Friday, June 27, 2008

A recall for Governor Jindal

Wow! Talk about your ill-advised efforts. The backlash due to the Louisiana Legislature's voting themselves a 127% pay raise has finally spilled over into the governor's mansion. Bobby Jindal, the wunderkind of the Republican party, is now the target of wrath for those voters who can't jibe with his political stance of not wanting to muck up the waters in Baton Rouge by vetoing the pay hike they voted for themselves. Jindal stated in very emphatic terms that he opposed the pay raise and found it distasteful for them to do so. However, he is pragmatic. If he squashed their pay raises now, he might be sacrificing any chance to get specialized legislation through the House and Senate in future years. He looked very impressive in detailing his plan to neither veto or refuse to sign the new legislation. Yet, Jindal could not have perceived how upset voters were across the state with regards to their representatives helping themselves to the money trough created through historically high taxes on oil and gas. It was easy to consider a pay raise that kicked in right away rather than, as had been the case previously, issue a pay raise for the next legislative session. Ann Duplessis, the author of the pay raise, will probably become the poster girl for unbridled greed in Baton Rouge. It seems to me to be unfair to lump Jindal into the same category as the others. Considering it will take a million signatures for the effort to suceed, I don't expect to hold my breath about Jindal being removed from office. As someone keenly interested in enacting reform legislation, it is a shame to lump him with the greedy legislators who complain about how little they are making when they knew full well of how poor the salaries were when they ran for the positions. It reminds me of the fellow who killed his parents and then begged for the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.

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