Jindal hedges bets on legislative leaders

The Louisiana governor’s role in helping to decide who leads the state House and Senate is an anomaly unique in the nation – one that Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal isn’t giving up, even as he talks of the need for legislative independence.

Year after year, state lawmakers willingly cede their authority to the governor to determine who should be Senate president, House speaker, committee chairmen and other critical legislative positions whose appointments actually rest with lawmakers themselves.

Just as the governors before him, Jindal, who takes office Jan. 14, is inserting himself into those decisions.

He’s attempting to frame his involvement differently, however.

The governor-elect held press conferences announcing his support of Sen. Joel Chaisson as the next Senate president and Rep. Jim Tucker as the next House speaker. But he said he waited until each lawmaker got the support of a majority of members in their legislative chambers to support them. He classified his own support as “affirming” the choices of lawmakers.

“We asked them for their preference. We didn’t express a preference. We didn’t signal a preference. We wanted to genuinely know who did they want to lead the body,” Jindal said last week, describing his role in the process.

Behind the scenes, lawmakers disagree on whether Chaisson, D-Destrehan, and Tucker, R-Terrytown, actually had enough backing to win an election when the House and Senate hold an organizational session in January and formally elect their leaders.

But most lawmakers are in agreement of one thing: the backing of the governor is critical to maintaining the majority votes that Jindal claimed Chaisson and Tucker had two months before the election in each chamber. They say by inserting himself now, Jindal has assured that the two lawmakers he is supporting for the leadership roles will actually get them in January.

Further corroborating that assessment, once Jindal backed Chaisson and Tucker, the other major candidates to become House speaker and Senate president dropped their bids for the jobs.

A sampling of the reaction:

“I’m no longer going to pursue it. I don’t think you can fight the governor on an issue like this,” said Sen. Joe McPherson, D-Woodworth.

“We know what the governor’s involvement does. We know the reality. That’s just too much pressure when the governor gets involved to vote against the governor’s choice for speaker,” said Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-New Roads.

Despite the constitutional separation of powers, Louisiana’s lawmakers repeatedly are led by the governor’s decisions.

“I think there is a real desire to be independent, but a lot of people aren’t willing to take the risk and put all the chips on the line to make it happen. Nobody wants to risk being on the losing side, so it’s much easier if you throw it in the lap and let him decide,” said Rep. Rick Gallot, D-Ruston, once mentioned as a candidate for House speaker but who had thrown his support to Cazayoux.

New lawmakers – particularly those elected in a runoff two days before Tucker was announced as House speaker and five days after Chaisson was announced as the next Senate president – seem most at a disadvantage in the process, unable to even get through orientation before their leaders are selected.

Louisiana’s governors often have said, like Jindal, that they would steer clear of the jockeying for leadership jobs, but they never do, said Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego, a former House speaker who has served in the House since 1972 and moves to a Senate seat in January.

What remains to be seen is how involved Jindal will be in deciding who sits on each legislative committee, which often determines the fate and movement of bills. Already Chaisson and Tucker said they would be consulting with the governor-elect on those decisions.

It’s a situation that sets Louisiana apart, and Gallot said lawmakers in other states are floored when they learn of the Louisiana governor’s role in the state Legislature.

“When we tell them how the House and Senate leadership is decided, they look at us like we’ve got tails,” Gallot said. “Nobody else does it that way.”

Editor’s Note: Melinda Deslatte covers the state Capitol for The Associated Press.