Clancy: Jindal traded the pay raise for vouchers

This morning on the Gambit blog:

Early in the session — very early in the session — several key lawmakers met face-to-face with Jindal to discuss the pay raise idea. They wanted to know up front if he was going to oppose it publicly or veto it, because if either scenario occurred they didn’t want to waste time and political capital voting for a highly controversial measure, one they knew would draw voters’ ire, only to have him shoot it down. They reasoned correctly that they wanted Jindal to “hang” with them on this one, or else no one should hang at all.

In that meeting, which occurred in very late March or very early April, Jindal promised he would not oppose the raise — but in return, he secured a promise that lawmakers would pass his voucher (“scholarship”) bill.

Ryan at The Daily Kingfish had already figured as much... but it's still a lot of fun to see Clancy write it.

Unfortunately for Jindal "nobody could have predicted" the political firestorm the pay raise issue would stoke. And then, of course, we all got a big laugh out of watching Jindal try to phony his way out of the corner and fail miserably leaving both the voters and the legislators feeling burned. We've already discussed this as well but it's still fun to see Clancy write it.

My point here is that Jindal was in on the pay raise deal from the get-go. He did not, according to my sources, quibble over the size of it. His priority was the voucher bill, and he agreed to let lawmakers determine the size and timing in exchange for what he wanted.

Later, when the bill became hotter than anyone anticipated, Jindal apparently dispatched his chief of staff, Timmy Teepell, with a message that the governor would veto the raise because it was too big (at least, that was the official excuse). At that point, House Speaker Jim Tucker countered with a threat against Jindal’s “reform” agenda — the voucher bill. Obviously, a whole lot of folks don’t consider vouchers a “reform,” and it’s interesting that Jindal never fully identified which bills were being held “hostage” as a result of Tucker’s threat.

Notice, however, that while it's been a fun ride, the voucher program did indeed pass. And while the Governor hasn't vetoed the pay raise, it's the legislators that are currently bearing the brunt of the political outrage in the form of recall petitions. Meanwhile PBJ has pushed through a high-priority (and downright awful,by the way) piece of legislation. And with four years to go before he faces the voters again he has plenty of time to undo the political damage done by the pay raise non-issue.

Update: Recall petition filed against Jindal