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Jindal era begins with high hopes

Section: Politics

Bill Barrow

If Bobby Jindal is searching for a way to define his inauguration today as Louisiana governor, he might choose "Great Expectations."

He's said as much himself.

On the campaign trail and since, he's promised to make Louisiana, a state known nationally for its colorful and corrupt political icons, "the gold standard for ethics."

Embracing victory in the Oct. 20 primary, he declared a "fresh start" for a state often derided -- sometimes by candidate Jindal -- as an underachiever and even an embarrassment in many national comparisons.

Although he concentrated his campaign efforts in northern Louisiana, he has since acknowledged the devastation of hurricane-ravaged southern Louisiana and promised to restore the New Orleans area and the coastline.

And as governor-elect, he's distributing inaugural materials emblazoned with a seal that bears the words "Believe in Louisiana," a message that might be translated, "Believe in Me."

Whether any of that yields a successful tenure, many Jindal supporters and political observers said, depends on how effectively the 36-year-old chief executive deals with the 144 legislators -- more than 60 of them new to the Capitol halls due to term limits -- who take their own oaths of office today.

Second, and not necessarily exclusive from his dealings with the Legislature, is how effectively he communicates with the electorate that sends those lawmakers to the Capitol.

Both jobs begin in earnest with his inaugural address, broadcast on statewide television, and the following legislative luncheon that honors the newly minted lawmakers.

"He's got to find a way to not only talk to his supporters and the people who want to help, but he's got to harness the good will coming from people who are not completely sold on this guy," said Louisiana State University professor Bob Mann, a former adviser to U.S. Sen. John Breaux and outgoing Gov. Kathleen Blanco, both Democrats.

Mann said that effort is particularly important as Jindal moves beyond his ethics agenda, which Mann said is arguably the only issue for which the new governor can claim a real mandate.

Legislature wants partner

It might seem self-evident to underscore the governor's need for persuasion, given that the Louisiana Constitution, like those in the other 49 states, makes the governor merely the chief executive in a government with two other co-equal branches, at least on paper.

But Louisiana governors, besides being afforded a blissful honeymoon period, typically enjoy considerably more power than is vested in them legally.

So a question for many Capitol watchers is whether Jindal can tap into that history, as he already seems to have done in blessing the impending elections of Rep. Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, as House speaker and Sen. Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, as Senate president.

Or, if Jindal, given his promise to change Louisiana politics, can be successful with a new, different approach.

"The Legislature is a radically different place going into this term than it has been in the past," Tucker said. "The Legislature under Blanco began to feel its own legs. The Legislature wants to partner, not rubber stamp what the executive branch has given us. That's a sea change."

Tucker illuminated that change recently when he refused to appoint Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, as House budget chairman to help the governor-elect mollify northern Louisiana lawmakers miffed over the concentration of legislative power in south Louisiana. Tucker conceded only in that he chose another northern lawmaker, Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, for the post.

Initial success is seen

Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, predicted that Jindal will enjoy initial successes, even in a February special session to debate his proposals to impose stricter disclosure requirements on lawmakers' personal finances and lobbyists' activities.

The test, he said, is how long the administration can make that last, particularly in the upper chamber, where only four of the 39 senators are new to the Legislature. "The Senate is now repository of knowledge and experience in Louisiana," Cross said.

Tucker said, "If anything, it's a power in which he cannot be timid, and in my experience with him, he is not timid."

Mann described for Jindal a "two-track" process of building public sentiment in favor of his ideas, while developing specific policies in concert with the Legislature.

"My experience, watching that Legislature, is that the governor can lead only so much if they (lawmakers) don't feel like the public really wants something," he said. "If the public isn't paying attention . . . they feel like they can get away with not doing anything or doing what they want to do."

Blanco often met trouble, Mann said, when she or her lieutenants did not consult enough with members, including her own floor leaders. "How enthusiastic can they be when they don't have any ownership" of an issue, Mann asked.

Practical action expected

Westwego Democrat John Alario, the Legislature's longest-serving member, agreed. "He certainly needs to work closely with the Legislature and the various members, listen to their concerns," said Alario, who will join the Senate today after term limits ended his 35 years in the House. "We certainly represent all the people of the state in individual way."

Alario said Jindal and his team -- about a dozen department heads, Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis and a relatively young senior staff with a Washington, D.C., flavor -- have thus far communicated well enough.

"He's been around politics," Alario said. "He knows how the legislative process works. You put an idea out there, and in a democracy you see where it goes."

Tucker predicted that the momentum for change and public dissatisfaction after the 2005 hurricanes, combined with high turnover in the Legislature, makes Louisiana "putty in Jindal's hands" if he plays the situation correctly.

Yet even as he praised Jindal for a lack of timidity, he cautioned the administration to embrace the virtues of pragmatism, a word that Mann, Cross and Alario used in some form when discussing Jindal, as well.

Cross said he expects Jindal to follow such a path, if for no other reason than to build his own resume.

"I expect him to speak ideologically but act practically," Cross said, noting the widely held presumption that the young governor-elect has ambitions for national office. "He needs a record of accomplishment in Louisiana. I think he will be more likely to take any accomplishments that he can later frame as more significant than perhaps they really are, rather than be a purist and face the potential for failure."

Alario, who is sometimes fingered by Republicans as a potential foe of the administration, said such a strategy would suit the new governor well.

"I think everybody that I've talked to is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt," he said. "This is a grand opportunity for Louisiana, and we certainly don't want to be a part of denying the state that opportunity."

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