Senate Finance committee members got updated on the House-approved version of the budget Sunday, and were urged by Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne to halt the process where it stands.
“Are you asking the Senate to stop it?, Sen. Greg Tarver (D-Shreveport) asked, directly.
“I am,” Dardenne answered. “That is the best solution. The longer you spend talking about this now, the longer you’re waiting for a special session to fund priorities. I am saying to the Senate not to pass a budget. You can’t fix this.”
Committee chairman Eric LaFleur (D-Ville Platte) agreed.
“I will never vote for this budget,” LaFleur said. “I will not allow 46-thousand people to be thrown into the streets.”
He was referring to cuts necessitated by the House decision to fund TOPS at 80% while delivering the deepest budget cuts to health care. On the chopping block is the Long Term Care Special Income Level Funding Program. Eliminating that will disqualify 46-thousand nursing home patients and developmentally disabled from assistance in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
“We don’t have alternative programs that could assist these individuals,” explained Stephen Russo, legal counsel for the Louisiana Department of Health. “Nursing homes will have to discharge or evict residents. Of course, we have to get CMS okay to do this, and they can stop the clock, requiring the state to keep paying every provider until their decision is made.”
“How many of these 46-thousand people are capable of walking out of where they are?” LaFleur asked.
“These are the sickest of the sick, who require 24/7 nursing care,” LDH Medicaid Director Michelle Alletto replied.
“As I see it, the problem is the runaway growth of Medicaid costs,” Sen. Conrad Appel (R-Metairie) said. “Where is your plan to rein in that growth – to halt it? Or are we just going to let it keep growing, while we keep stripping money from higher ed?”
“As the finance guy for LDH, that’s definitely my great concern,” replied Health Dept. Undersecretary Jeff Reynolds. “But the feds, in many cases, tie our hands. Take the pharmacy program, for example. It grows three to four percent every year. CMS requires us to pay the average pharmaceutical cost, plus a dispensing fee. As drug prices go up, payments go up. There is no way we can implement any cost control on that.”
“Why don’t you take those 40-thousand people and find a cheaper way to do things for them?“ Appel persisted. “I’m not hearing anything from the administration about any plan to control the ticking time bomb of growing Medicaid costs. See if you can fix that before you start talking about raising revenue.”
“I find it hard to believe that everything in the budget is a higher priority than the things we’re now talking about being cut,” Sen. Sharon Hewitt (R-Slidell) said. “Don’t we have able-bodied folks on Medicaid expansion who are not working and should be? Compare them to the 46-thousand disabled folks, and they’re not as deserving of funding as those who are unable to work.”
“Medicaid expansion, by definition, affects the working poor,” Dardenne reminded Hewitt. “And if they are deemed eligible for whatever reason, they are entitled to coverage.”
“What you’re talking about are different programs, with different federal rules,” Reynolds added, answering Hewitt. “The 46-thousand take a higher percentage of state general fund, compared to the amount the feds pay. Even it we eliminated the entire Medicaid expansion population, it wouldn’t bring the dollar amount down to where it will balance the budget.”
While Appel and Hewitt were the only two Republicans on the committee whining about the administration’s failure to stave off this crisis, other GOP senators were choking on the idea of not passing a budget in this session.
“I don’t know how we don’t just have a budget,” Sen. Bodi White (R-Baton Rouge) said. “Everybody has been saying we need a budget to know where we are, and then fill in what we need. You’re telling us we don’t get a chance to say where we think the changes should be made? I want to have my name on a budget, in case we don’t pass more revenue. I don’t want to see those pink slips go out.”
“They’re going out anyway,” Dardenne said of the layoff notices that will be issued to public-private partner hospitals’ staff on May 1. “But you can take your time, and make your decisions.”
“Tell us what happens July 1, if we don’t have a budget,” Sen. Jim Fannin (R-Jonesboro requested.
“One argument is that everything shuts down, but I don’t have a definitive answer,” Dardenne replied.
“Shutdown is what I’ve heard,” Fannin agreed. “It’s never been tested, however, and I hope we don’t. But we’re sitting here debating about $648-million of a $28-billion budget. It doesn’t seem reasonable not to have a budget. I think it’s much more irresponsible to take the risk come July 1, if we don’t pass a budget this session. And I think there’s plenty of time to come into a special session once we end this one.”
“We think it’s more beneficial to alleviate the uncertainties as quickly as possible,” Dardenne insisted.
“Would the Governor let state government shut down?” Fannin asked.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it all turns out,” Dardenne answered, non-committally.
Fannin’s temper flared.
“I don’t think you’ve been handling the House properly through all of this. I think the way you pull folks on board is with sugar, and not vinegar.”
“I think this budget is full of vinegar,” Dardenne responded, then added ruefully, “There’s not a lot of sugar anywhere in it.”
“You keep talking about us shutting down early, but we’re only halfway through this session, and our bills are just now going over to the other side,” Hewitt said to Dardenne. “We still have a lot of important work to do this session. You’ve had all this time to prepare a budget. You have all the experts. Do you believe the budget you proposed was the best you could do, and that it put money in all the strategic places?”
“If there is no more, money, yes,” Dardenne replied. “But there really is no way to responsibly budget with this much less money. We need to replace what is going off the books.”
“You also keep talking about giving people hope. I don’t see how not passing a budget in this session gives people hope. Until we pass revenue, I don’t understand how this somehow is giving people hope. I believe we all need to know the correct starting number, and have an agreed-upon good starting place.”
“With this budget, it appears that ‘good’ starting place is to shut down medical schools, put 46-thousand people out on the streets, and underfund TOPS,” Finance chair LaFleur replied, disgustedly.
“A bill that looks like that will not leave my desk: no medical schools; no partner hospitals; 46,000 people losing waivers and nursing home beds; TOPS short $58 million; a $168 million loss of lease payments; Department of Corrections loses $20 million; DAs and sheriffs go backward; no budget passed for the judiciary at all today,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “Today’s version of the budget is a complete failure, and I have no fear that this HB 1 will become law.”
As the governor met with the media following House adjournment, he condemned their version of the budget as “foolishness”, yet found a ray or two of hope in what had been said on the House floor.
“I am heartened because some House leaders said there clearly is a need for a special session to address the shortfall in revenue. And the sooner we get into a special session, the better,” he said.
That did seem to be a revelation during the House’s budget debate, as Democrats questioned Appropriations chairman Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) and House Republican Caucus chair Lance Harris (R-Alexandria) about the impacts of the funding allocations.
“Are you in favor of another special session?” Rep. Sam Jones (D-Franklin) asked Harris.
“Yes,” Harris replied.
“So we can finally fully solve this problem?” Jones pressed.
“If we pass this budget out of here, which we are constitutionally obligated to do,” Harris said.
“Are you willing to vote for some revenue to fix this?” Jones quizzed Henry.
“I was willing to vote in the special session, but wasn’t given the opportunity to vote on what I wanted,” Henry replied.
“What did you want to vote for?” Rep. Ted James inquired.
“Clean pennies,” Henry answered.
“You did have the opportunity to vote on that,” James responded. “You voted no – twice. Why do we need to vote on this budget now?”
“To move the process along,” Henry said. “This isn’t the final say, after all. This is just the third draft, and as we all know, the Senate is going to have two more working versions before it comes back to us.”
But as the governor observed, “The Senate cannot fix this. Maybe some House members think so, because the Senate has helped fix the budget before. It’s not possible this time.”
Yet if you watched and listened closely to the entire budget debate, it’s fairly obvious the House Republican leadership does finally have a plan for solving the state’s budget woes– one that’s entirely in alignment with their “live within our means, cuts-only” mantra. They intend to eliminate the state-funded public hospitals.
Conservative blogger Scott McKay gloated about the plan late Thursday afternoon, calling the hospital system “a leftover from the Huey Long socialist history of Louisiana and with changes to federal policy it’s totally unsustainable.”
Indeed, for several years now, Louisiana Republicans from Sen. Conrad Appel to LABI president Steve Waguespack have been urging an end to “Huey Long-style” government. Long, of course, expanded Charity Hospital into a statewide system and created the LSU Medical School to cooperatively staff it.
During Thursday’s budget debate, it was made clear – once again – that with the FY ’19 level of funding for what are now public-private partner hospitals, those partnerships will end, effective July 1. Staff at those facilities will be laid off, and graduate medical students will have nowhere to fulfill their residencies. Additionally, it will blow another $168 million dollar hole into the budget, with the private partners not making their annual lease payments to the state.
“Do we have to get CMS approval for the hospitals to close?” Rep. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe) asked LDH Undersecretary Jeff Reynolds, who had been summoned to the House floor to answer questions.
“DSH (Disproportionate Share Hospital payments) is the most optional of the federal dollars the state receives,” Reynolds replied, “So that wont be a problem with CMS (federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).”
“So if the hospitals close, they will get very little in supplemental payments?” Morris inquired.
“They will still get Medicaid reimbursement, but at the standard rate,” Reynolds answered.
“Some partner hospitals get reimbursed at higher rates than others, isn’t that so?” Rep. Tony Bacala (R-Prairieville) queried. “444% of cost for one, and as low as 49% of cost for some of the others?”
“Yes, the distribution is not equitable,” Reynolds acknowledged.
“We pay $3 billion a year to all the hospitals in the state, with 31% for direct services, but we pay the partner hospitals an additional 61% in supplemental payments. The national average is ten percent,” Bacala said. “Do any other states have public-private partnerships with hospitals like we do?”
“I’m not aware of any at the state level, but some do have these sorts of arrangements at a county level,” Reynolds replied.
“So no other state has a system of private partner hospitals drawing money away from our health care system?” Bacala pushed his point.
“Your points are accurate,” agreed Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, who had also been called to the floor to answer members’ questions. “But two things: one, we didn’t create this system of public-private partnerships. That was done by the previous administration, and we inherited all its problems.”
That generated cheers and applause from a substantial number of House members.
“And two: Louisiana has long been the only state with a state charity hospital system. It may be time to move away from that, but it won’t happen overnight,” Dardenne said. “And it won’t happen if we devastate our entire health care system by passing this budget today.”
“I agree this administration didn’t create the system,” Bacala said, “But it won’t change if we don’t try to change it. And I think righting the ship means looking at the public-private partner hospitals.”
“Can you tell me what it costs to operate the hospital system now, as compared to before privatization?” Rep. Kenny Havard (R- St. Francisville) asked Reynolds.
“Before, it was $600 million a year. Now, it’s about $1.1 billion a year,” Reynolds answered.
“So it’s gone up,” Havard said. “We were told it would save money if we privatized, but the cost has doubled. And that is the exact amount of the deficit. We crushed other hospitals, and it still didn’t save us any money.”
Chairman Henry has a question for Reynolds, too.
“For the public-private partnerships, the private side returns a profit. Do we know how much?”
“No, sir,” Reynolds answered.
Meanwhile, Democrats had questions about the exponential effects of having the partnerships dissolve.
“Don’t we get funds from providers to use for our federal match?” asked Rep. Harvey LeBas (D-Ville Platte).
“Yes, sir. It goes into the Medicaid Trust Fund. It’s between $160 and $180 million dollars each year,” Reynolds responded.
“Won’t this mean a major reduction in fees and self-generated revenue, then?” LeBas continued.
“Yes, sir,” Reynolds answered. “These cuts are merely the first step, but it will expand, and expand, and expand, and further cuts will be needed – potentially $700 million before the next fiscal year is over.”
“What will happen to patients?” Rep. Denise Marcelle (D-Baton Rouge) wondered. “Where will they go to get care?”
“Access to care will decline, and there will be a ripple effect,” Reynolds replied. “Other hospitals will be flooded with Medicaid patients going to their emergency rooms. Privately insured patients will have longer wait times there and at doctors’ offices. And without access, some people could die.”
“The domino effect is that some people could die?” Rep. Malinda White asked, for confirmation.
“Yes, ma’am,” Reynolds answered.
“We’re just telling people we want them to die, because they won’t have a hospital to go to?” White asked again, outraged. “People essentially will die?”
That was too much for Rep. Scott Simon (R- Abita Springs).
“Mr. Reynolds, what are your credentials? What is your area of expertise?” Simon asked.
“Accounting,” the undersecretary answered.
“And what is your medical background?” Simon inquired, archly.
“None,” Reynolds admitted, “except 28 years with the Department of Health.”
“But you know when people are going to live and die?” Simon demanded. “Just stick with your area of expertise from now on!”
Then House Republican Caucus chairman Lance Harris proposed an amendment that – on the surface – seemed to contradict the plan to let the public-private partner hospital system die. Instead of fully funding TOPS, as the House Appropriations Committee had previously chosen, the Harris amendment would fund TOPS at 80%; restore nearly $26 million to higher education, and divvy up another $32.5 million to each of the partner hospitals except Baton Rouge and Monroe – which get nothing.
“This is a good faith effort – seed money for the hospitals, if you will,” Harris said.
“It gives them – what? An extra day of operations?” Rep. Sam Jones (D-Franklin) asked, sarcastically.
Jones wasn’t far off the mark. You see, Appropriations Committee members had been told by the administration and LDH that even though some of the hospitals had already served notice, they could not cease their operations instantaneously on July 1. Some state money would need to be available while they wound down and shut down, which could run 60-90 days into the new fiscal year.
“Seed money”, Harris called it, but what Louisiana will ultimately be planting are caskets, holding the remains of citizens unable to access life-saving health care.
Louisiana has rarely been reluctant to challenge edicts of the federal government, but just a few short months out from the initial distribution date for medical marijuana, some state lawmakers are running scared.
Louisiana’s history of defying federal rule is a long and proud one, after all. Under the rallying cry and doctrine of “states’ rights”, this state’s legislature and citizens believed they were empowered to nullify federal law and dissolve affiliation with the United States clear back in January 1861. From suppression of voter rights (Louisiana v. United States, 1965), flouting separation of church and state (Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987), or as now, passing ever more stringent abortion laws in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, state lawmakers rarely shy away from rebellion or the ensuing confrontation.
When Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1986, Louisiana continued to debate the need to raise the age from 18 to 21 for another decade. It wasn’t until the state faced losing federal highway funding in 1996, that 21 became fully official – with some exceptions remaining. And there was a bill this session to drop the age to 19 by “training” younger drinkers. It died in committee.
Wednesday, members of the Joint Agriculture Committee were updated on the progress of Louisiana’s medical marijuana program.
“How long till this stuff is available?” asked Sen. Gerald Long (R-Winnfield).
“They tell me we’re going to be ready for distribution in September,” LSU Ag Center Chancellor Bill Richardson replied.
“This is still a prohibited drug by the federal government. How do we reconcile that?” Senate Ag committee chairman Francis Thompson (D-Delhi) inquired.
“I have talked with Louisiana’s U.S. Attorneys, and they are all following the progress of our program,” Richardson explained. The USDOJ has given them lots of latitude, and they have all said they are not worried about us. They haven’t come right out and endorsed what we are doing, and they wouldn’t give me immunity, since marijuana in any form is still illegal.”
“If it’s illegal, it’s not right,” Thompson responded, adding, “I don’t have as much confidence in the federal government as I would like to on this issue.”
The authorizations to create medicinal marijuana products – pills and oils – were granted to LSU’s and Southern’s Ag Centers in 2015. Each has contracted with a bio-pharmaceutical firm to assist in the research and production: GB Sciences for LSU, and Advanced Bio Medical for Southern.
Thompson had questions for John Davis with GB Sciences, which has its main production facility in Las Vegas.
“How can this be legal if the feds say it is illegal? I know this state passed laws, but doesn’t federal law trump that?”
“DOJ says it will not prosecute medical cannabis states, that they won’t fund that type of prosecution,” Davis, a lawyer formerly with the Baker Donaldson firm, replied.
“I want to know more about GB Sciences,” Rep. Johnny Guinn (R-Jennings) said.
“We’re a publicly-traded company – not NASDAQ, but OTC – and we’re focused on cannabis research,” Davis told the committee. “We’ve got the white lab coats, and we have product patents in the pipeline. Similar to what LSU does with sweet potatoes, rice, and sugarcane research, we do—just with a different agricultural base.”
“But do you have any connections to recreational marijuana?”
“Yes,” Davis admitted. “In Nevada we have a revenue stream in the recreational market. It funds our research and the clinical trials needed to produce pharmaceuticals to treat specific disease conditions.”
Senator Jim Fannin (R-Jonesboro) had more questions for LSU.
“Are you going to do additional research on this?” he asked.
“Yes. We will reinvest the funds we receive from GB Sciences to fund our research on this and other agricultural products,” Chancellor Richardson replied.
“I’m concerned about the flow of the money, which will be crossing state lines and therefore subject to federal regulation,” Fannin said. “You say you’ve had conversations, but none of that will stand up in federal court. My concern is that there’s no law allowing this.”
“I have sat down with the U.S Attorneys…” Richardson began
“Can you get us a document about that?” Fannin interrupted.
“If you’re asking for some written thing that will stand up in court, we’re not going to get it,” Richardson replied.
“Are we standing on a legal document or conversations?” Fannin asked, indignantly. “Why haven’t our congress members done something about this? Let’s get them in here and ask why they haven’t filed laws to protect us!. I’m concerned about co-mingling much-needed research dollars!”
Through clenched teeth, Richardson replied, “I have met with the Department of Justice here and in Washington, D.C. I have met with the DEA. We are doing what you asked us to do, and doing it damn well!”
Fannin, looking over the top of his glasses at Richardson, said, “I don’t think you need to take that tone.”
With a heavy sigh, Richardson said, “I apologize if I gave offense. It’s just that I’ve worked very hard on all of this, and I’m sensitive to criticism.”
“I don’t know of anything else we do in this state without having a federal document authorizing it. I am concerned that we don’t in this case,” Fannin insisted.
Of course, concerns about possible federal ramifications haven’t stopped the Louisiana’s legislature from moving ahead with bills to require “In God We Trust” be posted in every public school building, or a bill to ban abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy, or a bill to begin prosecuting government benefits recipients criminally for fraud.
Women comprise 54-percent of the registered voters in the state of Louisiana, but men continue to dominate the Legislature, with women making up just 14-percent of the representation. That makes for some incredibly obtuse debates, when it comes to bills targeting what are primarily women’s issues.
Take the Tuesday morning discussion of a measure that would set up a Women’s Incarceration Task Force. Authored by Rep. Pat Smith (D-Baton Rouge), the group would develop recommendations of policies and practices for responding to the differential needs of female offenders.
“Our whole incarceration system is based on the assumption that offenders are all male,” explained Syreta Martin with Operation Restoration. “Women’s unique sets of needs, including things like reproductive health and motherhood, are not taken into account.”
Rep. Tony Bacala (R-Prairieville) took issue with what he called the “overreach” of the lines of inquiry for the proposed task force.
“On page 3, it says this group will ‘develop practices and processes throughout the criminal justice system’. That exceeds the parameters of ‘women’s incarceration’,” Bacala pointed out. “I’m worried this will get into things that are contrary to the will of this legislative body.”
“This really does look at the issues of women, requires the gathering of data, and makes recommendations to the Department of Corrections,” Smith replied. “Why is that a problem?”
Bacala couldn’t bring himself to come right out and say he objected to the part of the measure that states “all women include transgender women.” Instead, he tried to verbally dance around it.
“This part about ‘affirmation of their self-determined gender identity’ – that’s something, quite frankly, I’m uncomfortable with,” Bacala said, while squirming in his chair.
“That’s unfortunate, but the reality is there are these people in our society,” Smith responded firmly. “And we have to have some kind of direction on how to deal with these individuals.”
“I can see the outcome being stacked against most of the legislative will, especially when the governor has all the power to appoint task force members.,” Bacala responded, trying to deflect attention from his discomfort, and cast aspersions on the governor instead. “I can foresee a scenario where we come back and say we need to offer, uh…hormone therapy to those that identify as the opposite sex. I think this is stacked toward one particular goal, and that’s not in keeping with where I think we ought to go.”
That’s when Smith unloaded on him – politely – but forcefully.
“You’re preconceiving this is going to end up with a recommendation on something that we have no policies on right now, but you have the authority, as a legislative body, to determine whether any recommendations are accepted or not. It concerns me when we constantly ask this body, forget the reality of the lives we live in, in this society. And we constantly want to push things under the rug, because there are differences among people in our society.
“We don’t have any policies to address these differences, and these people exist in our prisons today!” Smith reminded. “So why shouldn’t there be someone to look at data, look at information, and give DOC some direction to assist with it?”
“I don’t understand the problem with a task force,” Rep. Ted James (D- Baton Rouge) interjected. Clearly enjoying Rep. Bacala’s discomfiture, James then poked at him a bit.
“I’m amenable to adding a House member to the task force – Rep. Bacala, if he wants,” James said with a chuckle, eliciting appreciative laughter from some committee members and post of the audience.
In the end, the proposal was approved and sent to the full House, without opposition.
Debate on another bill Tuesday afternoon showed a marked absence of any discussion of its impact on women, even though it’s aimed directly at them: SB 181.
“Babies are created in the image of God,” the author, Sen John Milkovich (D-Shreveport) began. “And this will make it illegal to kill unborn babies after 15 weeks. This could save thousands of babies from being killed in abortion mills.”
Milkovich wasn’t shy about sharing his end game, saying, “My goal is to outlaw all abortions. It’s a curse. It’s a scourge. It’s a barbaric practice.”
Members of that Senate Judiciary committee asked about Mississippi’s 15-week ban, passed a couple of months ago and enjoined by the federal court almost immediately. In light of Louisiana’s current fiscal uncertainty, shouldn’t the state wait and see how that court challenge turns out?
“I am aware that defending this will cost the state money, but I don’t think we should refrain from doing the right thing because of money,” Milkovich responded. “I can’t think of a better expenditure.”
But Ellie Schilling, the attorney representing Louisiana plaintiffs in court challenges to the state’s increasingly restrictive abortion laws, argued this bill – if passed – is guaranteed to waste already limited taxpayer dollars.
“Since 2014, six lawsuits have been filed, and all are still in the courts. One, filed in 2016, challenges all 7 abortion laws passed that year. In all of these cases, in general, the state is losing,” Schilling advised.
“It’s difficult to determine exactly how much it’s costing, but millions have already been spent on Louisiana hiring outside counsel. With the state’s unprecedented budget problems, it’s detrimental to pass legislation that will lead to more costly litigation.”
Even Dorinda Bordlee, senior counsel for the Bioethics Defense Fund – which assists in crafting and defending abortion restriction laws – argued against passage of SB 181.
“This bill will unintentionally weaken Louisiana pro-life law,” she said. “Because it’s due to be placed into the part of the state’s criminal code that contains our 2006 trigger law – banning all abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will supercede that trigger law, with a 15-week abortion ban being the latest expression of legislative will. Then if Roe v. Wade is overturned, Louisiana law would still permit abortion up to 15 weeks.”
Committee members also expressed curiosity that the “usual group of suspects” – pro-life organizations – were not in attendance at the hearing, nor had any of them filed cards in support of the bill.
“I can’t speak on behalf of any of those groups,” Bordlee said, “But this instrument has the unintended consequence of stripping the current trigger law.”
Milkovich continued to argue for his bill, saying, “Pass it and enforce it immediately,” though committee members were leaning toward deferral so Bordlee could work with Milkovich to eliminate the “unintended consequences.”
Then Sen. Jonathan Perry lost his nerve, saying, “I want to move this favorably with assurance, with a promise that Sen. Milkovich and Ms. Bordlee will work on the language. I think, as it is, it can hurt our pro-life laws. But I’m not going to be accused of killing a pro-life bill.”
On a 4-1 vote, the committee concurred.
Not word one, nor question one, about the woman – the citizen – whose body is hosting this potential human being. The bill makes no exceptions for rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother, and it makes it a felony – punishable by ten years at hard labor – for anyone performing an abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy.
Last year, when government regulators ordered the closure of First NBC Bank of New Orleans, a stunning, $1 billion collapse of one of the city’s premier financial institutions, they also effectively bankrupted the state’s Tuition Donation Rebate program, a little-known program designed to pay private schools who offered tuition scholarships to students.
It was the other half of Louisiana’s controversial school voucher initiative, originally known as the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program and now rebranded as simply the Louisiana Scholarship Program, part of former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s massive effort at school privatization.
First NBC was the Tuition Donation Rebate program’s largest contributor, spending millions on rebates and pledging millions more. Because of its closure, hundreds of students would likely lose their scholarships.
Today, the rebate program no longer exists; instead of rebates, Louisiana now offers tax credits. And while that change represented an improvement, it’s still terrible public policy, education experts and good government groups argue. Now, a wealthy taxpayer can effectively avoid spending any money on state income tax if they decide to contribute enough to the renamed Tuition Credit Donation program.
In fact, according to recent reports by both The New York Times and the AASA, the country’s largest association of school superintendents, it’s possible to actually make money off of the program. “In Some States, Donating to Private Schools Can Earn You A Profit,” the Times asserted in its headline.
Although fifteen other states have similar programs, Louisiana’s is still the most generous in the nation.
“Louisiana is the lone exception (in the nation) where credits can exceed tax liability,” according to the AASA. There’s very little evidence the state is receiving even a modest return on the investment.
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The state first began handing out rebates in 2014, and at the time, there was only one Student Tuition Organization (or STO) that qualified to administer the program, a private, Georgia-based company named Arete Scholars. Their agent in Louisiana was Gene Mills, the head of the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious right organization known for its intense opposition to gay rights and abortion and its support for creationism in the classroom, among other things.
Anyone who contributed to the program would eventually receive a 95% rebate for their donation (5% went to the STO for administrative costs), courtesy of the state of Louisiana. “Arete’s 2014 Annual Report indicates that the organization disbursed 14 scholarships (in Louisiana), worth a total of $60,975.02, and all funded by the Atlanta Falcons,” James Finney reported in The Louisiana Voice (emphasis added).
The program struggled to attract applicants, but the Jindal administration had been determined to expand “school choice” as a top priority. “Superintendent John White’s Department of Education, with the approval of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), thought it was critical that there be multiple organizations available to help people support private education rather than pay taxes,” Finney wrote. “So they gave grants of up to $499,750 to ACE Scholarships Louisiana (charter 41590796K) and up to $500,000 for New Schools for Baton Rouge Excellence Scholarship Fund (charter 41726088K) so that these limited-liability corporations could each set up their business of accepting donations, funneling them to private schools, and providing the documentation required for the donors to get tax rebates from the Louisiana Department of Revenue.”
Today, Arete, ACE, and New Schools are the only three STOs operating in Louisiana.
To those familiar with the state’s conservative politics, the program’s most prominent boosters are all familiar names.
Along with Gene Mills, Arete also lists, as their official “Louisiana advisors,” U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, a far-right Republican from Bossier City, and Timmy Teepell, former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief of staff, campaign manager, and most trusted advisor.
Lane Grigsby, whose political action committee spent more than $1.1 million to influence elections for the state’s board of education in 2015 and the chairman emeritus of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), serves on the board for New Schools for Baton Rouge. Conservative activist and businessman Eddie Rispone was one of ACE’s earliest contributors.
To many, Louisiana’s program is nothing more than a transparent attempt to publicly fund religion while privatizing the school system. The participating schools are almost exclusively parochial, and many of the program’s fiercest supporters are well-known activists from the religious right.
While the rebate program itself didn’t earn much press attention, the overall “school choice” initiative in Louisiana is known nationally as a spectacular failure. “In Louisiana, students who won a lottery for tuition scholarships to private schools wound up with worse academic performance than their peers who were lucky enough to lose the lottery,” the Brookings Institute revealed in a report titled “When winners are losers: Private school vouchers in Louisiana.”
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Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum was actually opposed to the legislation that shifted the state’s rebate program to a tax credit. The state had been cutting rebate checks to anyone who donated, even the Atlanta Falcons.
To qualify for a tax credit, however, a donor has to be required to file their state income taxes in Louisiana. That ended the practice of reimbursing out-of-state corporate donors.
Mills, of course, was the agent and advisor of an out-of-state company whose board members benefitted from Louisiana’s rebates. He had hoped the state would be even more generous to corporate donors and religious non-profits, like the Louisiana Family Forum.
When the state House Ways and Means Committee considered the bill to change the program in May of 2017, Mills testified publicly. “I just don’t think you have to throw the churches, non-profits, and corporate donors under the bus,” he said. “You’re asking me to toss (out) the Atlanta Falcons, the Chik-Fil-A Foundation, and high-dollar individual donors.”
The new tax credit program may not be as lucrative, but it’s still the most generous of its kind in the nation and the only tax credit in Louisiana that allows contributors to count their entire donation against their state income tax liability. (Donations collected by STOs for administrative costs don’t qualify for the credit).
In other words, if you’re an individual who earns a taxable income of $250,000, you’d owe the state of Louisiana $13,750 in taxes. If, that year, you decided to contribute $13,750 to the Tuition Donation Credit program, you just effectively wiped out your entire tax burden, in addition to receiving a $13,750 deduction on your federal tax returns.
If you don’t believe it, Arete Scholars has a nifty calculator to test it out (Note: Arete captures a portion of donations for administrative and processing costs, so, if you’re plugging in the hypothetical numbers above, you’ll need to adjust for those fees).
It’s hard not to see how the program could be abused.
But there is another, larger point of concern: Those who take advantage of this program (and because it’s in its very first year, we don’t yet know how many will) aren’t paying for roads or health care or higher education or any of the other things everyone else pays for. It allows a select group of people to decide they’d rather donate to private and religious schools instead. (Supporters of the program frame this exclusively as an economic benefit for students, but the truth, of course, is that private schools are the ultimate beneficiary).
The Tuition Donation Credit program isn’t just bad public policy; it’s also a prime example of how our Republican-led legislature has gamed the system to benefit their two main constituencies, the religious right and the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.
The old adage says, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” And in Louisiana, no matter how we decorate the piggy bank, it’s still broke. That didn’t stop House Appropriations committee members from trying to bedazzle the shards and sell it as designer art.
The presentation of the committee’s Republican majority-recommended changes was carefully crafted.
“We’ve spent more than 40 hours over five weeks, heard from 28 agency heads and staff; and while creating the amendments, I reviewed the administration proposals and spoke to members to develop the changes you have before you now,” Appropriations chairman Cameron Henry stated, trying to make it sound as though this was fully vetted and agreed-upon.
“You said you talked to members, Mr. Chairman? You didn’t talk to me,” Rep. Pat Smith (D-Baton Rouge), the longest-serving member of the committee, interjected.
“Ms. Smith, I believe I said I talked to a majority of members,” Henry replied.
He then stated they would be “adding money back into the budget,” due to a $346-million improved outlook recognized by the Revenue Estimating Conference last Thursday. And Henry called on the committee vice-chair, Rep. Franklin Foil (R-Baton Rouge) to present the first proposed change.
“This amendment adds $233-million to the TOPS program, and $13-million to GO Grants,” Foil explained. “We want to send a message to our kids and parents that this is our main priority.”
“So of $346-million available, you want to spend $246-million of it for this, leaving $100-million for everything else?” Leger asked. “You believe $246-million is best spent in these ways?”
“I do,” Foil replied. “We had a lot of ground to make up, since the executive budget had zero dollars spent on TOPS.”
“Isn’t this message giving students false hope, because the full body isn’t likely to maintain this in lieu of funding other programs?” Leger pressed. “You’re okay getting a positive news story today, even if it ultimately will prove to be fake news?”
“My commitment is to students,” Foil answered.
“What about the Department of Health?” Leger asked.
“What about it?” Foil fired back.
“You’re aware that department is taking biggest cuts? And you still believe it is more valuable to fund TOPS?” Leger asked, incredulously.
“Your district includes a substantial constituency that is on Medicaid, doesn’t it, Rep. Foil?” Rep. Pat Smith asked. “But you’re willing to fully fund TOPS to benefit a different socio-economic group in your district, instead?”
“I think this helps everyone, in every district,” Foil replied. “We are clearly short on revenue, and even if we were to take all of the money available and give it to the Department of Health, they would still have a shortfall.”
“Yet your amendment fully funds TOPS to the detriment of all the other programs in the state: disabilities waivers, nursing homes, public-private partner hospitals, graduate medical education,” Leger said. “It’s a trap, forcing us Democrats to say we either support TOPS or we don’t. That’s a false choice, and it will really end up being nothing more than a comment about what we would like to do.”
“We are already on notice that the public-private partner hospitals will be closing,” Rep. Gary Carter (D-New Orleans) chimed in. “We say ‘we fund our priorities.’ Your amendment makes TOPS a greater priority than health care.”
“I believe we will find funding as we go through this process,” Foil insisted.
“That’s pie in the sky,” Pat Smith told him, bluntly. “You’re perfectly aware there is no guarantee to raise additional revenue. Some 20 members of this body won’t vote for any new revenue under any circumstances. What this ends up saying is that we only want to fund a program for kids doing well in school, but not the schools they go to, and not the hospitals.”
Yet on an 18-5 nearly party-line vote, the committee adopted that amendment. Rep. Bubba Chaney (R-Rayville) broke ranks to oppose it.
Next up was the chairman’s amendment, allocating the rest of the additional revenue recognized by REC last week. Included in that $100-million is $58-million for LDH, and $2-million for one – and only one – of the public-private partner hospitals: the one in Alexandria. Not so coincidentally, Appropriations committee member and House Republican Caucus chairman, Lance Harris, is from Alexandria.
“All together, our partner hospitals have a $200-million unfunded need. What of the $58-million directed to LDH is going to fund them?” Leger asked.
“LDH will determine that,” Henry replied.
“So we’re basically giving them $58-million to use as they see fit?” Leger asked.
“Well…” was all Henry could answer.
As for the $2-million allocated to the Alexandria hospital, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne warned, “That’s not going to keep any of these other hospitals open. And it will effectively end graduate medical education in the state.”
The committee approved that amendment, 18-6, with Chaney again siding with Democrats.
Leger then proposed an amendment to HB 1 that would divvy up the $346-million in additional revenue more equitably.
“I assure you this is great, one of the finest amendments ever offered,” Leger said, entirely tongue-in-cheek. “It is, however, fundamentally fairer and more responsible than what we’ve approved thus far. It puts $25-million back into higher ed, and $74-million toward the public private partner hospitals – specifically Shreveport and New Orleans, in order to support our medical schools. It adds $50-million for TOPS and restores funding to the sheriffs’ prisons so they can continue to implement the criminal justice reinvestment programs.”
“Does it fully fund the public-private partner hospitals?” Rep. Jack McFarland (R- Jonesboro) asked pointedly.
“No, but $74-million of the $200-million needed is better than none,” Leger replied.
“Didn’t we hear the public-private partners were going to walk away if they’re not fully funded?” Lance Harris asked. “If they’re going to walk away anyway, why not fully fund TOPS?”
“When we appropriate $58 million out of $656-million in cuts to LDH, here’s what’s going to happen: notices will go out in two weeks, to hospital staff, to providers, to patients who receive services,” Leger responded. “Those notices of layoffs and services canceled will have intense ramifications for those who receive them.
“For example, some 15,000 nursing home residents will be notified they’ve got to find another place to live, because Louisiana is kicking them out onto the streets.”
Henry pooh-poohed that, saying, “If I remember, the feds at CMS have to approve any cuts to LDH programs. That takes 60 days for an answer, and then they want more info. We have 60 days to answer, and they have another 60 days to answer. To say they’re going to end up on the streets is not accurate.”
“In the meantime, we have to keep paying for their services, and there’s no money in the budget to do that,” Leger replied.
“You talk like this is all devastation and scorched earth,” Rep. Tony Bacala (R-Prairieville) told Leger. “Let me remind you, LDH’s budget – total means of finance – was $13.6 billion last year. This year we’re giving them $12-billion, so it’s only an eight percent reduction.”
“You’re using total means of finance, but HB 1 is really about appropriating state general fund dollars. That gives a skewed sense of what’s happening,” Leger replied.
“We have to look at it all,” Bacala insisted. “It’s an 8% reduction, and nobody up here is talking about kicking people out of nursing homes. That’s up to LDH.”
Not unexpectedly, Leger’s amendment failed, 6-18.
HB 1 was moved forward to the full House, 17-6, where it’s scheduled for action on Thursday.
Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a statement after the bill advanced.
“What we saw today from the House Appropriations Committee was not a serious attempt to tackle the problems we face. In rushing to pass amendments out, the House Appropriations Committee proved what we’ve been saying all along – there simply isn’t a way to fashion a budget that adequately funds our state’s pressing needs. This budget document is not worth the paper it’s printed on, and gives nothing but false hope to students and parents who want to attend a Louisiana university or community and technical college.
“This budget approved by the House Appropriations Committee has no chance of becoming law,” the governor’s statement concluded.
In other words, it might glitter with gems, but the pottery piggy bank is still busted. And the glue is being used for decorating purposes, rather than repairs.
Before we get into the main thrust of this week’s article, let’s look at the biggest piece of news for the Saints from the week.
The Bears declined to match the offer sheet to Cameron Meredith, so the wide receiver is now a Saint. As discussed last week, Meredith’s size and speed combination could make him an ideal outside receiver for the team– assuming he recovers properly from his ACL and MCL tear last preseason. Personally, I’m excited; the upside here is terrific, and if Meredith recovers he could be one of the steals of the offseason.
Onward:
The 2018 NFL Draft is considered to be one of the most quarterback-rich pools of talent in a long time. Five quarterbacks and possibly six are expected to go in the first round this year, the kind of deep crop of talent that only comes around rarely. (The only time six quarterbacks have been drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft is 1983; the only other time even five quarterbacks were drafted in the first round is 1999.) Drew Brees is 39, and the next couple of quarterback classes don’t project to be particularly deep in talent; if the Saints remain as competitive as they were in 2017, they won’t have the chance to draft high enough to pick one anyway.
Then again, there’s a chance they won’t have the chance to pick one of these, either. But nonetheless, we’ll take a look at the six top quarterbacks and the likelihood the Saints take one of them, plus one intriguing developmental prospect the Saints may be able to land with their third-round pick.
NOT HAPPENINGSam Darnold, USC. Darnold is currently the favorite to be picked #1 overall, though the gap is closing among oddsmakers as rumors grow that the Browns are also interested in Josh Allen. Darnold became the early favorite for this selection all the way back in 2016, when he took over USC’s starting job as a redshirt freshman after a 1-3 start, ripping off a nine-game winning streak which included a Rose Bowl win over then-#5 Penn State. Darnold’s efficiency numbers took a step back in 2017, but he didn’t do anything to damage his chances of being the #1 pick. If the Browns go with Allen, Darnold will almost certainly be the selection at #2, so the chances of the Saints landing him are essentially nonexistent.
Josh Allen, Wyoming. Well, we have to talk about him. Allen is this year’s beneficiary of “looking like a prototype QB.” He only completed 56% of his passes last year, leading one of the worst offenses in FBS; he played in the Mountain West conference and was abysmal when he played against Power-5 teams; and Wyoming went 8-5, not even winning the conference. Not a great record for a supposed top NFL prospect.
But since he is the guy who most obviously looks like a top quarterback prospect, with his 6’5″, athletic frame and giant arm, excuses are made over and over for him. Mel Kiper discussing Allen’s low completion percentage: “Stats are for losers. The guy’s a winner.” Meanwhile, Kiper cites Lamar Jackson, who completed 59% of his passes last year, as “too inaccurate” for the NFL. Never mind that Jackson and Allen’s teams finished with the same record, Jackson put up better numbers against much tougher competition, or that Jackson finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2017 and won it in 2016. (Another one of those traits that makes Allen “look like a quarterback”: White skin.)
I don’t know how much of the excuse-making for Allen is conscious bias, how much of it is unconscious bias, and how much of it is the arrogance of scouts and coaches who believe that they can fix everything wrong with him and want to be remembered as they guys who do that. In any case, it all adds up to a player who won’t be available for the Saints to select. (Considering his closest comparisons in physical profile and college production are 2011 first-round busts Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert, this is a good thing.)
Josh Rosen, UCLA. Rosen battled his share of injuries at UCLA, as well as, in my opinion, poor coaching. (Jim L. Mora is not the coach his father was.) Rosen didn’t always have the surrounding talent needed to succeed, and was often outmatched as a result, but still showed tremendous pocket presence, football intelligence, and possibly the best mid-range accuracy in this class. Rosen would ordinarily be a top prospect, but the “football guys” are already starting to pick him apart, for traits like “being intelligent enough to ask questions and have interests outside of football.” (Even Mora himself said he thought Darnold would be a better fit for Cleveland at #1. Way to stick up for your players, coach!)
All that said, Rosen is far too talented to slide too far. Rumors suggest he might be a surprise slider on draft day, but the last time teams let a talented California kid slide at QB because they didn’t like his personality, twenty-three teams passed on Aaron Rodgers. He’d be a steal for the Saints, but even if the rumors are true, it’s hard to imagine him landing outside the top five picks or so.
SLIM BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLEBaker Mayfield, Oklahoma. Mayfield was a popular early projection to the Saints, in large part due to his height (6’0⅝”). Between the NFL’s bias against short quarterbacks and the success Sean Payton and company have had with Drew Brees, Mayfield seemed like both a fit as the quarterback of the future and someone with a chance to slide to the Saints’ pick. As draft season has rolled on, though, Mayfield’s sheer productivity and competitiveness, combined with the number of teams that have needs at quarterback, have caused teams to consider him worthy of a high selection as well. He might go as high as #3 to the Jets, and, like Rosen, I’d be surprised if he was still on the board outside the top half-dozen or so selections.
Lamar Jackson, Louisville. The Saints took a visit with Jackson, so they may believe they have a real chance to land him. I love Jackson’s game, personally. He’s a highly productive runner, but he’s also an accomplished pocket passer capable of reading the field and going through his progressions, only running on designed plays or when there’s no other option. He’s not quite as accurate as I’d like him to be, a problem most often caused when he doesn’t properly reset his base when throwing. Even so, his accuracy concerns are overstated (due to a substantial number of drops by his receivers), and his running ability is so prolific that he’ll open up defenses to make the job of passing much easier. (And that running ability can’t be overstated enough: He was one of college football’s most productive runners– not running quarterbacks, runners— for his three-year career. He finished with more rushing yards, a higher yards per carry, and more rushing touchdowns than Saquon Barkley, widely projected as a top-5 pick and a potential generational prospect at running back.)
Of course, Jackson’s stock has been in question for the laziest of reasons, most of which are superficial or consider his rushing ability a negative. Even so, I think teams’ desperation for quarterbacks and Jackson’s obvious talent will win out eventually. I expect him to go sometime in the first half of the first round. If he doesn’t, the Saints should consider trading up for him as he slides, and if he’s somehow available at pick #27, he should surely be their selection.
FIRST ROUND POSSIBILITYMason Rudolph, Oklahoma State. Rudolph has been a difficult evaluation for me personally. He doesn’t have overwhelming physical talent, but often displays tremendous touch and accuracy on deep passes– along with the occasional baffling decision. But he also had two highly regarded wide receivers to throw to, including James Washington, the 2017 Biletnikoff Award winner for college football’s best wide receiver (and another consideration for the Saints to select at #27). In a highly productive offense such as this, with a QB and WR both regarded as potential first-rounders, I struggle with the chicken-and-the-egg question: Does the quarterback make the wide receiver productive, or does the wide receiver make the quarterback productive? Specifically in this case: Does Rudolph have preternatural accuracy on deep ball placement, or does Washington have preternatural skill at tracking deep baIls in the air? I see things to like in both, but I also have questions about both, so I really have no idea what the answer is here.
Ordinarily I might like Rudolph in the middle of the second round, but the Saints don’t have a second-round pick, and the rush for quarterbacks means they would probably have to stay put and take him if they want him. On balance, I lean against taking Rudolph #27 if I feel more confident about a player at another position. But then, they might not even have the chance: The Patriots are reportedly interested in Rudolph as well, and they now own the #23 selection in the draft, having acquired it from the Rams after trading former Saint Brandin Cooks. (This surely marks the first time a receiver as young as Cooks has been traded for first-round picks in consecutive offseasons after putting up 1,000-yard campaigns in consecutive seasons, and is probably the first time even any two of those four or so things have happened.)
THE SLEEPERKyle Lauletta, Richmond. Lauletta was a three-year starter at FCS-level Richmond, and has become a popular name as a sleeper prospect. He was a productive starter there running a pro-style offense, which gave him experience with some of the necessary points of the NFL game, such as read progression and executing play action.
He’ll need some work when it comes to tightening some of his mechanics and getting rid of the ball rather than relying on his athleticism to make a play– something he could get away with at Richmond, but probably won’t in the NFL– but there’s potentially a viable starter there in a year or two with some work.
Other possible third- or fourth-round developmental prospects include Washington State’s Luke Falk and Western Kentucky’s Mike White.
All that said, the Saints may be shy on taking a small-school developmental project in the middle rounds, as 2015 third-rounder Garrett Grayson ended up being a complete bust. (I didn’t like the pick anyway: I preferred Brett Hundley, who went in the fifth round to the Packers, and while he didn’t really perform when called to start in 2017, he was at least good enough to stay on the roster, which Grayson wasn’t. Seventh-rounder Trevor Siemian also ended up being a periodic starter for the Denver Broncos over the last few years.)
Next time: Our last column before the draft will feature a complete seven-round mock for the Saints– and maybe two.
More than three years ago, I published a report on my long-running personal blog, CenLamar, that, within only a day, would somehow find its way to the front pages of almost every major American newspaper and would become the subject of endless hours of conversation on every cable news channel in the country for nearly a week.
Although I knew the report would generate interest in Louisiana, I never anticipated it would spark a national controversy and would permanently link my name with its subject, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican congressman from suburban New Orleans.
Earlier this week, in the aftermath of Speaker Paul Ryan’s announcement that he would not seek another term in office, The Advocate‘s editorial board published a strong endorsement of electing Scalise to be the next Speaker of the House, asserting that it would be “invaluable to Louisiana” and “good for the country at large.” The next day, columnist Stephanie Grace argued that “it would be foolish to bet against Scalise rising all the way to the top of this party’s hierarchy;” Scalise, she said, has proven himself to be a “survivor” in more ways than one.
The congressman’s remarkable recovery from an assassination attempt last year inspired the entire country, much in the same way Gabby Giffords had seven years ago. Scalise’s colleagues on both sides of the aisle praised him as one of the kindest and most decent men on Capitol Hill, and when he returned to the chamber for the first time, they greeted him with a rousing and sustained standing ovation. That morning, Speaker Ryan walked into Scalise’s office to welcome him back, interrupting an interview Scalise was conducting with CBS. With the cameras rolling, Paul Ryan, upon seeing his friend in his office again, began weeping. There was nothing staged about it; Ryan was overcome with joy and, perhaps more than anything else, relief.
****
If it were not for one of the most stunning defeats in American history, Steve Scalise’s rapid ascent to the top of congressional leadership would have never been possible.
In June 2014, a little-known economics professor named Dave Brat defeated Eric Cantor, the second-most powerful member of the House, in a Republican primary, an election that Cantor had assumed he’d win easily. Kevin McCarthy would be promoted to Cantor’s old job; the contest was over who would replace McCarthy as House Majority Whip.
Although Scalise was, at the time, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, he wasn’t the most likely candidate for the job. For one, he was far more conservative than most of his Republican colleagues, and typically, the House Majority Whip has been more of a pragmatist than an ideologue.
But Scalise had two important things in his favor: The ascendancy of the TEA Party, which saw Scalise as one of their own, and the lack of Southern representation at the top.
He won on the first ballot, besting Marlin Stutzman of Indiana and Peter Roskam of Illinois.
“Scalise attributed his first ballot victory, against two opponents with sizeable GOP support, to having a ‘great team’ of fellow Republicans behind him. Scalise even brought back former Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, a Tea Party favorite, to promote him with the GOP conference’s most conservative members,” The Times-Picayune reported at the time.
Steve Scalise, by most accounts, is a genuinely nice man and a loyal friend, but he’s also a far-right ideologue whose political ascendance was built on a version of the “Southern Strategy.”
The story I first reported, more than three years ago, was that Scalise, when he was serving as a state representative in 2002, had spoken at a national convention of a white supremacist organization, a known hate group.
It’s also a story that demands revisiting in any discussion over whether Scalise is the appropriate person to become second in the presidential line of succession, particularly because the details of that story have largely been either obscured or forgotten and because, today, our country’s political system has been poisoned by the ascendence of those who traffic in racial resentment.
****
Acting off a tip provided by his former Democratic opponent, Gilda Reed, and her son, Robert Reed, both of whom claimed they had repeatedly been told of the existence of a photograph of Steve Scalise standing alongside the most well-known racist in the world, David Duke, I spent months researching and attempting to track down the alleged photograph or anyone who had ever seen it. It was a dead-end. The photograph, I concluded, didn’t actually exist, and the story about it was nothing more than a rumor.
But then, late one December night in 2014, I began combing through the archives of the online hate group StormFront, searching for Scalise’s name. Almost immediately, I found the following comment from 2002, written under the pseudonym Alsace Hebert (bold mine):
EURO’s recent national convention held in the greater New Orleans area was a convergence of ideas represented by Americans from diverse geographical regions like California, Texas, New Jersey and the Carolina’s. This indicates that concerns held are pervasive in every sovereign state and Republic alike, within an increasingly diminishing view of where America stands on individual liberty for whites.
In addition to plans to implement tactical strategies that were discussed, the meeting was productive locally as State Representative, Steve Scalise, discussed ways to oversee gross mismanagement of tax revenue or “slush funds” that have little or no accountability.Representative Scalise brought into sharp focus the dire circumstances pervasive in many important, under-funded needs of the community at the expense of graft within the Housing and Urban Development Fund, an apparent give-away to a selective group based on race.
EURO or the European-American Unity Rights Organization was the latest iteration of David Duke’s former group, the National Association for the Advancement of White People. Scalise may have not gotten a photograph with Duke (who participated via video-link from Russia), but it appeared fairly obvious that he had shown up and spoken at Duke’s conference.
Others had chimed in to Hebert’s thread, verifying his account.
But I understood I needed more material and a better grasp of the context before I could report anything written by someone on a hate group’s online bulletin board.
I asked a friend of mine, a skilled researcher and internet sleuth, to help. He attempted, repeatedly, to contact Hebert but never heard back. However, within only a day, he uncovered a second comment from Hebert, written two years later (we later confirmed Hebert’s real name and learned that he had recently passed away) (bold mine):
It was just announced that Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson will enter the race in the 1st Congressional District. Those that attended the EURO conference in New Orleans will recall that Scalise was a speaker, offering his support for issues that are of concern to us. I suppose if Duke does not make the election for whatever reason, this gentleman would be a good alternative.
I interviewed a woman from the Southern Poverty Law Center who had gone undercover at the conference; it unmistakably was about promoting white supremacy, she said. They were selling racist merchandise and t-shirts behind booths that lined the back perimeter of the conference room.
I discovered that a minor league affiliate of the Chicago Cubs had actually canceled their hotel reservations after learning the conference would be hosted there, a fact that had first been reported by, of all people, a man who would later emerge as one of Scalise’s staunchest defenders.
And then I asked a few people who had worked in state government leadership at the time whether they knew what Scalise meant when he allegedly referred to eliminating “slush funds.” They knew exactly what he was talking about: A proposal to defund community programs, primarily in minority neighborhoods and paid for through a portion of the hotel tax, in order to free up enough cash to lure the Charlotte Hornets basketball team to New Orleans. It was a familiar talking point, and, in 2002, it was the subject of intense public debate.
The reference to a “slush fund,” his former colleagues were certain, was not the same thing as the so-called “Housing and Urban Development Fund;” that was likely a reference to a local, ongoing controversy involving the Jefferson Parish Housing Authority.
I was satisfied that I’d collected more than enough evidence, but I understood I was taking a calculated risk. I didn’t wait for a comment by Scalise. I knew enough about him to know he would simply issue a denial.
I decided to hit publish on the very first story shortly before midnight on December 28th, 2014.
****
The next day, as I’d anticipated, Scalise issued a denial in an interview with The Times-Picayune, telling reporter Julia O’Donoghue, “For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous.”
O’Donoghue and others continued to pursue stories attempting to debunk my report about Scalise’s appearance at the EURO conference, relying on, of all people, the treasurer of the organization and a well-known aide to David Duke named Kenny Knight. Knight claimed, ludicrously, that Scalise had actually been at a completely different event at the same hotel, a neighborhood association meeting for a neighborhood located more than five miles away and an association that never actually existed. He told reporters that he personally left with then-state Rep. Scalise before the EURO conference began and that he was not associated with the organization, despite the fact that a picture of Knight at the conference features prominently in the organization’s newsletter and that Knight is listed as a registered agent of the organization in its filings with the Louisiana Secretary of State.
Kenny Knight (center) in 2002. (Photo credit: Louisiana Voice)But only 24 hours after telling O’Donoghue that it was “insulting and ludicrous” for anyone to claim he had attended the conference, Steve Scalise changed his story completely.
“One of the many groups that I spoke to regarding this critical legislation was a group whose views I wholeheartedly condemn,” Scalise told Jonathan Martin and Jackie Calmes for a front-page story in The New York Times. “It was a mistake I regret, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold.”
National Republicans were despondent and seriously concerned that the revelation one of their leaders had spoken at a hate group’s annual conference could inflict lasting damage on their efforts to win the White House in 2016, a worry that now seems well-intentioned but completely misplaced considering the campaign run by the man currently occupying the Oval Office.
In Louisiana, some Republican pundits simply pretended as if Scalise had never actually admitted the story was accurate. Conservative blogger Scott McKay, publisher of The Hayride, hoped to make the story about me. The state’s legacy media, for the most part, gave the congressman the benefit of the doubt and a sympathetic ear. There wasn’t a single elected official in Louisiana who publicly called for Scalise’s resignation.
With one notable exception, no one questioned how Scalise, a Republican politician from Jefferson Parish, could have possibly been unaware that Kenny Knight, one of Jefferson Parish’s most notorious political operatives and David Duke’s most well-known associate, was a virulent racist, and with one notable exception, no one criticized the gullibility of anyone who would believe Scalise’s excuse that he couldn’t have known EURO was a hate group because he was “without the advantages of a tool like Google.” (Scalise has a degree in computer science and worked as a software programmer. The event was held in 2002. Google debuted in 1998; by the year 2000, it was ubiquitous. Before Google, though, there was WebCrawler, Lycos, AltaVista, Excite, Magellan, Infoseek, and, of course, Yahoo. Search engines have been a fixture of the internet since 1994).
Jarvis DeBerryThe one exception was Jarvis DeBerry, who also happens to be the only African-American opinion columnist employed by a major Louisiana newspaper (a fact that speaks volumes about the overall failure of the state’s press to adequately represent or appreciate the perspectives of nearly a third of its populace).
“Scalise isn’t accused of fattening Duke’s pockets in any way,” DeBerry wrote. “But the question remains: Why did Scalise feel the need to go talk to a group whose very name should have clued him in on its racist ideologies? You ought to be able to guess the awfulness of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization without a computer. Maybe the answer is right there in front of our faces: In Louisiana, cozying up to such groups can be a way to win.”
To be sure, Stephanie Grace, who revealed that Scalise had once described himself to her as “David Duke without the baggage,” also found Scalise’s feigned ignorance to be problematic, but she was far more sympathetic; Scalise, she seemed to argue, was a victim of his own “relationship-building talents.”
It’s a thesis that she echoed in her most recent column about why it’s unwise to bet against his chances at the speakership.
Grace argued Scalise had survived both an assassination attempt and a political scandal. That’s only half true. He didn’t survive a political scandal. He was rescued from a political scandal by one of his closest friends, Rep. Cedric Richmond, an African-American Democrat and current chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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If it were not for partisan gerrymandering and the cynical way lawmakers in Louisiana carved out a majority-minority district in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act while also guaranteeing Republican control everywhere else, Richmond and Scalise would have likely competed for the same seat. Richmond represents most of New Orleans, but his district stretches all the way up to a majority African-American section of Baton Rouge, more than seventy miles away. Scalise represents the white flight areas located in between.
More than anyone else, it was Cedric Richmond who ensured that Steve Scalise would keep his position in leadership. Scalise, he assured critics, did not “have a racist bone in his body.” It was an extraordinary gesture, and, no doubt, it was also Richmond’s honest opinion of a man with whom he had forged a friendship.
Steve Scalise guards second base against his friend Cedric Richmond during a previous year’s Congressional baseball game.Both men share a love and talent for baseball. (Credit: Washington Post).
It was not, however, proof of Scalise’s ability to forge bipartisan consensus or reach across the aisle, as The Advocate has repeatedly argued.
More importantly, it’s a sad indictment of how divided our country is that we continue to perpetuate the notion there’s anything remarkable about a white conservative and a black liberal actually becoming friends with one another. It’s also a convenient excuse for us, especially in the South, to avoid confronting the most difficult questions about what animates our politics.
When he was a member of the Louisiana legislature, Steve Scalise opposed recognizing Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday. It was already a federal holiday, but his argument, at the time, was that it would have been one too many holidays for the state.
He championed and authored a constitutional amendment that banned marriage equality.
And when he addressed that conference of white supremacists, his speech was about the allegations of corruption in public housing and the importance of eliminating funding for social service and community programs in majority African-American neighborhoods in order to entice George Shinn, the disgraced owner of the Charlotte Hornets, to move his basketball team to New Orleans.
Scalise would tell the media that his speech was a part of his tour to drum up opposition to the Stelly Plan, a proposal to replace sales taxes on utilities and household consumptions, which disproportionately affected the poor and lower middle class, with modest increases in income taxes.
There’s only one problem with Scalise’s explanation: At the time of his speech, the Stelly Plan wasn’t yet on anyone’s radar; the bill hadn’t even been debated in the legislature. It hadn’t even been discussed yet in a committee hearing. It’s true that Scalise did go on a tour against the Stelly Plan, along with former State Sen. James David Cain, but that tour kicked off months later.
According to those who worked on the issue, it’s “absolutely inconceivable” that Scalise was talking about Stelly; no one was.
It’s also telling that his opposition to the Stelly Plan wasn’t what inspired praise from a white supremacist on a hate group’s online bulletin board; it was, instead, his alleged opposition to government spending on programs for a “selective group based on race” and his “support for issues that are of concern to us.” The speech had left such a strong impression on the man calling himself Alsace Hebert that, two years afterward, he mentioned it again as a reason for other white supremacists to support Scalise’s potential run for Congress.
He didn’t just hear dog whistles; he heard a man he believed to be preaching to his choir.
When the news first broke that Scalise had survived an assassination attempt, Jim Engster, one of the state’s sharpest political minds and long-time fixture of talk radio, recognized the political ramifications back home. It may sound cynical, but it’s also undeniably true: Scalise, already the dean of the Louisiana’s congressional delegation, would never have to worry about a well-financed opponent or losing his overwhelmingly conservative district to a fellow Republican like Eric Cantor had.
He had nearly lost his life because of his decision to serve the people of Louisiana in Congress, a fact that certainly will never be forgotten or unappreciated by his constituents and one that makes it difficult for his political opponents or the state media to criticize his record without coming across as dishonorable or disrespectful.
I don’t know Steve Scalise, but since I published the story about his speech, I have interacted a few times with his office. They have consistently treated me fairly and much more professionally than almost any other office currently occupied by a Republican from Louisiana.
I trust those who have vouched for his personal decency and kindness, and I admire the example he set and the resolve he demonstrated to the entire country during his recovery.
I also readily admit: I can’t be entirely objective about any of this. After I published that first story more than three years ago, I received hate mail and threats from complete strangers; I was the subject of mockery and ridicule by well-known Louisiana conservative pundits; I was warned repeatedly about the dangers of exposing the underworld of hate groups; at some point, a stranger broke into my backyard and severed my cable and internet connection with a power tool.
After the congressman was shot, a handful of people sent me e-mails or comments on Facebook blaming me for inspiring a clearly deranged man to plan and carry out an assassination attempt. “The blood is on your hands,” a mathematics professor from Ohio told me. Even though I understood that it requires a special type of hatred and delusion to accuse me of having anything at all to do with an act of violence, his words still affected me: This, I thought, is a symptom of a country now led by a man who calls the press “the enemy of the American people.”
But this is personal to me for another reason: Steve Scalise is clearly a talented and charismatic politician, and years ago, if he had just told the truth about his past associations and cynical alliances with the most toxic elements of Louisiana’s political establishment, he could have humiliated and exposed the realities of racism and the lingering influence of David Duke’s movement. He had a perfect opportunity, and instead, he lied with a straight face and the knowledge that the majority of voters of his district wouldn’t care.
But if the chance presents itself and he does ultimately decide to run for Speaker of the House (he claims that he would never challenge Kevin McCarthy, who has already received Paul Ryan’s endorsement, but in politics, the easiest thing to change is someone’s “intention”), his voting record, his beliefs, and his past associations all demand scrutiny from the entire country and his honest self-reflection.
“If you’re having a debate over whether a guy’s a racist, chances are that guy’s a racist,” the comedian Dave Letterman recently joked.
We’re already having that debate about the President of the United States. We can’t afford to also have it about the Speaker of the House.
Clarification and update: Jarvis DeBerry of The Times-Picayune is the only full-time African-American opinion columnist at a major Louisiana newspaper. Ed Pratt, a retired journalist and public relations professional, writes a weekly column for The Advocate. This article has also been updated to clarify that Scalise, contrary to his claim, was not on a speaking tour in opposition of the Stelly Plan when he spoke at the EURO conference. That tour did not begin until several months later, and at the time of the conference, the Stelly Plan hadn’t yet been heard in read in a single committee hearing.
“It’s something everybody looks for,” state Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R- Bossier City) explained in 2015. “It factors into fundraising when it comes to re-election time.”
Seabaugh wasn’t referring to the number of bills he sponsored or authored. He wasn’t talking about the laws he helped pass or even the amount of money he was able to bring back to his district.
He was, instead, openly acknowledging the pecuniary necessity of earning a top score from the most powerful lobbying organization in the state, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI).
In 1999, LABI launched a new initiative, a so-called “legislative scorecard.” The organization would give each and every legislator a grade; if a legislator voted in line with LABI’s recommendations 70% or more of the time (today it’s 80%), they would receive an automatic endorsement from the organization and, in subsequent years, a concomitant campaign contribution from at least one of LABI’s four political action committees. (LABI claims that contributions are given based on a four-year cumulative score, but a comprehensive analysis of campaign finance reports proves otherwise).
State Rep. Alan Seabaugh
“The scorecard itself is not something I put a lot of stock into, but the votes that they scored on that scoreboard (sic)—are something very important to me,” Seabaugh asserted three years ago, apparently all within the same breath.
“I voted against all the tax increases,” he boasted. At the time, Louisiana faced a catastrophic $1.6 billion budget shortfall. “The reason the scorecard was so bad for so many of my colleagues is because they decided to raise taxes on small business.”
His assessment was offered so matter-of-factly that no one, not even the reporter who conducted the interview, realized what he was actually saying: LABI had created a financial incentive for him to vote a certain way on specific pieces of legislation.
Since he was first elected in 2010, Seabaugh has consistently scored in LABI’s top tier, supporting their agenda more than 95% of the time.
In return, LABI has showered Seabaugh’s campaign with nearly $25,000 in donations from all four of its political action committees. During his eight years in office, Seabaugh has received over $136,000 in donations from PACs; if he had accepted any more PAC donations, he would have come awfully close to exceeding the legal limit.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Alan Seabaugh’s admission is that it’s taken three years for someone to point out that it was, in fact, an astonishing admission. It may not be against the law or prima facie evidence of political corruption, but at the very least, voters should be rightfully alarmed whenever a lawmaker casually reveals that his voting record is directly informed by the financial benefits of following a special interest group’s scorecard.
Of course, there is nothing exactly unusual or even wrong when an organization contributes to an elected official who supports their agenda, but the way LABI has structured their political lobbying and electioneering strategy- the whole concept of automatic endorsements and campaign contributions, well, that is extraordinarily unusual.
Alan Seabaugh is currently being considered by President Donald Trump for a federal judgeship.
If he’s nominated, he will face questioning on federal laws. He should consider polishing up good answers to a series of questions about quid pro quo contributions, the Hobbs Act, the tension between the Court’s holdings in McCormick and Evans, and the federal funds bribery statue, which is appropriately numbered §666. The federal courts have defined quid pro quo very simply as “something for something.”
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“When people weren’t paying any taxes and the oil and gas money rolled in, you could run things like a banana republic,” LSU political science professor Wayne Parent explained to The Christian Science Monitor in late October 2002, only a few days after former Gov. Edwin Edwards reported to prison. “Cajun-country era ends, prison term begins,” the headline blared.
Dr. Wayne Parent
“That century of being a great breeding ground for corruption is over,” Parent added, optimistically.
Sixteen years later, Parent acknowledges that corruption is still pervasive. “But the dynamic is different today than it was then,” he tells me. “When the price of oil was sky-high and the state’s coffers were flush with cash, public corruption was more frequently financed with public money. Today, it’s financed by outside money.”
The term “banana republic” was first coined by the great American short story writer William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name, O. Henry. He was describing the way in which the government and economy of Honduras, at the turn of the 20th century, was under the complete control of the United Fruit Company.
In a 2008 essay for Vanity Fair, the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens explained the characteristics of a banana republic:
… the chief principle of banana-ism is that of kleptocracy, whereby those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it. At all costs, therefore, the one principle that must not operate is the principle of accountability…..
In a banana republic, the members of the national legislature will be (a) largely for sale and (b) consulted only for ceremonial and rubber-stamp purposes some time after all the truly important decisions have already been made elsewhere….
I was very struck, as the liquefaction of a fantasy-based system proceeded, to read an observation by Professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management. Referring to those who had demanded—successfully—to be indemnified by the customers and clients whose trust they had betrayed, the professor phrased it like this:
These are people who want to be rewarded as if they were entrepreneurs. But they aren’t. They didn’t have anything at risk.
That’s almost exactly right, except that they did have something at risk. What they put at risk, though, was other people’s money and other people’s property. How very agreeable it must be to sit at a table in a casino where nobody seems to lose, and to play with a big stack of chips furnished to you by other people, and to have the further assurance that, if anything should ever chance to go wrong, you yourself are guaranteed by the tax dollars of those whose money you are throwing about in the first place!
Believe it or not, Wikipedia has one of the best distillations of Hitchens’ larger economic argument (emphasis added):
In economics, a banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, by which the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class. Such exploitation is effected by collusion between the State and favored economic monopolies, in which the profit derived from the private exploitation of public lands is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury.
When Wayne Parent optimistically spoke about the end of Louisiana’s “banana republic” century, he wasn’t really making a declaration; he was saying a prayer for his beloved home state. In the years since, countless articles have been written about how America itself has transformed into a banana republic (none as good as Christopher Hitchens’ essay, though), and perhaps as a consequence, the term has lost much of its meaning and significance.
But a banana republic isn’t a dictatorship; it’s not dependent on a charismatic and corruptible leader. Put another way, Huey P. Long didn’t turn Louisiana into a banana republic; Standard Oil did.
“Would you go along with this statement?” Gus Weill asked James Carville in 1991. “That there’s something either in our air or our drinking water that attracts kids, boys and girls, to politics?”
“Yeah, this is a theory,” Carville said, “and I’ll put it out there. There’s a great oral tradition here. There’s a great lust and love for entertainment. And it’s been said, point and jest, but I guess there’s some grain of truth here- that we expect our politicians to entertain us more than lead us. Unfortunately, we’ve been entertained more than we’ve been led.”
The featured image in this article is a satirical press release. Everything else is depressingly true. Read Part One of this series here.
Do state lawmakers comprehend they hold the powers of life and death for their constituents? After bill discussions, testimony, and debates like those heard Tuesday, it would seem they could hardly avoid recognizing the weight attached to their decisions.
One of the Senate Judiciary committees was forcefully reminded of the import of what they do, as they considered a bill to abolish the death penalty. After the measure’s author, Sen. J.P. Morrell, pointed out the financial costs of sentencing someone to death (triple the cost of keeping them in prison for life), Bishop Shelton Fabre with the Houma-Thibodaux Catholic Archdiocese directed the attention to the metaphysical costs.
“The search for justice does not compel us to seek the death penalty,” he said. “Execution simply offers an illusion of closure. Ultimately, it is revenge, not justice.
“The most important reason to end the death penalty is the belief that life is sacred. Let us end the culture of death, and truly build a culture of life.”
Sen. Bodi White (R-Baton Rouge) was unreceptive to the message.
“I’ve listened to you patiently, Bishop, but do you really think if we repeal the death penalty here – where we have the highest violent crime rate in the nation, in the world – do you think the violent crime rate will go down?” White asked, aggressively.
“I would hope so,” Bishop Farbe replied gently.
“I don’t think it will,” Sen. White said, folding his arms across his chest.
“Having the death penalty on books since the founding of this state has not deterred the crime rate, Sen. White,” Morrell responded. “Those who commit these crimes don’t value life at all – not even their own.”
On a 4-1 vote, with White’s the only vote against, the bill was sent to the full Senate for consideration.
The same committee was also slated to hear three ‘pro-life” bills, authored by Sen. John Milkovich of Shreveport, including a bill to ban all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Milkovich, however, was tied up presenting a bill in a different committee, so those bills were postponed for another week.
Meanwhile, across the building, House Appropriations was hearing grim details on the extended costs of budget cuts proposed for the Department of Health.
“Our public-private partner hospitals will close. Tens of thousands of recipients will lose services,” LDH Secretary Dr. Rebekah Gee testified. “Thousands of jobs will be lost.”
“There will be a domino effect throughout the state economy,” Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne added. “This will further diminish sales tax and income tax collections.”
“Under this worst-case scenario, right,” Rep. Lance Harris (R-Alexandria) responded. “But do we have an estimate of those job loss numbers?”
“I was asked to do an impact analysis on the cuts as proposed,” said Manfred Dix, fiscal analyst for the Division of Administration. “With a $2.4-billion overall cut to LDH – that’s state general fund and federal matching dollars – 57,000 jobs will be lost from Louisiana’s economy in the first year.”
That’s 57,000 residents who will be struggling for a way to make a living.
Many of those lost jobs will result from closures of the public-private partner hospitals. The private partners for the former Charity System facilities in Lafayette and New Orleans have already notified the state that they intend to close if the state can’t or won’t fully fund its obligation.
Dr. Gee noted that closing the New Orleans hospital will certainly result in deaths.
“It’s the state’s only Level One Trauma Center,” she reminded the money committee.
Taken aback, Harris said, “Well, hopefully this scenario won’t be the fact.”
Conversely, in the afternoon, Gov. John Bel Edwards released results of an LSU study showing the economic impacts of Medicaid expansion, which began July 1, 2016. The study, conducted by Dr. Jim Richardson, shows 19,200 jobs have been created or retained, and the $1.85-billion in federal funds expansion added has been leveraged into nearly $3.6-billion worth of total economic activity for the state, improving Louisiana’s overall standard of living.
Tuesday, the full Senate considered SB 274, banning the sale of assault weapons by anyone under the age of 21. Its author, Sen. Troy Carter (D-New Orleans) told members of the upper chamber, “We need to do something to make our classrooms safer.”
Sen. Eddie Lambert (R-Gonzales), argued, “This would mean a combat soldier under age 21 would be unable to purchase an assault weapon here at home.”
“He can’t buy alcohol either,” Carter answered, “But he could still buy a hunting rifle or shotgun.”
Reflecting some of the scare tactics used in propaganda disseminated to oppose to this bill, Sen. Bodi White asked, “If this is the first step, then what is step two?”
The opposition propaganda was fairly pervasive. For example, the Super-PAC created to support Attorney General Jeff Landry, Citizens for Louisiana Job Creation, had issued a “gun grab alert” Tuesday morning. It said “the anti-gun left is attempting to prohibit some adults from owning weapons”. Additionally, there was a localized campaign in Acadiana, targeting Sen. Fred Mills (R-Parks), who cast the deciding vote to move the bill out of the committee. Ads run by gun advocates there urged citizens to boycott Mills’ businesses (he’s a pharmacy owner).
When the bill failed in a full Senate vote of 9-26, Mills was among those who voted against it.
Back in House Appropriations, it was also public testimony day, when citizens are permitted to weigh in on the budget proposals. Their stories are never easy listening, as disabilities advocates annually plead their desperate need for state funding of more waivers, granting in-home care assistance for their loved ones.
This year’s pleas are especially distressing, with the billion-dollar-plus revenue dropoff due to the expiration of “temporary” taxes. This time, it’s not about years-long waiting lists: instead, nearly 72,000 residents currently receiving services through the life-saving waivers will be losing them. You see, these programs are considered “optional”.
Particularly poignant was the testimony from Ashley McReynolds of Baton Rouge. Here is her story:
“Please restore all the cuts to LDH services,” she said tearfully, because the Children’s Choice waiver is a lifesaver.
“My son has a rare genetic disease known as Prader-Willi Syndrome. For Cooper, it literally feels like he is starving to death all the time. This isn’t, ‘oh, I skipped breakfast; now it’s lunchtime and I’m starving.’ It’s a week in the desert without food or water starving.
“Prader-Willi also comes with other disabilities, including violent mood disorders. My son, age 11, doesn’t sleep through the night. He wears a breathing machine so he won’t drown in his own carbon dioxide exhalations, but he tears it off repeatedly during the night.
“He gets angry, and starts self-injuring. He physical attacks us, his family. Not long ago he attacked his teenage sister so violently that she developed severe anxiety, and began pulling her own hair out in clumps, leaving bald patches.
“Our family psychiatrist says I am suffering with PTSD.
“After Cooper was born, we applied to the state for assistance, were put on the waiting lists, and ultimately got some respite care. Then legislative budget cuts killed off that program. But we made too much to qualify for Medicaid.
“When Cooper was five, we decided to place him on another waiting list – for the only hospital in the nation providing inpatient care for Prader-Willi. It is in Pittsburgh. And while we waited for that, I finally got the call. Here at home, we were offered a Children’s Choice waiver. By the way, the call came while I was sitting outside Senate Finance, waiting to give budget testimony on the need to fund more waivers.
“Things have been worse for us, and will get way worse if we lose this waiver. It has saved our marriage and saved our family from from bankruptcy. This waiver isn’t a service creating a life of luxury and glam – it’s survival. It lets me take a shower! It has given our family the life-saving choice to have Cooper with us. It has let Cooper live.
“If it is taken away, we’ll go back to wondering how to pay for Cooper’s medications – which cost $3000 a month after insurance — and still keep the lights on. We will have to institutionalize him.
“If you do this, you are eliminating more than a service. You are issuing a death sentence: the death of my family unit, and the death of me. It will be the death of our children.”
House Appropriations is scheduled to unveil and vote on their budget recommendations Monday, April 16.
Will it be life or death?