After weeks of discussion and dodging questions, Gov. Bobby Jindal finally laid the hammer down on the state legislature Monday by vetoing their approved pay raise.
The veto comes as mounting pressure from the public and the press began to bury Jindal as being soft and not holding up to campaign promises.
During a press conference highlighting line-item vetoes Monday, Jindal broke the news that lawmakers would not see their pay raise.
“I have opposed this pay raise at every turn and from the very beginning,” the governor said. “A doubling of legislative pay is clearly excessive and it takes effect prior to the next election, which I believe is bad policy.
“This bill would also have set up a system to give legislators automatic pay raises in the future without additional legislative votes - which is a lack of accountability that we cannot accept.”
Jindal called the pay raise “a mistake” Monday and he said he was mistaken by initially saying he would not veto the measure.
“I made a mistake in telling them that we were going to stay out of it,” Jindal said Monday.
We couldn’t agree more, governor.
Jindal said he tried to stay out of the matter because he basically didn’t want his reform package to get railroaded, a sign that the old fashioned “politics as usual” still exist in Louisiana. It seemed Jindal was resigned to concede the matter in order to further his cause. While noble on the surface, Louisiana citizens chided the governor for his stance and pleaded with him to veto the measure.
Because of his decision (or indecision) not to veto the measure, Jindal took tremendous heat from voters and members of the media. Just last week, a New Orleans couple filed a recall petition against Jindal. The status of that recall effort was unknown following Monday’s veto. Sunday, Jindal appeared on CNN and seemed to be more open to downing the pay raise.
Apparently, either the governor or his handlers finally came to the realization over the weekend that his stance would not go without reprise.
“I was trying to preserve our reform agenda and our momentum by tolerating this legislative pay raise that I knew was completely excessive. But the two cannot coexist,” Jindal said.
The governor called the situation a “sideshow,” a description with which we definitely agree, and urged lawmakers to “get back to doing the people’s business.”
“There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in our state,” Jindal said. “There are roads to build, jobs to create, business to open and kids to educate.”
We applaud Jindal’s decision to take a stand and not be bullied by the legislature just to save his political agenda. He said Monday that he knew that lawmakers would be upset with him over the decision, but handled it with class.
“They have a right to be angry with me,” Jindal sad. “I hope they take their anger out on me and not the people of Louisiana.”
The legislature could come back and attempt to override Jindal’s veto, but don’t expect it. Doing so would cast an even greater shadow over the capitol and bring even more recall efforts and basically be political suicide for those who sign on to the override.
