By Deon Roberts, Online Editor
“What’s in your wallet?” is Capital One’s slogan.
It could easily be the slogan for Blueprint Louisiana, a movement to increase transparency in state government, among other reforms.
But some lawmakers aren’t too keen on us knowing more about their financials. More on that later.
Blueprint Louisiana’s first goal is to “adopt the nation’s best ethics laws.” Their plans call for (1) legislative financial disclosure, (2) enhanced lobbyist regulation, (3) transparency in state funding of local projects and (4) increased funding for ethics oversight.
Louisiana desperately needs ethics reform, according to Blueprint Louisiana, which is made of concerned business and community leaders and citizens.
“Louisiana’s history of public corruption continues to harm our image around the country,” it says on Blueprint’s Web site. “National rankings highlight the real weaknesses in our governmental ethics laws, inhibiting prospects for greater investment and economic growth.”
The Blueprint folks are right. Louisiana has a terrible image nationally when it comes to crooked politics, even though there are other states with just as many, if not more, bad-intentioned elected officials.
Some members of the Louisiana Legislature aren’t too sure about all of this increased transparency.
For one, some legislators don’t want to be required to be more transparent if the same is not required of other state elected officials. That concern was what kept lawmakers from supporting reforms being pushed by LA Ethics 1, a different coalition of Louisiana groups trying to make Louisiana “a national model for governmental ethics laws and enforcement over the next two to three years.”
“If we’re talking about ethics reform, I’m completely for that for all elected officials,” said state Rep. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans.
Morrell has a good point. Members of the Legislature should not be the only elected officials required to become more transparent. It should be required of every elected official in every parish, no matter if they’re an appeals court judge, a member of the Public Service Commission, a sheriff, an assessor, a coroner, a school board member, a justice of the peace, a constable or a council member.
State Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans, worries that too much transparency will dissuade people from running for public office. He’s undecided on more transparency.
“Every nook and cranny of your personal life is under a microscope,” he said. “If you get to the point that it is completely transparent, no one’s going to run for public office.”
Hmm … Maybe that’s why it’s called “public office” instead of “private office.” Those who have nothing to hide should not be worried about transparency.
