gov. Edwin Edwards and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, started pushing for a recall of the winner before the votes were cast. Edwards, now in prison on a corruption conviction, won.

After Edwards took office, the "Recall '92" campaign gained only 348,000 of the 750,000 signatures that would have been needed.

Legislators aren't the only ones set for big raises this year: In the state budget nearing final passage, Jindal's Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret will make $320,000 a year, up from the $245,755 salary paid to his predecessor. A nearly $27,000 raise for the governor's homeland security chief will boost his salary to $165,000, and a $60,000 raise will increase the assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health's salary to $180,000.

In May, lawmakers agreed to give Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek a new contract with a $56,000 boost in pay. The $355,611 package makes Pastorek the highest paid public schools chief in the South.

None of those pay boosts has generated anywhere near the public backlash that the legislative raises generates daily on talk radio and Internet blogs.

The final version was approved with 56 votes in the House, just three more than needed for passage. Forty-five voted against it with three not voting. In the Senate, the vote was 20-18. (One Senate seat is vacant).

Tucker said Wednesday that calls to his office complaining about the raise are diminishing as people realize lawmakers haven't had a pay increase since 1980 and the raise amounts to a 3 percent annual increase.

But the vitriol of opponents was still apparent on talk radio Thursday morning, and on Internet Web sites. Comments took aim at the $2.5 million cost, the size of the raise and lawmakers' insistence on approving it despite public outcry. Jindal's worry that a veto would jeopardize his legislative agenda also came under fire.

"How many of us can go to work and DEMAND a pay raise. Then tell your boss if you don't get that raise you will jeopardize the running of their company," read one comment posted on the Web site of The Times-Picayune.

"Any hopes I had for Jindal to be an effective leader died today," read another post. "He is just another in an endless line of pigs at the trough."


Comments

Posted by fourx5 on June 19, 2008 at 10:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I know my pay has doubled since 1980. But I was eight years old then.

Posted by indiansue on June 20, 2008 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Looks like the you scratch my back and I will scratch yours is in play. Jindal said I won't veto and Tucker and his merry bunch of pirates gave him some large pieces of gold. Yes a recall should be in play but its a shame it will be so hard to accomplish, if we could do it by the computer we would win.

Jindal, Tucker, Duplessis and the rest are skipping away saying you can't stop us, you'll give up and we will get away with our lies and making our on rules. You will forget!

Not this time...hopefully Louisiana citizens will be so outraged at these, that there will be a recall. Somewhere it has to stop. If those we elect cannot be trusted to do the business we send them to do, we will have to become more involved and watch and watch and watch and speak out loud.

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