Jindal’s first job: Change state’s corrupt image

KENNER – In a state known for its brash and flashy politicians, Bobby Jindal’s methodical, policy wonkish style is strikingly different and his first plan of attack as Louisiana’s new governor strikes at the heart of the state’s reputation for cronyism and corruption.
The Republican congressman, a day after his historic win in a field of a dozen candidates for governor, pressed ahead with his campaign pledge to clean up the state’s image with the nation and its own citizens. He said one of his first acts when he takes the Governor’s Mansion will be to call a special legislative session to reform ethics laws.
“If I go down as one of the more boring but effective governors, I’ll take that as a great compliment,” Jindal said Sunday. “Our people don’t want to be amused by our politics anymore. We don’t want to be entertained.”
Jindal won outright in the state’s open primary election, finishing atop the slate of candidates with 54 percent of the vote and avoiding the need for a November run-off election. The newly elected governor, who will take office in January, becomes Louisiana’s first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction and the nation’s first Indian-American chief executive.
He’s taking the overwhelming victory as a sign of support for the chief item on which he ran, a fight against corruption though he’s never talked about who or which agencies he claims are corrupt.
His two predecessors, Democrat Kathleen Blanco and Republican Mike Foster, governed with no allegations of cronyism, but the state has a well-earned reputation for shady politics.
Four-term Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards is serving prison time in a bribery and extortion case involving the awarding of riverboat casino licenses. In the past decade, Louisiana’s had an insurance commissioner and elections commissioner serve time in jail, and a litany of corruption cases are pending in New Orleans.
He wants lawmakers to create new state laws requiring themselves to disclose their sources of income and their assets a bill that failed to pass in the most recent legislative session and to bar their family members from doing business with the state. He said Louisiana’s ethics laws lag too far behind other states’ requirements.
“I think we’re setting the bar too low when we say, ‘Look, isn’t it great that we haven’t had a statewide elected official go to jail recently?'” Jindal said in an interview. “The reality is there are a lot of practices that are accepted ways of doing business in Baton Rouge that are considered unethical in other parts of the country, that are considered illegal in other parts of the country.”
And while Jindal acknowledges that some of the concerns are more about perception than reality, he said it’s a perception that can harm the state’s ability to attract businesses and the state’s requests for federal aid to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which struck in 2005.
Jindal will take over the state’s top job two years into a hurricane recovery effort expected to take a decade or more.
New Orleans and some of its surrounding parishes are mired in bureaucratic snarls that slow the repair of schools, homes and businesses. The homeowner repair and buyout program called the Road Home is billions of dollars short of what it needed to pay all eligible homeowners.
Blanco, who defeated Jindal in 2003 but chose not to run for re-election after heavy criticism of her performance after Katrina, is asking Congress for bailout money for the Road Home.