Gov. Bobby Jindal was much maligned by the local and national media during the recently ended 2015 legislative session. But from a purely political perspective, Jeremy Alford said today, the governor was the biggest winner of the session because he accomplished his top priority: balancing the budget without technically raising taxes or drastically cutting higher education.
“What he asked for was revenue neutrality and he got it,” Alford said during his assessment of the session presented to the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge this afternoon. “Now he can go to New Hampshire and Iowa and tell those people he didn’t raise taxes in Louisiana.”
Alford, who publishes LaPolitics and is also a regular contributing columnist to Daily Report and Business Report, did not suggest the outcome of the session was at all positive for the state; quite the contrary. He predicted the legacy of the session will be litigation challenging changes to the corporate tax code, midyear budget cuts and a special session in early 2016 to address the many problems created in this session.
From a political perspective, however, Alford said Jindal proved an important point: “As long as the governor controls the leadership in the Legislature—the chokeholds—as well as capital spending, there is no such thing as a lame duck governor.”
If Jindal emerged victorious from the session, Alford said, business and industry was the biggest loser. Big business will pay more than $2.2 billion more in taxes over the next five years, thanks to reductions in tax credits, exemptions, rebates and incentives. Though the revenue-raising measures are temporary—most are set to expire in 2017—for now they create a mess for business.
“We expect lawsuits to be filed over a lot of these bills,” Alford said. “There are lots of questions about the constitutionality of them.”
Because so many people across the political spectrum are unhappy with the outcome of the session, the fall governor’s race will become more important earlier in the political season than usual, Alford said. He predicted the field of four major candidates—which for now is shaping up as a two-man race between front-runner Republican David Vitter and lone Democrat John Bel Edwards—may well see the addition of one or more candidates.
“Gen. Russel Honore has been mentioned as a possibility,” Alford said. “He could really shake this up change the runoff dynamic.”
—Stephanie Riegel
