John Schroder's Road Home to nowhere

Look, if you have a small business that you are trying to keep afloat through all of this mess, by all means, go ahead and apply for one of these grants. I'm sure it will end up helping a few people. How many it helps is up for debate, though. Particularly in comparison to what that money might have done if it had remained available for local governments in need of help recovering from COVID induced budget problems.

And, of course, we also have to compare it with how much John might allow to be stolen. 

Though many of the legislators are concerned about fraud, Schroder said he wouldn’t be able to stop all of it.

“I am not going to design a program that puts so much red tape on the 90% just to stop the 10% bad actors,” Schroder said, adding that it’s important to be careful but not too cumbersome.

“Are we going to stop all the fraud, Mr. President? No. But we’ll do our best,” Schroder said.

Just so we're clear here. This is the same John Schroder who ran this campaign ad.



See that guy seems pretty tough.  It's strange to see him turn around and take such a relaxed attitude toward this project.  Why would that happen, one wonders.

Accountant Joel Robideaux, a former state legislator and Lafayette Parish president, and Baton Rouge attorney Jason DeCuir, who has been heading the Legislature’s Louisiana Economic Recovery Task Force since April, have teamed up to bid on a contract to administer the $300 million in federal pandemic relief money the Legislature has set aside for small businesses.

State Treasurer John Schroder’s office is technically in charge of the small business program, which is due to start up July 4, but is farming out its day-to-day operations, which include vetting applications and deciding which small businesses qualify for grants under the program.

Earlier this month, Schroder issued a request for qualifications. Several were submitted, his spokesperson confirms, though she was unable to make them immediately available before this afternoon’s publication.

Robideaux, however, confirms he and DeCuir are among those seeking the contract, which could be worth up to $15 million, or 5% of the total $300 million, which is coming from the federal CARES Act pandemic relief package.

It was just four days ago we were asking whose friends were about to start pulling down some of this money the Republicans looted from the CARES allocation.   Sometimes you get your answers pretty fast.

Robideaux, besides being a former elected official, is a known personal friend of current Senate President Page Cortez and owns property with him, according to records from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office of Corporations.

Cortez’s Cortez Management LLC and Robideaux are the officers in an entity called Bluebird Heaven LLC.

DeCuir, meanwhile, was tapped earlier this spring to spearhead a legislative committee convened to craft a legislative agenda to help the state recover economically from the coronavirus shutdown. The committee has focused on a largely pro-business agenda and has pushed to get more money into the hands of small businesses.

Looks like the party isn't quite over yet.