Expiration date

One thing that's come out of this is we can now assume the shelf life of your typical "good government reform" effort is about 8 years.

The political independence of these two regional flood protection authorities relies hugely on their status as political subdivisions. They are units of local (not state) government. They serve our metropolitan area flood protection needs and are no longer controlled by the governor, as metro-area levee boards were pre-Katrina.

These repeated legislative assaults on the political independence of the flood protection authorities would move them away from the protections of local government, weakening them by treating them as state agencies subject to the governor’s control.

That’s not what Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans fought for in 2006. That’s not what Louisiana voters approved when they passed the 2006 constitutional amendment.

But that is what SB 553 is now trying to accomplish, by chipping away at the authorities’ powers and treating them differently from other levee districts and political subdivisions in Louisiana.

Political scientists will thank us for this measurement tool.  We should give them a name for this unit that honors its discoverer.  We could call it a Jindal but that's already the amount of time a sitting governor spends out of state campaigning for President.  "Adley" has a nice ring to it, though.  One Adley = about 8 years.