New Orleans state Rep. Austin Badon wants to abolish the gubernatorial pardon process, which would include the state’s Board of Pardons, saying the move would save the state about $384,000. That amount includes $356,000 paid each year in salaries and benefits to the five members of the board, including recently appointed former state Rep. Rickey Hardy.
The board is responsible for making recommendations to the governor regarding applications for clemency and pardons of state prisoners, but the governor does not have to act on its recommendations.
A pardon, whether granted by the governor or automatic for first offenders who finish their jail sentence, probation and parole, restores most of a convicted felon’s rights.
Lawmakers must approve Badon’s House Bill 85, a proposed constitutional amendment that would then go to a vote of the people. Badon also filed House Bill 84, a measure that spells out the details of the proposed constitutional change. The Times-Picayune reported:
“The Pardon Board spends a hell of a lot of money ... to make recommendations to a governor who may not use them,” Badon said. “It is a good-government measure and the right thing to do.”
The proposal will need a two-thirds vote in the Legislature and then approval by voters in the Nov. 6 election. Badon said if it passes, it would become effective Jan. 1. ...
The measure would also take away the governor’s powers to grant reprieves and to commute sentences. “This will end all pardons in Louisiana,” Badon said.
Badon said he also wants Louisiana governors to avoid the trouble that former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour encountered when he pardoned 198 individuals, some convicted decades ago and freed for years, in the last days of his term in office. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has gone to court to challenge Barbour’s pardons.
Read more here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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