The 2009 Regular Session of the Legislature is approaching its conclusion, and it probably will not generate fond memories in the minds of most individuals. Gertrude Stein once described Oakland, California by saying: "There is no 'there' there." It is difficult at this juncture to capture the "there" in this convocation of the Legislature.
Granted, the budget shortfall usurped almost every other potential topic during the session. Trying to plug a billion-dollar-plus hole in the operating budget was acts one, two, and three of the three-act play that was this legislative session. And, as with most acting performances, there was a lot of posturing and over-playing of roles.
The current battle of the budget centers around the House that wants to make a significant amount of cuts now (believing that there is more fiscal pain coming in the next two budgets), and the Senate that feels the amount of cuts proposed by the House is too severe. The Senate wants to take a significant amount of money from the Rainy Day Fund and to increase tax revenues to supplement the budget. Many members of the House have concerns about tapping the Rainy Day Fund at this juncture and are dead set against raising taxes. The two chambers are on a collision course with only a week left in the session.
Fiscal disputes such as the current one are somewhat rare. Why? Because the Legislature usually follows the governor's lead on budget matters. Governor Jindal has been a player but not necessarily a dominant one thus far in the budget debate. Yes, he said he would not allow any taxes to become law, but that didn't stop the Senate from (illegally) trying to advance one. Perhaps that was just posturing on the Senate's part so they could appear to be funding unfunded elements of the budget and jamming the House with the issue.
But the House wasn't in the mood for a jam. In an interesting move, the House concurred with the Senate amendments to the budget instead of sending the legislation to a conference committee. The Senate then loudly protested that the House had the audacity to adopt the amended version of the budget that the Senate had sent them. (Talk about audacity!) Now the Senate is amending House bills to send more revenue raising measures back to them in order to put pressure on the House to lessen the amount of cuts in the budget that is now sitting on the governor's desk.
The clock is ticking and the outcome of the battle over the budget is still up in the air. One of two scenarios is going to prevail in some fashion: Either the House's view (serious budget cutting needs to begin now because the news only gets worse in subsequent budgets) or the Senate's plan (raise more money now and hope for better times going forward) will become dominant. The outcome could be resolved fairly quickly if Governor Jindal sold the public on exactly what he thinks the solution to the problem should be-and why. He has stated in the past that he is not for raising taxes or tapping the Rainy Day Fund (except for perhaps $50 million) to address the budget shortfall. If that is where he still is in the deliberations, a forceful statement by him would likely conclude the issue. If he has changed his mind, it is time to let the world know.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Games People Play
Dan Juneau
A recent ruckus in the state legislature has created a lot of anger and garnered national media attention. The incident involved a sneak attack amendment that Representative Avon Honey managed to get tacked onto one of his bills. The result was a 99-0 vote in the House of Representatives for a bill that, as amended, would enact changes in Louisiana’s unemployment compensation law to be eligible for unemployment compensation stimulus money approved by Congress.
There is more than meets the eye in this maneuver. The bill that was amended was on the “consent calendar” of the House agenda. That part of the agenda is reserved for bills that are totally non-controversial and can be considered quickly in order to speed up the legislative process. The original bill pertained to changes in the workers’ compensation law—not unemployment compensation.
Placing an unemployment compensation amendment on the bill violates the “dual object” provision in the Louisiana Constitution. That provision is designed to maintain order in the legislative process by preventing bills from being hijacked willy-nilly by amending them to have more than one objective.
Essentially, Representative Honey’s last second, unconstitutional amendment to his bill on a calendar reserved for totally non-controversial bills violated the legislative process on several levels, but that was just the opening act. When the bill arrived in the Senate, another game was played when it was referred to committee.
Under the Senate’s rules, the bill should have either not been referred due to its dual object flaw or, if referred, it should have gone to the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee. Instead, the bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee, presumably under the pretext that it has an impact on state finances.
Senate rules do provide for the dual referral of bills that have a significant fiscal impact. However, the rules clearly state that those bills must first go to the substantive committee (in this case, Labor and Industrial Relations), and only if they advance from that committee should they go to the Finance Committee for the fiscal impact review. The rules of procedure were abused and violated in both the House and the Senate on Rep. Honey’s bill.
Why?
Unfortunately, it has a lot to do with game-playing and message-sending. The unemployment compensation stimulus issue has devolved, to a significant degree, into a Republican versus Democrat and Jindal versus Obama spat. Other bills were filed to do exactly what Rep. Honey’s unconstitutional amendment attempts to do.
However, each time those bills were scheduled for hearing in the House committee, the authors declined to have them considered in a free and open debate on their merits. Instead, the route of subterfuge and abuse of legislative rules was taken.
Governor Jindal’s opposition to taking this portion of the stimulus money has to do with future tax increases on struggling employers to pay for the added benefits once the federal money is gone. His objection is a valid one. Some claim that the stimulus money in question is needed to delay tax increases and benefit cuts that will occur as unemployment claims climb in the future.
That is a bogus argument. Those tax increases and benefit cuts will occur next January regardless of the stimulus money. What the changes in our unemployment compensation law will do is bring us closer to additional employer tax increases and unemployment benefit cuts in the future as the unemployment trust fund has to continue to pay for the new benefits once the stimulus money is used up.
There is room for honest debate about the unemployment compensation stimulus money. There shouldn’t be any tolerance for abuse of the process so that some folks can play games and send messages.
A recent ruckus in the state legislature has created a lot of anger and garnered national media attention. The incident involved a sneak attack amendment that Representative Avon Honey managed to get tacked onto one of his bills. The result was a 99-0 vote in the House of Representatives for a bill that, as amended, would enact changes in Louisiana’s unemployment compensation law to be eligible for unemployment compensation stimulus money approved by Congress.
There is more than meets the eye in this maneuver. The bill that was amended was on the “consent calendar” of the House agenda. That part of the agenda is reserved for bills that are totally non-controversial and can be considered quickly in order to speed up the legislative process. The original bill pertained to changes in the workers’ compensation law—not unemployment compensation.
Placing an unemployment compensation amendment on the bill violates the “dual object” provision in the Louisiana Constitution. That provision is designed to maintain order in the legislative process by preventing bills from being hijacked willy-nilly by amending them to have more than one objective.
Essentially, Representative Honey’s last second, unconstitutional amendment to his bill on a calendar reserved for totally non-controversial bills violated the legislative process on several levels, but that was just the opening act. When the bill arrived in the Senate, another game was played when it was referred to committee.
Under the Senate’s rules, the bill should have either not been referred due to its dual object flaw or, if referred, it should have gone to the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee. Instead, the bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee, presumably under the pretext that it has an impact on state finances.
Senate rules do provide for the dual referral of bills that have a significant fiscal impact. However, the rules clearly state that those bills must first go to the substantive committee (in this case, Labor and Industrial Relations), and only if they advance from that committee should they go to the Finance Committee for the fiscal impact review. The rules of procedure were abused and violated in both the House and the Senate on Rep. Honey’s bill.
Why?
Unfortunately, it has a lot to do with game-playing and message-sending. The unemployment compensation stimulus issue has devolved, to a significant degree, into a Republican versus Democrat and Jindal versus Obama spat. Other bills were filed to do exactly what Rep. Honey’s unconstitutional amendment attempts to do.
However, each time those bills were scheduled for hearing in the House committee, the authors declined to have them considered in a free and open debate on their merits. Instead, the route of subterfuge and abuse of legislative rules was taken.
Governor Jindal’s opposition to taking this portion of the stimulus money has to do with future tax increases on struggling employers to pay for the added benefits once the federal money is gone. His objection is a valid one. Some claim that the stimulus money in question is needed to delay tax increases and benefit cuts that will occur as unemployment claims climb in the future.
That is a bogus argument. Those tax increases and benefit cuts will occur next January regardless of the stimulus money. What the changes in our unemployment compensation law will do is bring us closer to additional employer tax increases and unemployment benefit cuts in the future as the unemployment trust fund has to continue to pay for the new benefits once the stimulus money is used up.
There is room for honest debate about the unemployment compensation stimulus money. There shouldn’t be any tolerance for abuse of the process so that some folks can play games and send messages.
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