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Jindal trendy with ethics reform

Section: Politics

Jan Moller

By promising an overhaul of Louisiana's ethics laws as his first act as governor, Bobby Jindal is joining a recent national trend that experts attribute to public revulsion at political scandals and a declining overall trust in government.

From Alaska to Ohio and points in between, states have been revising their ethics laws in recent years to improve transparency and put new restrictions on interactions between legislators and lobbyists.
(AP File Photo by Lawrence JacksonLouisiana Gov.-Elect Bobby Jindal with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco take part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Overall, 47 states have introduced bills or passed laws in the past two years making revisions to their ethics laws, according to the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least seven states have approved major overhauls, and reviews are under way in three others.

"We are living in an age of transparency and public engagement," said Keon Chi, editor of The Book of the States, a reference book on the three branches of state government published by the Council of State Governments.

Jindal's timing also is no accident. He is following a script that's familiar to many newly elected governors, who have found that ethics reform is a way to win public acclaim for their administrations and set a tone of bipartisanship.

In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland had barely taken the oath of office this year when he issued an executive order mandating that members of his administration would live by tougher ethics rules than called for by existing law. And in New York, Gov. Eliot Spitzer made ethics reform a top priority during his early months in office this year.

The first few months of an administration are a traditional honeymoon period for governors, when they have the biggest chance of persuading lawmakers to change their behavior.

"His only time to get it through is at the beginning," said Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. "He'll have a honeymoon, and if he doesn't do it in the first six months it's not going to happen."

The Abramoff effect

Jindal has said he will call the Legislature into a special session focused exclusively on ethics shortly after he takes office on Jan. 14, and lawmakers could likely take up the issue before Mardi Gras.

Peggy Kerns, director of the Center for Ethics in Government, traces the recent uptick in ethics-related legislation to public disgust with the Jack Abramoff scandal in Washington. Abramoff, a high-flying Republican lobbyist, is currently serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to multiple corruption charges.

"I think the big push definitely started with Abramoff at the national level," Kerns said. "States do tend to pass ethics reforms when there are scandals, either at the national or at the state level."

While recent ethics changes in Alaska and Ohio came about partly as a reaction to scandals in previous administrations, Jindal takes over a state government that has been relatively scandal-free in the past 12 years. Nevertheless, civic leaders say the state still suffers from the battering its image took during the Edwin Edwards years, and the guilt by association that occurs any time a New Orleans politician is brought down by legal problems.

Although Jindal often criticized the "old corrupt crowd" in Baton Rouge as a candidate, he has said that stronger ethics laws are a key to making Louisiana more attractive to outside companies and investors, who have said in recent surveys that the state's reputation for political corruption is a factor in deciding where to invest.

Setting the bar high

But history suggests Jindal is also taking a calculated risk by setting a high ethical bar for himself and his administration, as such promises have come back to haunt governors who have failed to live up to their own lofty standards.

In Kentucky, for example, Gov. Ernie Fletcher was elected four years ago on a promise to "clean up the mess" in Frankfort, the state capital. But earlier this month he was trounced in his bid for re-election after his administration was beset by a patronage scandal that produced several indictments.

Al Cross, a longtime observer of Kentucky politics, said Fletcher's political woes might not have been lethal if he hadn't made clean government such a staple of his campaign.

"He had given people the clear impression that business was going to be done differently," said Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. "When you ride a white horse, the mud shows up a lot easier."

Although Jindal issued a 31-point ethics platform during the campaign, the details of what he will propose to the Legislature are still being mulled by an advisory panel that is holding public hearings around the state.

The goal of the special session is clear, however. The aim is not merely to bring Louisiana in line with other states, but to go beyond that and set the gold standard for ethics by passing some of the nation's toughest laws.

Lobbyist relationships

So far, Jindal's main focus has been on requiring greater financial disclosure from legislators, where Louisiana ranks 44th nationally, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

But reaching the top of national lists compiled by good-government groups could mean changing the after-hours culture of meals and entertainment that lobbyists routinely provide for legislators during the annual spring sessions.

Although most states have laws restricting the gifts that legislators can receive from lobbyists, only four have so-called "no-cup-of-coffee" rules that limit virtually all gifts from those who seek to influence the legislative process.

Louisiana's law makes an exception for meals and drinks, plus lobbyist-financed travel and tickets to sporting events and concerts. State law does require lobbyists to disclose what they spend to entertain legislators, though such disclosure is often spotty.

Cross, the Kentucky political observer, said the political culture in that state changed in the mid-1990s, after the Legislature required that lobbyists disclose every dime they spend on a legislator.

"It was a huge change for a place that had enjoyed this comfortable culture of buddy-buddy between the lobbyists and the legislators," Cross said.

Stern, of the Center for Governmental Studies, said the only way to truly change such relationships is to go beyond mere disclosure to a total gift ban. "I don't mind a $5 threshold. But lobbyists should be lobbying and not providing gifts to legislators," he said.

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