The gold standard for ethics

It's been a long time since Bobby Jindal promised he was going to deliver the most ethicsy "dragonslaying" regime in the history of state government. (It didn't quite work out that way. Long story, kids.)  Anyway, it's now the year of our lord 2025 and pretensions of good government reform have fallen pretty far out of fashion with Republicans. 

So it should come as no surprise now that during a legislative session where we are shielding officials from ethics investigations and rewriting campaign finance laws to legalize bribery, that we're also destroying the civil service system in favor of patronage spoils. 

Louisiana lawmakers are trying to change the state constitution to wrestle power away from the Civil Service Commission to eliminate state worker protections and allow for the quick firing of thousands of employees for any reason, creating fear among critics that some dismissals could be politically motivated.  

Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris. R-West Monroe, is nearing final passage in the Louisiana Legislature, though voters will get the final say on a constitutional amendment on a ballot that could have significant consequences for how state government operates.

Morris’ proposal would give state lawmakers power that currently rests with the Civil Service Commission, a seven-member independent review panel that oversees the hiring and firing of 28,000 “classified” state workers. The commission hears complaints from classified employees and appeals from any who want to contest their dismissal or demotion, affording them due process when it comes to discipline and terminations. 

In an interview Tuesday, Morris said his bill would let lawmakers “unclassify” state employees, removing them from the oversight of the commission. An unclassified employee does not have Civil Service protections and can be fired “at will” for no reason. The bill’s current version would also apply to local civil service workers such as municipal police and firefighters, but Morris said he intends to change his measure to exclude them and restrict it to only state employees. 

If this bill passes (and folks counting the votes all seem to think it will) it still has to go before the voters in the fall.  There's some concern there about the ballot language. 

The more likely course of events, if voters decide to approve the amendment, would be that the legislature designates all future hires as unclassified employees — a move that would eventually end the classified civil service system altogether, Gregoire said. The Civil Service Commission, itself, would still exist under the constitution but would effectively become pointless because it would no longer have anything to oversee.

“Eventually you won’t have any classified employees, so why do you need a commission?” Gregoire said.

Morris said he doesn’t yet have a vision for how lawmakers would exercise their new power if voters approve the amendment.

Except it's already clear what Morris's vision is. He's said that part loudly enough.