Stephanie Grace has some good advice for Governor Edwards
ahead of the special session.
Louisiana’s governorship comes with some major built-in powers, and the savviest governors know how to use them.
Most immediately, he can narrowly tailor the call for the special
session that’s just over a week away. As Alford reports, Republican
lawmakers are asking Edwards to give them a broader array of options,
including some ambitious ideas to restructure government.
“We urge you to open the special session call to include reforms to
Medicaid, the state pension systems, employee health care, sentencing
and corrections, institutional reorganization, board and agency
consolidations, and other areas that require strategic reform to deliver
high-quality services at the most effective cost to the taxpayer,”
Alford quotes from a draft letter to the governor.
All those conversations should happen, but having them in a session
that will likely run less than a month, one that should necessarily be
devoted to addressing immediate funding shortfalls of $750 million for
this year and $1.9 billion for next, sounds more like an effort to head
off the tax increases that Edwards is reluctantly seeking than to really
solve problems.
Edwards has the power to set the terms of this debate, and he should take it.
Either you're driving the purple party bus or that thing will drive you.
