It seemed odd to many that eight months after a giant sinkhole began swallowing trees and swampland in Assumption Parish, Gov. Bobby Jindal had not been down to survey the situation, given his reputation for responding rapidly to disasters, natural and man-made. Yet he practically had to be shamed into going after WAFB in Baton Rouge aired footage of its reporter’s repeated questions to the governor of when he planned to go and Jindal’s repeated non-answers about how state agencies were on top of the situation and keeping him apprised. When he finally went to Bayou Corne, environmental lawyer Erin Brockovich, whom Julia Roberts played in the movie of the same name, already had met with displaced residents to sign them up for the expected lawsuit against the company responsible for the cave-in. Jindal might have preferred to keep his distance until the state Office of Conservation is cleared on any question of lax oversight or slow response. Moreover, symbolically, the expanding sinkhole could signify the course of the governor’s politics these days. Read the full column here.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
