Colleges Taking Advantage of Athletes!

Thursday, April 9, 2009
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

MARCH MADNESS
ARE ATHLETES BEING SHORT CHANGED?

Millions of rabid college basketball fans have been glued to their TVs over the past month as March Madness reached its crescendo this Monday night. My North Carolina Tar Heels came close in an effort to win its second national title in the past five years. And the big bucks have been rolling in. There are lots of winners, with coaches getting big salaries, and colleges spiting up their percentage of huge TV and admission revenues. But there is one group that is being both exploited and shortchanged. It’s the players, themselves.

There’s certainly not a shortage of income. This year in the NCAA tourney, television income is estimated to be some $750 million, with an additional $50 million from ticket sales and sponsorships. The cost of a thirty second spot for Monday night’s championship game exceeds $1 million. And college football is awash with the same increasing yearly income. More bowl games, and the ever increasing television revenue allows most college football programs to cover the cost of a growing array of minor sports.

One sign of the growing sports revenues is the dramatic increase in coaches’ salaries. The University of Kentucky hired basketball Coach John Calipari from the University of Memphis with a salary package of $35 million over the next 10 years. Head coaches whose teams made the NCAA tournament have an average salary of $1 million. And that doesn’t include all the perks like free cars, country club memberships, housing subsidies, access to private jets, and generous severance packages.

In college football, the numbers are even higher. LSU football fans are still incensed over former Coach Nick Sabin taking a salary package estimated at close to $ 4 million at arch rival Alabama. South Carolina Football Coach Steve Spurrier was enticed to take the job with a free country club membership at Augusta, home of this week’s Masters Golf tournament, which includes the use of a private jet to get him there for a quick 18 holes. LSU is paying assistant football coaches as much as $700,000 a year or more. The University of Tennessee announced it would pay two assistant football coaches $650,000 or more, each, for the coming year.

The average compensation for these NCAA tourney coaches is almost triple that of the typical university president, which shows us the perverted priorities of these institutions of higher learning. Little wonder that American industry has not been standing up too well in world competition.

Fans pay through the nose to attend major college athletic events. As an LSU football season ticket holder, I personally pay $840 just for the right to buy my season tickets. The seat ticket itself is $54 per game. So there are big bucks coming into major college programs all over the country. Top-level college sports are big business. LSU, for example, receives some $100 million in revenue each year from ticket sales, television rights, concessions, parking and logo sales, which is about five times what the school receives from tuition.

All this income comes from one source…the athletes. Yet only college expenses -- room, food, tuition, books, and maybe a summer job -- the basics are paid to these young men and women. No pocket money to go to the movies, no gas money, no extras whatsoever. So we have college athletic programs raking in millions on the backs of talented, disciplined, hardworking athletes, without sharing the revenue with those responsible for generating it. Such a system is ill-defined at best and hypocritical at worst. The universities, administrators, and coaches are reaping great value -- even luxury -- provided by their recruits, and the players, themselves, are given only a Spartan subsistence.

It was a little better than 40 years ago when I was lucky enough to attend the University of North Carolina on an athletic scholarship. I was given a housing and food allowance that exceeded my costs, as well as “laundry money” that allowed for weekend dates, gas, and a few frills above the basic scholarship costs. What I received then was equivalent to some $250 in pocket money if the same were allowed today. But it’s not. The NCAA tightened up the rules, and college athletes get less today than athletes like me received some years back.

Supporters of the present system will argue that there is the opportunity for these athletes to move on to the pros and make big financial returns. But we all know that very few make it to that level. They may not even end up with the basic skills necessary to succeed in other workplaces, since only a minority of student-athletes in major sports even graduate. LSU football and basketball players generally graduate at a rate of less than 40%
.
There is a system in place now that’s allows our young college athletes to be exploited, and the exploitation is being committed by their adult mentors. What a deal -- your body in exchange for a pittance of basic expenses. A little monthly expense money is not about to corrupt the system. Providing $300 a month to all athletes on full athletic scholarship seems reasonable. March Madness, as is always the case, turned out to be a financial bonanza -- but not for the kids that many of us paid to watch. They deserve a better shake and a small piece of this huge financial pie.
*********
“The coaches own the athletes’ feet, the colleges own the athletes’ bodies, and the supervisors retain the large rewards. That reflects a neoplantation mentality on the campuses that is not appropriate at this time of high dollars.”
Walter Byers, former executive director of the NCAA.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show live each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. Many radio stations throughout the country carry the program at various times throughout the week.

The Unpatriotic Act by Congress!

Thursday, March 17, 2011
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

BIG BROTHER HAS YOU UNDER CLOSE WATCH
THANKS TO THE PATRIOT ACT!

When Tea party candidates throughout the country ran for office last fall, most members offered soaring campaign promises to defend liberty of ordinary Americans, and fight governmental intrusions on basic freedoms. But whatever hopes there were that newly elected Tea Partiers would put the brakes on intrusive domestic surveillance, illegal wire wiretapping and warrantless searches went out the window just 20 days into the new Congress.

With only minor whimpers, Tea Party leaders did an about face by abandoning their previous opposition to the so called Patriot Act, voting to indefinitely extend this Orwellian law that flouts the Bill of Rights. The federal government has now been given carte blanche to spy on everything you do online, every call you make, and every trip you take. “But there is danger out there,” says your congressman. “So just get used to it!” Privacy is gone, so get with the new world. No more basic constitutional protections? “Get over it.”

As Brian Doherty writes in the American Conservative: “Thanks to the massive security apparatus erected after 9/11, the government now wiretaps telephone calls without warrants, creates profiles of citizens even if they’re not suspected of specific crimes, and seizes information without judicial oversight.” In this brave new world, private companies that maintain massive data bases of information on what we are saying, writing, buying and thinking, willingly turnover reams of information about their customers.

Here’s one example. Sprint Nextel provided the government with GPS locations on its subscribers 8 million times in a recent one-year period. Thanks goodness I use AT&T, who, to its credit refused to provide such private information to the FBI without receiving a warrant signed by a judge.

William Pitt stood up in Parliament back in 1763 and declared: “The poorest may, in his cottage, bid his defiance to all the forces of the Crown, the storm may enter; the rain may enter….but the King of England may not enter.” But because of the betrayal of a majority of the members of Congress, including most Tea Partiers, the FBI can now enter our personal cottage of electronic communications without the nuisance of any court oversight.

And three cheers to US Senators on both sides of the aisle who had the courage to stand up for the Bill of Rights. They include Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Jon Tester (Montana), Rand Paul (Kentucky), Tom Udall (New Mexico), Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Ron Wyden, and (Oregon), and six other courageous senators. Boos to my home Louisiana delegation, who marched in lock step with political party leadership, and voted against basic American freedoms.
Peggy Noonan was Ronald Reagan’s speech writer and now writes a regular column in the Wall Street Journal. Here are her thoughts on the basic intrusions of the Patriot Act. “When we lose our privacy, we lose some of our humanity; we lose things that are particular to us, that make us separate and distinctive as souls, as, actually children of God. We also lose trust, not only in each other but in our institutions, which we come to fear. People who now have no faith in the security of their medical and financial records, for instance, will have even less faith in their government”

George Bush began the deep decline of basic civil liberties, but Barack Obama, has been no better a protector of the Bill of Rights. The President recently signed into law provisions allowing “roving wiretaps” that allows the FBI to wiretap phones in multiple homes without having to provide the target’s name or even phone number. The mere possibility that a suspect “might” use the phone is enough to justify the wiretap

The FBI continually protests that their investigations will be hindered if they have to go find a judge to approve such invasive surveillance. Getting judicial consent, a foundation of our basic protections, just “slows down the process,” they say. “Hogwash,” says Fox News commentator and former Judge Andrew Napolitano. Here’s his response.

“The time-is-of-the essence argument is nonsense. I once issued a search warrant in my gym shorts from my living room at 3 am, and I know a former FISA court judge who did the same from his cell phone while riding a motorcycle. While neither of these situations is optimal, there are at least written record of what was done to whom and why.”

The so called “Patriot Act” has driven a stake trough the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments-the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eight Amendments, as well. Conservative columnist John Whitehead put it this way: “In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they told anyone that the government had subpoenaed information: monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause, and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.”

Many Tea Partiers and other Patriot Act vindicators continue to hound us with the supposition that we have to choose between liberty and security. And if your only concern is security, then certainly if we lived in a police state, it would be much easier to catch the terrorists. If we just would allow the government to listen to your phone conversations, read through your mail, look at all your email communications, search your home on a whim, and lock you up because what you write or think, then we would surely catch more terrorists and other bad guys. But is that what America is all about? Do you want to live under such a restrictive cloud? Is that the kind of country that we ask our young volunteer soldiers to fight and die for?

In Herbert Hoover’s winning campaign backing 1928, his slogan was “A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage.” Today’s slogan could well be “a government agent on every corner, a wiretap on every phone.” It is, after all, for our own security, right?

*****
“Some things are unforgivable in a democracy. The patriot Act should be at the top of the list. Nobody who has supported this wretched law should ever be allowed to brag of defending liberty again.” Former CIA Agent Susan Lindauer

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

Lessons to be learned from Green Bay

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

WHY LOUISIANA SHOULD BE
FOR THE GREEN BAY PACKERS!

So who ya’ rootin’ for in the Super Bowl game on Sunday? It’s an easy choice for me living down here in Louisiana. The Packers are one of the best examples of how a sports franchise should operate. They don’t go to the state capitol hat in hand, looking for a handout. The team is owned by citizen stockholders all over Minnesota, and the Packers’ management doesn’t regularly try to blackmail public officials into giving more handouts under threat of picking up and moving the franchise.

Recently, when it came time for Green Bay to revamp and refurnish legendary Lambeau Field, the state of Wisconsin didn’t put up one penny. All proceeds to pay for the renovations came from the private sector. Season ticket holders were charged a one-time user fee of $1,400, which fans can pay over several years. In addition, the Packers did a stock offering, just like many corporations do for capital improvements. And finally, the packers took out a team loan to be repaid out of yearly revenues. No sweetheart deals from the state, no special considerations, no coming to the public trough for taxpayer money.

What happens in some states, including my home state of Louisiana, is that team owners cry wolf saying that they will have no choice but to move their franchise elsewhere if, the tax incentives and outright dollars are not bountifully offered. But a review of the NFL team financial arrangements will show that team income is structured in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to run a profitable franchise even in a small location like my old home town of Ferriday.

Unlike other professional sports operations, television revenues are not sold by individual teams. In baseball, the New York Yankees get broadcasting revenues significantly greater that what a smaller market team like the Kansas City Royals receives. In pro football, every team shares in one gigantic pie. Little Green Bay receives the same television revenues as does a team in New York or Chicago.

The other major factor that lets a small market stay competitive without taxpayer dollars is the National Football League salary cap. Not only is the incoming revenue approximately the same for each team, expenditures are also more or less the same, as each team shares the same parameters as to just how much can be spent on team salaries. This means salary limits, which allows a small market team like Green Bay to stay competitive year after year.

Finally, the Packers have bought up 28 acres spending more than $27 million to develop an entertainment district. This would give the team revenues that it would not have to share with other clubs. It is a business strategy that a number of NFL franchises are undertaking. Yes, the New Orleans Saints are following this diversity approach. But here’s the difference. The Saints get it all paid for by Louisiana taxpayers.

The Saints receive $6 million in direct funding, from the state of Louisiana, each year. But there is much more the Saints will receive that is every bit as valuable as direct payments. $85 million will come out of the state treasury to upgrade the Superdome. But the upgrades greatly benefit the Saints and mean significantly more profit. Most of the money will go towards building new luxury boxes and new club lounges, all which mean more high priced tickets for the Saints to sell. The state pays the cost, and the Saints get the income.

Then there is the agreement for the state to lease office space in a downtown office building adjacent to the Dome being purchased by the Saints owners. The state is to lease more than 320,000 feet at $24 dollars square foot, which is one of the highest rental rates in the state today. So the Louisiana taxpayers are basically paying the cost of the building the Saints ownership is buying.

But what about all these projections of how much the economy in New Orleans will be positively impacted, with millions more in tax revenue. Figures are being wildly thrown around, with little study, indicating a $500 million economic impact. A University of New Orleans study, quoted in a New Orleans Times Picayune editorial, estimated some $22 million in state revenue is produced by the Saints. Here’s the fallacy. Any such study assumes that all of the dollars spent at Saints games are dollars that are new to the region’s economy. Most dollars spent going to the Superdome are dollars that would have been spent on other leisure activities in the area. There are numerous choices as to how to spend leisure dollars. Going to a football game is just one.

The Brookings Institution’s recent 500 page study titled, Sports, Jobs and Taxes, concluded that professional sports teams “realign economic activity within a city’s leisure industry rather than adding to it. Professional sports,” they write, “are not a major catalyst for economic development.” They are saying, in effect, that all the public subsidies accomplish is to help shift spending from other forms of entertainment to stadiums like the Dome, with little net employment gain or significant increase in new tax dollars.

A later report by Brookings found that numerous other studies have concluded the same thing. “Independent research by a number of independent groups has uniformly found that there is no significant positive correlation between sports facility construction and economic development.” Consultants, often hired by team owners who say otherwise, according to the Brookings study, “are peddling snake oil.”

So I’ll be pulling for Green Bay on Sunday. They got to the Super bowl as a wildcard team, and played some outstanding playoff football. But more important, the Packers represent the best of the American free enterprise system. They built a championship team by paying their own way without trolling for taxpayer dollars. It’s the way a franchise should be run. Go Packers!
*****
“The Green Bay Packers never lost a football game. They just ran out of time.”

Vince Lombardi

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

New Orleans is Murder Capitol of America!

Thursday, January 27th, 2011
New Orleans, Louisiana

BOB DYLAN AND THE MURDERS IN NEW ORLEANS!

New Orleans is off to a fast start in this New Year to maintain its perennial title of being the murder capital of America. When the city celebrated Martin Luther King Day last week, five people were shot down. Just a few killings often seem to be a good day. The first violent death took place on day two of the New Year. In the few short weeks since then, 16 more murders have been chalked up. At this rate, could a new record high be in the making?

Any murder is tragic, but one can weave through the crime lore of the Crescent City to see some deaths that just can’t be explained. The locals often seem to shrug and accept the blood flowing as a price you pay for living in what always ranks as America’s “most interesting city.” Violence seems to be an integral part of the gumbo that blends a different genre of street smells, music, spices, poverty, and minions of eccentric characters. But then, the killings continue and grow in numbers.

The brutal execution that got to me the worst was the tragic death of a little boy a few years back. Ja’Shawn Powell was two years old, and lived in New Orleans with his mother. His father, a guy named Danny Platt, came to pick up Ja’Shawn for a weekend visit. The boy, according to his mother was really excited. “Oh, my daddy’s here,” he beamed as he ran to the door. “Daddy, daddy, daddy.” His mother said: “He was so happy.”

Then his daddy drove off….. took a knife….. slit this little boy’s throat….. and allowed the toddler to bleed to death.

It’s impossible to make any sense, or even find the words to define such a ghastly act. Horrifying, shocking, sickening, abhorrent, repugnant; no thoughts can describe such a dastardly deed of unspeakable horror. Platt claims he had “a whole bunch of reasons” for taking this little boy’s life. He said “I had a lot of pressure on me.” But he denied that one of the reasons was the $4000 in back child support he owed to the boy’s mother. Hogwash. He did it to keep from paying the money.

In a city that has the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, where multiple killings often happen on a daily basis, a town that is rated as one of the five most dangerous cities in the world, it is still incomprehensible to imagine that a father could take a knife and plunge it into the throat of his two-year-old child.

How could anyone kill their own son? That’s the question posed in the book of Genesis as to whether a father could kill his own son, even at the urging of God himself. According to the scripture in the first book of the Bible, the Jewish patriarch Abraham was told by God to kill his son Isaac to show obedience to God. It was a test, and when God was apparently satisfied that Abraham would undertake such an appalling act, he called out for Abraham to stop.

How does a believer, like Abraham, respond if he had been asked to sacrifice his one and only son? And then there is a separate question. How could a loving God even put one of his followers to such a test? Why would any being, God or man, force such a horrendous choice?

Bob Dylan poignantly and pointedly asked the same question on the title track of his “Highway 61 Revisited “album that came out in 1965. Now follow the symbolism here. Highway 61 runs from Duluth, Minnesota all the way down to New Orleans. It was a major transit route to get out of the Deep South, particularly for African Americans traveling north to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis, as the highway followed the Mississippi River Valley for most of its 1400 miles. The song puts to the test the moral dilemma of killing one’s own son at the request of the Almighty.

Dylan raises the same concerns about God’s actions that I have felt for years. The lyrics say:

Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son”

Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”

God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”

God say, “you can do what you want Abe but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”

Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killing done?”

God says, “Out on Highway 61.”

So when America’s poet troubadour picks a location to symbolize one of the most heart wrenching choices posed by God to man, a choice by the way that I personally think was dead wrong for God to pose in the first place , the heart and soul of the dilemma runs right through the Crescent City, on Highway 61.

Since the killing of little Ja’Shawn, there have been a series of other family murders in New Orleans. Just a few days after Ja’Shawn was knifed to death, a son killed his 73 old mother, who was a member of her church choir. He stabbed her repeatedly with a butcher knife and robbed her. Why? He needed money to buy drugs.
New Orleans is a city where I was educated, where I have worked and lived off and on for some fifty years. It’s a real tragedy to see the will and the hopes of so many locals seem to slowly drift away. And let’s face it. No outside help is going to sweep in to solve the city’s massive list of problems.

New Orleans needs political leadership, increased community activism, more public dollars into law enforcement, and a renewed focus on juvenile delinquency. But there also needs to be a will. All this can make a difference and all this needs to be done. But it all begins right here at home, on Highway 61.
********
“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and
nothing worth killing for.” Tom Robbins

Peace and Justice.

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

The Return of Edwin Edwards!

Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

EDWIN EDWARDS-THE PRODIGAL SON COMES HOME!

After eight and a half years in a federal prison, Louisiana’s prodigal son has come home. And far from quietly slipping back into home confinement, the former Louisiana governor was greeted with the fascination generally reserved for a rock star. There was the kind of media coverage and public fascination generally reserved for a President or the Pope. Even the Kingfish would have been envious. Edwin Edwards is back.

I played a minor role in the Edwards homecoming, being the publisher of his recently released biography, “Edwin Edwards-Governor of Louisiana.” Written by my colleague, Leo Honeycutt, it became an immediate best seller. On the day of Edwards’ release last week, ten Louisiana television stations came by my office for interviews. The entire state seemed to be consumed by the frenzy of the return of the most controversial public figure in the state’s history. Love him or hate him, only a few were not caught up in the fascination of the state’s longest serving governor.

I had been approached in 2008 by B.I. Moody, a friend and supporter of mine over many years, who built Moody Publications into the largest newspaper chain in the state. B. I. and Edwards had shared office space when they first started out in business back in the early 1950s, and they had remained the closest of friends over the years. B.I. felt that a balanced legacy of Edwards had not been fully presented.

“Anyone born after the late 1970s would only know of the controversy surrounding him. History so far has not highlighted his many accomplishments,” B.I. had told me. He had read my first book about my time in public life, and asked if I might find an author to take on the task of writing a more balanced and fairer presentation of the Edwards story. I had formed a publishing company called The Lisburn Press, using the name of my old plantation home in Ferriday, Louisiana.

I accepted the task, and interviewed a number of local and national authors. Leo Honeycutt lived in Baton Rouge, and had been a television personality locally and up in Monroe, La. for a number of years. As a newsman, he had covered and talked with Edwards extensively. I read his 15 year old novel, “Over the Edge,” and knew that Leo had a descriptive writing style full of expression and understanding of the nuances of Louisiana. After several interviews, from a field of other well qualified writers, I decided on Leo to collaborate with the former governor, who continued to captivate while sitting in a federal prison.

Leo spent weeks at a time in solitude immersed in the project in a cabin on Lake St. John up in Concordia Parish. His first draft was 1600 pages, with over 3000 footnotes. I sent him back to the drawing board for rewrite after rewrite. I also spent a great deal of time reviewing some of the legal ramifications of many of the charges made by both Leo and EWE. It took the better part of the year to get the book in final form. Designing a cover and selecting photos from the thousands available that reflected Edwards’ time in public life took more months. Our hopes for a one year project extended four fold.

So how many copies of the first edition should we print? After all, the guy had not been governor for 16 years and had been in prison going on eight years. Was there really all that much interest left in the “Silver Fox?” Or was he a has been, and would all this effort be just for the history books? Start with 5000 copies? Knowing that he would soon be out of prison and there would be some spike of interest, maybe a 10,000 copy run? OK, let’s go with 10,000 books, since we did have a warehouse large enough to store the entire inventory.

The truckload of the Edwards biography arrived in the bookstores less than two weeks before Christmas. The first printing of 5000 copies sold out in two days. A quick call was made to the printer in Canada requesting another 10,000 copies. We paid overtime for the printer to work the weekend around the clock, and another truckload arrived a few days before Christmas. That run sold out in a week.

With approximately 50,000 copies sold, the Edwards Biography is well on its way to being the largest selling Louisiana book in the state’s history. With the former governor back home, we are projecting sales of another 50,000 books before year’s end. And how about the new Edwin Edwards autobiography? He says that he has his own take on what transpired during his investigation and trial, and that he has many insights that so far have not been revealed. Edwards Redux? Stay tuned!

The colorful Cajun has been roundly roasted by some editorial writers for years, as the cause for Louisiana’s sad state of affairs. Louisiana is close to the bottom on many quality of life lists. He has not been in public office for sixteen years, and three other governors have followed in his path. Yet, according to some, it’s all his fault. Fifty years from now, there will be those who still point to Edwin Edwards’ influence as the state’s major problem.

But could it be that this charismatic character represents the pulse of Louisiana? Is it possible that most public officials in the Bayou State are no better and no worse than the voters who put them in office? That’s a subject for another book. And I could be just the guy to publish it!

*****
“People say I've had brushes with the law. That's not true. I've had brushes with overzealous prosecutors.”
Edwin W. Edwards

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. The show is televised at http://www.justin.tv/jimbrownusa.

Hypocrisy and Tea Party Candidates

Thursday, December 9, 2010
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

ARE TEA PARTIERS, ESPECIALLY IN LOUISIANA,
SELLING OUT FOR CAMPAIGN MONEY?

It was just a few months ago when we listened to Tea Party candidates across the country declaring that they were going to Washington in order to shake up the political establishment. No more “politics as usual” was the battle cry. But in a matter of a few weeks, these new guys and gals on the block have rapidly embraced the Washington culture of big-money fundraisers. Special interests galore and numerous lobbying groups are falling all over themselves to host fundraisers for these progressive agents of change. And the new so-called reformers are taking the bait and gathering up the big bucks for their campaign war chests. The more we hear about change in Washington, the more things stay the same.

In my home state of Louisiana, newly elected congressman Jeff Landry was the Tea Party’s poster boy for opposing the Washington culture of bowing to special interests. On election night, he told his followers that it’s going to be a new day in Washington, and “we need to get our country back on the right track.” Three weeks later, Landry was in the heart of Washington at the posh Capitol Hill Club on the hunt for Washington campaign dollars. He’s two months away from even being sworn into office, yet Landy is asking for money from K Street lobbyists and other Washington power brokers.

Getting to visit with Landry doesn’t come cheap. The high priced “meet and greet” with the new Louisiana 3rd District Congressman carried a price tag of $5,000 for the “PAC Gold Level; $2,400 for the individual Gold Level; $2,500 for the PAC Silver Level, and $1,000” just to get in the door. All of a sudden, just weeks after getting elected, many new congressman like Landry found that Washington went from a “cesspool” when they were campaigning, to a “hot tube” once elected.
A guest on my weekly nationally syndicated radio show this week will be Gabriela Schneider, who tracks political fund raisers for the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. She observes that “the lobbyists are all saying, ‘Welcome to Washington -- let me help pay off your debt.’ It’s particularly interesting when so many of this year’s freshman congressmen were running against Washington. But as soon as they get elected, they come to Washington and put out their hand.”

Another guest on the program this Sunday will be Meredith McGehee, who serves as policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington. She told me this week that debt-retirement events and other post-election fundraisers “are God’s gift to special interests,” that allows corporate PACs and lobbyists to curry favor with grateful congressmen. And she says these early fundraisers for newly elected lawmakers are a way to get an inside relationship for some lobbyists who had ignored or even opposed the congressman-elect back during the campaign.“If you were on the wrong side or just AWOL during the election, this is your chance to make it up,” McGehee told me. “It’s a great way to get in good with members of Congress.”

The good news for Landry and other new Republican congressman is that, with the Republicans now in control of the U.S. House, the campaign money spickets have opened and are abundantly flowing. These new GOP Tea Partiers strongly oppose earmarks, unless the earmark is a campaign donation sent in their direction. The bad news is that many states like Louisiana could well become the “wild, wild west” for political fundraising with candidates no longer in control of their own campaigns.

Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court declared that corporations and unions can now spend money on political advertising. In the future, corporate boardrooms will soon become political cockpits for plotting the success or demise of candidates like Landry. Better tow the special interest line, or guess who just might come after you?
It’s no secret that in the majority of elections there are two key elements in getting elected to a major political office. The first is money. I’ve forgotten the second. My home state of Louisiana is often the most expensive for campaign spending, per capita, in the nation. Out of state corporate and special interest money regularly flood into the campaign coffers of Louisiana candidates.

Current Governor Bobby Jindal has raised over $10 million for his re election campaign. The New Orleans Times Picayune reported this year that Jindal has more contributions from outside Louisiana than from within. One might wonder why almost 1000 California contributors are so interested in Louisiana issues.

How do Louisiana citizens benefit when large amounts of campaign cash flood into the state to influence Louisiana elections? The same question could be asked about out of state dollars being sent in to any state. Isn’t there a built in conflict of interest as to where an official’s loyalties lie when large, out of state donations are accepted?

There is a simple and constitutional way to keep Louisiana elected officials focused on Louisiana issues. A candidate for public office should only raise campaign funds in the district from where he or she is running. If a candidate is running statewide, he or she should raise all their financial resources within the state. If a candidate is running parish or countywide, the limits should be within the home district. Legislators would be limited to raising campaign dollars from within their respective districts. Simple. Keep fund raising local. Make the candidates focus and be responsive solely to the voters in the boundaries that put them in office.

To be sure, there would be loud protests from lobbyists who hand out the campaign dollars to gain their “special access.” And incumbents, who can work the system from day one in office, would object at having to forgo all the many out of district fund raising opportunities. The voters would be the beneficiaries. But don’t count on any groundswell of change. The recent Supreme Court decision was touted as a catalyst for major campaign changes. But as long as out of state money floods into any state, it’s going to be the same old, same old in both Baton Rouge and Washington. Yes, the more we hear about change, the more it’s just the same old song and dance.
*****


People used to complain that selling a campaign was like selling a bar of soap. But when you buy soap, at least you get the soap. In this campaign, you just get two guys telling you they really value cleanliness.”— David Brooks

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all is past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. The show is televised at http://www.justin.tv/jimbrownusa.

Louisiana Governor and sabbaticals!

Wednesday, November 24^th, 2010

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

GET OFF BOBBY JINDAL'S BACK

ABOUT TAKING A SABBATICAL!

So what’s with all the criticism about taking a sabbatical? It’s become a big issue in my home state of Louisiana with educators, legislators, and good government groups debating the value versus the cost of taking a little time off. A sabbatical let’s a person get away from pressures and responsibilities back home at the job they were hired to do. Traveling around the country let’s one do research to better focus on the job at hand when the time comes to get back to the real world of responsibility. So let’s quit all the criticizing. Let Bobby Jindal travel and take his sabbatical in peace.

The cost of sabbaticals for academicians has been an election focus for Jindal, as he crisscrossed the nation during the campaign season in support of Republican candidates. But Republicans running for office in Louisiana were not able to garner the Governor’s endorsement as he took a “hands off” approach and refused to endorse his incumbent U.S, senator as well as a fellow Republican’s bid to be second in command as Lt. Governor. But be a conservative leaning candidate in just about any other state from coast to coast, and Jindal has been glad to lend a hand in any needed fund raising effort. Louisiana incumbents who found themselves in political trouble, like New Orleans congressman Joseph Cao, were left to fend for themselves with no hopes of any help from the popular governor.

When the election season came to an end in early November, many expected Jindal to come home and face his gubernatorial responsibilities. After all, the state is facing a monumental deficit that now approaches $2 billion for the coming fiscal year. Education at all levels is on the chopping block with universities facing major cutbacks requiring wholesale layoffs to make up the shortfall. The state health delivery system is mired in controversy as the medical community raises troubling questions of how indigent healthcare needs will be met and paid for. Time for the Governor to come back home and take control.

But that’s like asking an LSU professor to cut his year abroad short by coming home and, God forbid, actually have to go into a class room and teach. You do have to set your priorities in both the business of teaching and government -- right? Look, when one is on sabbatical, problems at home will just have to take care of themselves. Professors and governors need a little break from the humdrum life of teaching and governing.

Remember the scene in “Animal House when the Delta Tau Chi fraternity is close to being kicked off campus for various shenanigans? The members turn to John Belushi for advice. What does he propose? Toga party! So we have Louisiana facing major financial and governmental service problems that continue to grow with no rational solution in site. And what does the Governor propose? Book tour!

Jindal is traveling the country, hyping his first book, on the talk show circuit. The book is titled “Leadership and Crisis.” Some cynics in his home state are suggesting that the Louisiana Governor drop the “and” in the title of the book. The focus of Jinadal’s book is to pound the inadequacies of the federal government and in particular, the short comings of the Obama administration. Personal comments by the President to Jindal are all put on the record.

In last week’s column, I listed a number of ambitious potential national office seekers from the South. In that mix were Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Texas Governor Rick Perry, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and newly elected Florida Senator Marco Rubio. They each have harsh words for Washington politics, but they have shied away from direct attacks on the President.

As one Barbour aide told me recently, “Haley ain’t no fool. He’s still getting much more out of Washington than Louisiana is. You don’t personally bite the hand that’s pouring federal dollars into your state unless you’re an announced candidate against Obama.”

Jindal’s sabbatical will apparently last a while longer as national interview opportunities continue to pour in and book sales increase. So who’s running the state? Here’s an idea. While Jindal continues his sabbatical in the weeks to come, Sarah Palin brings her book signing tour to Baton Rouge next Tuesday. She bailed out of being Alaska Governor after only a year and a half in office.

But now Palin is rested, ready and full of vigor and venom. Maybe we could borrow her for a few months until Jindal finishes his sabbatical. Kind of like being a fill-in professor at LSU while the regular professor takes take a much needed leave with pay. She gets to know Louisiana. He can go up and sell books in Alaska. And who knows? It could be Jindal-Palin, or Palin-Jindal in 2012. Ain’t these sabbaticals grand or what?

*****

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." ...Ronald Reagan

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all is past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. The show is televised at http://www.justin.tv/jimbrownusa.

Do Justices Really Make a Difference?

Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

A NEW SUPREME COURT JUSTICE:
WHO CARES?

About the last thing on anyone’s mind right now, particularly in my home state of Louisiana, is whether or not Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. It’s pretty much a “done deal,” right? Whoever the President wants, the president gets, regardless of political party. Oh, in the Kagan case, the republicans will throw up some half-hearted concerns about Kagan being too liberal and not enough of a “strict constructionist,” whatever that is supposed to mean. So why should the average American care?

In recent polling data, two-thirds of the 1,000 American adults polled couldn't name a single current justice, and just 1 percent was able to name all nine sitting justices. Less than one-third of voters have any view of Kagan at all. This lack of governmental knowledge really is not all that big of a surprise when you look at other historical events that have most Americans perplexed.

• More Americans could identify Michael Jackson as the composer of "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" than could identify the Bill of Rights as a body of amendments to the Constitution.

• More than 50 percent of respondents attributed the quote "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs" to either Thomas Paine, George Washington or President Obama. The quote is from Karl Marx, author of "The Communist Manifesto."

• More than a third did not know the century in which the American Revolution took place, and half of respondents believed that either the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation or the War of 1812 occurred before the American Revolution
.
So it’s of little surprise that nominee Kagan registers so low on the national recognition scale. If you were one of the few that sat glued to C-Span through the Senate Judiciary Hearings last week, here is what you would have found out:

On TV cameras in the court room, that are presently prohibited, Kagan is for them. Good for her on this issue. Her colleagues have for years thrown up the hoary arguments the television would undermine the high court’s “ethos” and bring forth the justices’ faces to C-Span-watching terrorists. Bunk. TV court room coverage works well in many state judicial systems including Louisiana’s. In fact, I argued the first televised case before the Louisiana Supreme Court back in the mid 1990s. The issue involved the right of law enforcement officers to seize cars that were uninsured. I won the case, by the way, and the television broadcast was no big deal. So mark one for the nominee.

But her score takes a justified hit on a whole host of other issues including her decision as dean of Harvard Law to bar recruiters from the school's career services office over the Pentagon's policy against openly gay soldiers. Kagan said she was trying to balance Harvard's nondiscrimination policy, which she believed "don't ask, don't tell" violated, with a federal law that required schools to give military recruiters equal access as a condition of eligibility for federal funds. But that was the law, later upheld in a legal challenge unanimously by the Supreme Court. With two wars going on at the time, Kagan would have seemed to have substituted her personal view rather than what the law required.

There are a number of positions Kagan argued before the Supreme Court as Solicitor General that undermine and impede basic freedoms, and that should concern those asked to promote her to the nation’s highest court. One such troubling case involves former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, convicted of bribery in 2006. The Supreme Court last week unanimously vacated Siegelman’s conviction, after ninety-one state attorneys general urged that the conviction was unjust and should be overturned.

Kagan filed a petition urging the Supreme Court to deny hearing Siegelman’s appeal. The facts showed that an Alabama business man made a large donation to support the creation of a lottery with the profits to go to public schools. The governor appointed the contributor to a spot on Alabama’s hospital oversight board. A tit for tat? Not even close. If governors were indicted for appointing a campaign contributor to a board or commission, there would not be one chief executive still serving anywhere in the country. Kagan supported a conviction where there was no crime.

The list of similar questionable actions by Kagan is long. Her positions are often detrimental to individual rights and freedoms. If she is the best the country has to serve on the nation’s highest court, then the cream is far from rising to the top, and it’s mediocrity that is on the assent.

So is there a chance she will not be confirmed? Absolutely not. The lady’s a cinch, for as even some republicans are saying: “Elections have consequences.” Though mediocre in qualifications, Kagan is the President’s choice, and the democrats will offer support in lock step. The same scenario would be playing out if the unqualified nominee were a republican under a republican administration.

In the meantime, enough about these trivial concerns. Who cares who interprets our laws and protects our basic freedoms? After all, the new season of American Idol is not all that far off. And that’s when the voting really matters.
*****

“So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?”

Senator Roman L. Hruska of Nebraska

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all is past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownla.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am central time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.