Newly elected state legislators orienting themselves to the Capitol this month have received a wide, conflicting range of advice on how to do their jobs. Follow your conservative principles, Sen. David Vitter urged what he called the “brave new world” of Republican majorities in both houses. He exhorted them to pursue “drastic changes” to teacher tenure and to begin “boldly changing” the tax structure by phasing out the income tax on senior citizens. Follow your colleagues, outgoing Speaker Jim Tucker advised the freshmen, by seeking consensus and compromise within the Legislature and by putting aside hard ideological positions in order “to move the state forward.” Gov. Bobby Jindal kept it simple—and the way it’s always been—by telling new lawmakers: Follow me. Their elders did just that last week, when the last, feeble resistance to the governor’s legislative leadership choices folded. Nobody expected anything different and, outside of isolated pockets of legislators and some editorial columns, few seemed to mind. The separation of powers and co-equal branches of government are worthy ideals that sometimes, some places, work reasonably well. But not always, and not here. Is that so bad? In day-to-day government, is the over-arching power of the elected governor of Louisiana that much worse than the stultifying, extreme partisanship currently on display in Washington, D.C.? It need not be either, one can argue. Read the full column here.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
