Key budget measure stalls in La. House

BATON ROUGE (AP) — In a rebuke to Gov. Bobby Jindal, House lawmakers Wednesday rejected a proposal sought by the Republican governor to maintain his record against tax increases, upending budget-balancing negotiations.
The House Ways and Means Committee shot down the bill with a narrow 10-9 vote. But senators, trying to keep the measure alive, added it to three other bills later that evening, ensuring the debate would continue.
The disagreement raises questions about whether lawmakers can agree on a way to balance next year’s $24 billion budget with financial plans that can escape Jindal’s veto.
“We’ve got time to talk and quit all the sword-rattling ... and see if we can’t reach some agreement,” said Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego.
The legislative session must end June 11.
The bill in dispute — by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville — would create a new higher education tax credit as a complicated means to let Jindal claim he hasn’t raised taxes to close next year’s budget shortfall.
“It’s a way to go about having a budget that this governor might sign,” Donahue told the House committee.
Opponents say the proposal is a sham, aimed at protecting the governor’s presidential ambitions. Rep. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzales, called it a “gimmick.”
“I don’t know if you’d call it laundering money or what you’d call it,” he said.
Jindal, expected to announce his White House bid later this month, won’t support any tax changes he — or national anti-tax activist Grover Norquist — considers a net tax increase.
With a $1.6 billion budget hole next year, lawmakers and the governor have acknowledged they must find ways to drum up new dollars for the budget to keep from devastating higher education and public health care programs.
The House didn’t bother meeting Jindal’s criteria with its budget-balancing plan, which involved $615 million in tax hikes and scaled-back tax breaks. Senators, however, are trying to meet the complex set of parameters set by Jindal to avoid a veto of the financing plans for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Donahue’s higher education tax credit bill is critical to making the veto-proof deal work.
“You have to have this,” Alario said.
The proposal would involve raising a new “fee” on college students. The students wouldn’t actually pay the fee because it would be covered by the state through the tax credit, paid directly to colleges and offset with tax increases elsewhere, like a cigarette tax hike.
It doesn’t provide any new revenue to the state or to colleges, but is used for Jindal to claim an offset to other tax increases so he can say the state didn’t raise taxes to balance the budget.
“There’s no real money here,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Marksville.
Higher education leaders, worried they face budget cuts if lawmakers and the Jindal administration can’t work out a tax deal, are pushing for the tax credit’s creation.
“Without this bill, I do not see a tax-neutral budget, and without a tax-neutral budget, I do not believe higher ed will get the money that is currently contemplated for them,” said Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield, the governor’s point person on the tax negotiations.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Joel Robideaux voted against the bill, so Donahue added the language to three of Robideaux’s bills that were up in Senate Finance by Wednesday evening.
“The Ways and Means Committee threw stones at Sen. Donahue, and we threw stones back. It happens all the time,” Alario said.
Jindal’s chief of staff, Kyle Plotkin, said a deal can be struck: “There’s still time to get a budget done that is balanced, protects higher education and health care and doesn’t raise taxes.”

TOPS costs
Gov. Jindal will decide whether to place new spending restrictions on the TOPS free college tuition program.
With a 28-6 vote Wednesday, the Louisiana Senate gave final legislative passage to the bill by Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville.
The Republican governor opposed the cost-control measure, but his office hasn’t said whether Jindal will strike it down.
Asked if Jindal will veto the measure, governor’s spokesman Mike Reed didn’t answer directly, saying in an email: “We still have concerns with the bill.”
A decision could be caught up in ongoing budget negotiations.
Under the bill, the TOPS tuition payment rate would be locked in at the 2015-16 level. Rather than automatic increases whenever tuition costs rise, increases to TOPS payments in later years would need separate legislative approval.
Supporters say that will ensure Louisiana can continue to afford the program. Jindal objected because students and parents could have to pay more out of pocket for tuition.
TOPS is slated to cost $284 million next year and is projected to continue growing. Lawmakers worry about being able to continue affording the program, particularly as colleges seek continued tuition increases to offset state financing reductions.

Allain gun bill
Louisiana state Sen. Bret Allain says retired lawmakers should have expanded conceal-carry privileges because decisions they make at the Capitol may have “angered” voters.
Retired lawmakers “have a history of things they’ve done in their career that may have provoked anger,” the Franklin Republican argued as he attempted to tack the perk on to an existing bill giving retired judges and district attorneys the same special privileges.
His colleagues disagreed.
Though the Senate overwhelmingly supported a measure by Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Natchitoches, extending the benefits to the retired judges and district attorneys, senators balked at Allain’s proposal, shooting down his amendment 27-11.
The failed amendment would have allowed lawmakers to carry a concealed weapon in an expanded number of places, though a qualifying test would have been required every year to retain the privilege. Those who left office in disgrace would not be eligible for the privilege, and it would have applied only to legislators who served more than one term.
As written, the portion of the bill that was approved does not state what additional places a concealed firearm could be carried or if the same fees citizens pay when applying for a conceal-carry permit will be charged. In a prior committee meeting, proponents said retired officials would be able to carry a gun in places that restrict concealed weapons.
The approved portion of Cox’s bill now goes back to the House for a final vote.
Sen. Karen Carter Peterson said Allain’s amendment was about bestowing retiring lawmakers with a special right that everyday citizens don’t receive.
“We are oftentimes accused of being self-serving and making sure we have privileges that other people don’t have,” the New Orleans Democrat said. “Why can’t we treat ourselves as citizens and be subjected to the same processes as citizens?”

Transparency
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate want to curb the broad public records exemptions granted to Louisiana’s governor, and the proposed changes moved one step from final legislative passage Wednesday with a 100-0 House vote.
The proposal by Sen. Dan Claitor, a Baton Rouge Republican, would keep the governor’s communications with internal staff exempt from disclosure. But it would get rid of several exemptions introduced into public records law in a 2009 revamp backed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.
The Senate has agreed to the measure. Claitor’s bill returns there for approval of technical changes.
If it becomes law, the changes would take effect when a new governor enters office in January. Jindal hasn’t taken a position on the proposal so far and hasn’t said whether he’d sign it, even though it wouldn’t affect his administration.
Though attempts to change public records law in prior years have rarely escaped committee, the House didn’t even debate Claitor’s bill when it came up for a vote Wednesday. Lawmakers in recent years have complained that the Jindal administration took advantage of the 6-year-old law in ways that weren’t anticipated.
Claitor’s bill would remove an exemption that gives executive branch departments a six-month blackout period on budget documents.
It also would do away with language that hides records considered part of a governor’s “deliberative process.” Agencies outside of Jindal’s office have claimed that exemption, even though it’s not granted to them in law.
The Jindal administration has described the deliberative process exemption as a way to protect the free flow of ideas and discussions that help the governor make decisions. But the language has been more broadly interpreted than lawmakers wanted.