SAY WHAT?!?

By Jeremy Alford

“I feel like I’m the last fella who married Elizabeth Taylor,” said Sen. Robert Adley, upon being asked to address a meeting of oil executives during the legislative session that ended recently. “I have no idea what I’m doing up here or how to keep it interesting.”

The 2015 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature was nothing if not interesting. A $1.6 billion budget shortfall set the stage for a tumultuous gathering that was super-heated by the re-election hopes of lawmakers and the presidential ambitions of Gov. Bobby Jindal. Or, as the governor’s legislative liaison, Troy Hebert, said of the combinations, “That’s an explosive gumbo right there.”

The words of lawmakers and those who sought to influence and critique them were used as daggers and darts this session — that is, when they weren’t being used to mean nothing.

For example, Jindal’s so-called SAVE tax credit fell under heavy criticism as the session’s linchpin policy proposal for offering cover against tax increases so the Legislature and governor could claim none were actually raised. Lawmakers described it as “nonsense,” “fiction‚” “embarrassing,” “stupid,” “money laundering” and “a gimmick.”

Rep. Darrell Ourso, serving in his first session as a true freshman, supported the convoluted tax credit scheme and immediately regretted it. “As a kid, my mother gave me castor oil,” he said. “This vote was like that. Stinky, yucky stuff.”

Ourso probably cited his mother more than anyone else this session. When Rep. Sam Jones attempted to move his legislation to increase cost of living adjustments for public retirees, Ourso noted, “My own mother would benefit from this COLA. I would have to vote against my own mother.”

Jones, always quick with a snappy retort, wisely replied, “Mr. Ourso, I would recommend you never vote against your own mother.”

Jindal’s entire budget proposal was cast as “smoke and mirrors” by many lawmakers, but not Rep. Julie Stokes, who clearly has a firm grasp on the science of wavelengths. “It’s smoke,” she said. “Mirrors require light.”

The session was bursting at the seams with complex tax proposals that required hours of debate, research and light for lawmakers to fully understand. Stokes, a CPA, introduced a few of the more intricate tax bills, and she did her best to explain them.

“Is there going to be a test?” asked Rep. Major Thibaut after one such lengthy exposition.

“Yes. You’ll have to vote on it,” answered Stokes to nervous laughter, later adding to a glassy-eyed Ways and Means Committee, “I feel like I’m losing y’all.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Joel Robideaux, a fellow CPA, seemed to already know that. The scenario was repeated often during the session. “You lost them at hello,” Robideaux told Stokes.

So what did lawmakers do exactly? Well, they created $720 million in new revenue largely by raising taxes without making any substantive changes to the state’s structural spending problems. Or, as Treasurer John Kennedy put it, they continued to burn through money “like it was West Virginia ditch water.”

Lawmakers not only had to produce a balanced budget, but they also had to make it revenue neutral to meet the governor’s no-tax pledge — hence the need for the SAVE plan. Many longtime lawmakers said they have never seen a session like this one, and they indeed showed their age.

When a bill was passed to create a specialty license plate for the 300th anniversary of the city of New Orleans, Senate President John Alario, with 43 years in the Legislature, remarked, “I remember the day.”

And just in case he ever forgot his seniority status, his colleagues, like Sen. Sherri Smith Buffington, reminded him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was six-years-old when you came to this Capitol,” she told Alario.

As deadly serious as the session should have been, there were more than a few lighter moments courtesy of the Common Core debate. Proponents and opponents handed out stuffed animals as part of their marketing campaigns, and the little, plush critters sat on lawmakers’ desks the entire session like prized Mardi Gras throws.

“The Common Core compromise started with a unicorn and then a crawfish,” said Ourso. “So do we get a UniFish next?”

The session’s next display of plush toys came from Sesame Street — blue Grover dolls. Jones said he found one on his desk during the final week of the session — a joke from a colleague playing on the name of Grover Norquist, the president of Americans For Tax Reform, which enforces the no-tax pledge Jindal signed and that lawmakers argued had too much influence over the session.

“Grover tells me it’s time for lunch,” Jones said from the well of the House during the final week, holding the blue doll aloft.

Mostly lawmakers tried to keep the fiscal wheels from falling off the budget. Rep. Rob Shadoin was more honest than most in regard to his job duties, saying, “I’m trying to keep the defecation from hitting the ventilation.”

Try as Shadoin and others did, I’m not so sure that particular mission was accomplished, because the you-know-what definitely hit the fan — and Louisiana’s budget woes are far from over.

GLARING GAFFES

COMPILED BY BRAD GOINS

“I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.”

— President Richard Nixon offering one explanation as to why those notorious Watergate tapes are still around.

“Read my lips. No new taxes.”

—Debate statement made by George H.W. Bush, who would become the 40th President of the United States. When Bush did raise taxes in his first term the public’s memory of the statement is thought to have cost Bush re-election.

“We have every mixture you can have. I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent.”

— James Watt bragging in 1983 about the diversity on a panel he created. Watt was serving as the Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan administration. He was obliged to resign several days after he made the statement.

“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”

— President Gerald Ford in a 1976 debate against Jimmy Carter. Moderator Max Frankel was so taken aback he said “I’m sorry. What?” Ford went on to explain that he felt that Poland and Romania were not under Soviet influence. The gaffe is thought to have cost Ford the election.

“I have no intention of raising taxes.”

— President Bill Clinton

“I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.”

—David Dinkins, mayor of New York City. Dinkins is the only black mayor of NYC to date. He was being accused of failure to pay personal income taxes. The matter was settled out of court.

“I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.”

— Vice-President Dan Quayle. It’s a good thing Quayle didn’t want to get rid of the other members.

“Who am I? Why am I here?”

— These beautifully existential statements were the opening debate salvoes of independent candidate Ross Perot’s VP choice James Stockdale in the 1992 debate for VP.

“What’s happened in America today is too many people live in areas where there’s no family structure no community structure, and no work structure. And so there’s a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there’s too much personal freedom. When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.”

— Bill Clinton on the MTV show Enough Is Enough

“Is our children learning?”

— One of the best-known “George W. Bushisms”

“Mission Accomplished”

— Banner that hung behind President George W. Bush when he announced “victory” in Iraq on a U.S. warship in May 2003. Bush later denied having any knowledge of the banner. Sailors on the ship countered that they had been asked by White House staff to hang up the banner.

“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”

— Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C. He may have been right. But the killings did look kind of bad.

“When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in … that’s just human nature.”

— A very optimistic Dianne Fienstein. It sounds fun. But this one turns out to be one of those internet hoaxes. Readers should have been tipped off by the source — a periodical titled the Palookaville Post. The author of the satirical story was one Jimmyolsentwins. The story was a parody of comments Feinstein had made about an armed gunman who was the object of a manhunt in California.

“If we made Mexican food illegal aliens wouldn’t be able to eat in the United States and illegal border crossing would stop.”

— Michelle Bachman on Fox News on August 4 2014. Although I was inclined to think this was another internet hoax I couldn’t find any evidence of that. You be the judge.

“I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”

— State Sen. Tommy Tucker (R-Union County; North Carolina). Tucker made the comment to a journalist who demanded that Tucker call a vote on a bill. It was thought that the vote count that Tucker reported might have been inaccurate. The comment doesn’t appear to have hurt Tucker’s career.