Legislative leaders' scheme to give themselves more power
by EDITOR - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Legislative leaders' scheme to give themselves more power over the State Bond Commission hasn't gotten anywhere yet.

The legislation filed by Senate President Donald Hines and House Speaker Joe Salter hasn't budged since it was assigned to committee in late April. That is where the bill should die.

Senate Bill 14 is a bad idea. It would weaken the powers of the state treasurer, who now heads the bond commission, and would give legislators greater control over the commission and its agenda. Specifically, the bill would change the chairmanship to a rotating post held by the treasurer, the Senate president and House Speaker. The bill calls for an executive committee made up of those three officials to set the agenda for meetings.

Sen. Hines has already shown what sort of priorities he would set, and they are poor ones. The senator was foiled in his attempts to get Bond Commission backing for the state to finance half of a $135 million syrup mill in Bunkie -- Sen. Hines' pet project and a boondoggle if there ever was one.

Sen. Hines' behavior on the sugar mill is one example. His son-in-law, a cane farmer in the area, would have been one of the mill owners and stood to benefit financially if the state had agreed to carry half the debt burden.

Sen. Hines should have recused himself from voting on the proposal, but he didn't do so. Instead, he was one of the mill's most fervent advocates.

Fortunately, the Bond Commission ended up rejecting the Bunkie proposal. If Sen. Hines had been chairman, the outcome might have been different.

The Senate president and House speaker have a place on the Bond Commission, but there is no good reason to give them more power.