In the late 1950s, Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long once said that the state’s attorney general didn’t know the difference between a jumpsuit and a lawsuit. “If you want to hide something from Jack Gremillion,” he said, “put it in a law book.”
Compared to the current Governor of Louisiana, Uncle Earl would probably have to admit that old Jack Gremillion seems like a legal genius. After more than six years as a tenant of the fourth floor in the House That Huey Built, Bobby Jindal is now the least popular Governor in contemporary Louisiana history and one of the least popular elected officials in the entire country. According to the most recent polling, Jindal is approved by only 32% of Louisiana voters. If he ran for President, he’d lose Louisiana to Hillary Clinton. And in a hypothetical race for Governor against Edwin Edwards, Jindal would get trounced. “Bobby Jindal continues to have the worst poll numbers of just about any elected official in the country,” Dean Debnam of Public Policy Polling explains. “If he gets into the Presidential race, he’ll be doing it with very little support from his own state.”
To outside observers, Jindal’s abysmal poll numbers in Louisiana may seem astonishing. After all, Louisiana is considered a reliably, solidly Republican state, and Jindal has spent the entirety of his tenure throwing red meat to the right wing. Even though his response to President Obama’s first-ever address to a joint session of Congress was a huge disaster (and a comedy goldmine), Jindal has somehow maintained his national reputation as a conservative leader. Last year, he was the head of the Republican Governors Association. He’s a regular on the Sunday talk shows and on the conservative conference circuit. He tours the country stumping for fellow Republican candidates and, despite his sinking numbers in Louisiana, he’s still considered a long-shot contender for the Republican Presidential nomination.
There is a conventional explanation for why Jindal’s astronomical popularity (at one point, he was the most popular Governor in the country) has plummeted so dramatically: He seems to care more about building up his own national profile than actually doing the job he was elected to do. If you believe this, then Bobby Jindal is simply the victim of his own hubris, a man who thought Louisiana voters cared more about him being on Fox News than him being in Baton Rouge, a politician who mistakenly believed he was elected to be a celebrity.
That explanation, I’m afraid, is far too generous. Bobby Jindal is unpopular in Louisiana for one simple reason: He’s been a terrible Governor who never understood his own state.
*****
A few years ago, one of Jindal’s closest confidants told me that the Governor had very little patience for lawyers. He intended it as a compliment. Lawyers look for reasons things can’t be done, he explained, and to paraphrase the old adage, Jindal would rather seek forgiveness later than permission first. To some, perhaps that seems like an attribute of a real leader. To me, it seemed like a dishonest and troubling excuse for incompetence. It may seem folksy to attack lawyers for inconveniencing you, but if you’re a lawmaker, your success hinges on your understanding of the facts and the law.
Only a few months after he took office, Bobby Jindal signed the Louisiana Science Education Act, a law that was written and promoted by far-right religious organizations seeking to allow the teaching of new earth creationism in the public school science classroom. Although the law has yet to be legally challenged (largely because the State Department of Education pulled back on its implementation), it is most assuredly unconstitutional.
Similarly, among other things, Jindal’s school voucher program, his state retirement plan, and his teacher tenure and evaluation “reforms” have all been ruled unconstitutional.
Jindal also championed the passage of a thoughtless, overly broad constitutional amendment that critics rightly warned could allow convicted murderers the right to possess semi-automatic weapons. After Judge Pitre ruled the law did just that, fortunately, the Louisiana State Supreme Court found a creative way to preserve the state’s prohibitions on felons owning guns, though the law is still considered “an immediate threat to any existing and future firearm legislation.”
In the upcoming months, courts will consider the constitutionality of a number of other laws signed and enacted by Governor Jindal, and if his batting average holds steady, the chances are that Jindal will continue to strike out. During the previous legislative session, Jindal signed a law that attempts to shield oil and gas companies from otherwise legitimate lawsuits seeking damages for breach of contract and negligence, a law that was brought to Louisiana at the behest of the very companies who are responsible for the degradation of the state’s coast and marshland and a law that was championed by a State Senator who made his fortune from the oil and gas industry. Notably, the oil and gas industry has collectively contributed more than $1 million to Governor Jindal’s campaign fund, despite the fact that he’s prohibited from running for Governor again until 2019. By signing the law, Jindal potentially keeps these companies off-the-hook for the tens of billions of dollars in damages for which they are allegedly responsible.
This year, Jindal also enacted a pernicious and duplicitous law that would force the immediate closure of three of the state’s five abortion clinics by requiring physicians at those clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, a regulation that experts claim to be “medically unnecessary” and almost identical to the laws in Mississippi and Alabama that have both been overruled as unconstitutional during the last two weeks. As the United States Supreme Court held in Casey, a state may not impose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to access contraceptive or abortion care, and to paraphrase the court in Alabama, if you’re closing three of the state’s five clinics based on some new law that isn’t even medically necessary, you’re not fooling anyone: This is about imposing an undue burden, and it has absolutely nothing to do with caring for a woman’s health. According to a friend who claims to have publicly exchanged a series of letters with the bill’s author, the State Representative didn’t care about medical care; she cared only about “God’s will,” and apparently, she had deluded herself into believing that she was God’s ordained messenger. With all due respect to her, if a court considers her legislative intent persuasive testimony about the purpose of this bill, they’ll be able to knock it out without ever even considering the other issues.
And I’m just skimming the surface here: There are equally valid and compelling criticisms of Jindal’s stubborn refusal to recognize equal rights under the law for LGBT Americans, his complete dereliction of duty in implementing the Affordable Care Act and in expanding Medicaid, his persistent rejection of federal funds that would be used to build broadband internet capabilities in rural Louisiana and a modest commuter rail line on existing infrastructure in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
*****
I am a progressive Democrat. That much should be obvious. And if you’re even marginally familiar with my work, you likely know that I’ve never been a fan of Governor Bobby Jindal, though, at times, I’ve wanted to be.
I am a true believer in the cult of Louisiana, and even though I’ve spent the last three years away in Texas at law school, I’ve been able to see more, experience more, and learn more about the people, the history, and the places in my home state than I ever did while living in Alexandria. My distance from the state provides some perspective, and my work as a law student provides some flexibility. During the last three years, while living in Dallas, I’ve spent a combined total of five months all over the entire state of Louisiana.
I have family, on both sides, that settled in Louisiana way back in the early 1700s- distant grandfathers and uncles who fought on all sides of those wars. We are, of course, a nation of immigrants, and while my ancestors don’t earn me a special sticker or badge on my driver’s license, I was taught, from a very young age, to appreciate the ways in which our history informs our present: slavery and the Civil War, the complexities of Reconstruction, Prohibition and the Great Depression, Jim Crow and school desegregation, the forced subjugation of African-Americans and the forced assimilation of Cajuns, the strange and complicated definition of Creole, the cultural differences between Bayou Cajuns, Prairie Cajuns, and their more sophisticated neighbors down in New Orleans. I grew up in a city that had been burned down, and I was born into a family that made its living building the city back, literally.
*****
Jindal’s miscalculation isn’t just that he cared more about being a celebrity than a politician, and it’s not simply that he treats the law as an inconvenience. He’s a terrible Governor because it’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t possess a burning and blinding passion for Louisiana, which should be the most important qualification for the job.
He’s just not authentic, and people, inevitably, see right through him. To be clear, this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity; after all, he was elected twice statewide, by large margins. And although Jindal is a first-generation American (his parents actually conceived him from their native India), he was born, reared, and educated here, in Louisiana public schools. But despite his bona fides, he just doesn’t “get” Louisiana, because he’s always preferred Washington, D.C.
Throughout his tenure as Governor, when he’s not traveling the country promoting partisan politics, Jindal has essentially bankrupted his own political capital on policies, reforms, and projects that may appeal to national Republican pundits but that prove tone-deaf to the people of Louisiana. He enacted a series of ethics reforms acts, promising to increase transparency in government. Yet the law’s most notable accomplishment was the expansion of exemptions he provided to himself.
All of his other major legislative achievements eventually became disasters: The tax overhaul, the voucher program, and teacher tenure reform were all plays for national attention, much like the misguided constitutional amendment he supported on deregulating guns or the battle he is currently waging over Common Core and his efforts to effectively ban abortion.
He promised to be a policy reformer, and instead, he has become a hackneyed culture warrior who counts his victories by the number of soundbites he receives in the conservative media. It doesn’t matter how many times he loses in court or how many of his laws are struck down as unconstitutional or how many millions of public dollars are squandered defending laws that should have never been signed in the first place.
Recently, former Governor Edwin Edwards was asked about his thoughts on Jindal. “Doesn’t hunt, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t eat crawfish,” he said. “He likes to travel. Let them make him Secretary of Transportation.”
That may seem like a joke, but considering Jindal’s record, it’s actually sensible career advice.
CenLamar 
The title gave me my morning chuckle. It would be funny, except that Jindal has done more to destroy Louisiana than any hurricane.
Your use of the word authentic relative to Jindal is absolutely correct. In fact he’s profoundly inauthentic, which is perhaps why he frenetically stays on the move surrounded only by people who accept without question and then parrot everything he says. It’s interesting to get to know some of these people, for not all drink the Kool-aid; they sometimes mimic, but don’t always parrot him once he’s out of earshot or they leave his employ. We refer to him as Bobby Jingle.
To comprehend anything Jindal says one must review it, for the machine gun, rat-a-tat-tat pace of his delivery–probably by design–confuses, overwhelms, wows any listener who finds himself wondering if he could talk that fast about anything. How is it possible for the brain to generate connected ideas and state them simultaneously at his pace? One cannot speak at such a pace and be deliberate, which suggest memorized lines and canned performance. It’s curious, too, for great leaders have never spoken in Jindal’s fashion, instead speaking slowly, deliberately, emphatically. In his first address to Congress as President, Lyndon Johnson, who was capable of cheetah-speed talk, actually wrote the word pause between lines and paragraphs. It may not be inherently human, but in our culture fast talkers have long been met with skepticism and have provided the material for countless jokes and fables. Fast talk almost precludes gravitas, and a review of any Jindal speech or address confirms just that; there is no gravitas. There is nothing original, creative or profound in his words, thoughts or actions. It’s all pablum, just a vomiting of facts, figures and ideas others have written and studied. We should wonder if he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome? His seeming indifference to the impact his public policy actions have on the lives of so many, his seeming inability to empathize, suggest about him something puzzling, if not abnormal.
Jindal’s uncomfortable, even nervous in his own skin, something that strikes one if he sees the painting of Jindal behind the desk of the receptionist on the 4th floor of the Capitol or another hanging in the mansion. His skin color has been changed and, in the case of the Capitol painting, lightened significantly. Another example of this was the huge billboard sized picture of him that provided a podium backdrop at the recent gathering of conservative leaders in New Orleans some months back. The contrast when he strode onto the stage was stunning. Several years ago a quiet, undistinguished former state representative who served during Jindal’s first term gave this response to the question of what he thought of the Governor. The Governor has but one problem: he hates his own skin color.
The world has been wowed over the years by Jindal’s personal, career track record, but ask yourself what he has actually done or gotten done in every position he’s held since he graduated from college. Rhodes Scholar? It’s time we call bullshit on the Rhodes Scholarship business. I went to school with a Rhodes Scholar. He was hardly the smartest fellow in our class, but he was one of the best and most subtle ass licks I ever knew, reflecting the views of professors to massage and reinforcing their needy egos–for no one’s ego-needs exceed those of a super smart scholar who secretly fancies himself a man of action–with just enough variation and contrast so as to give them the slip and conceal the fact they were being gamed. These puffed up professors would, of course, later write glowing letters forcefully recommending him, an ideal candidate, no finer scholar have I ever met…for a Rhodes Scholarship. A Rhodes Scholarship amounts to a year long paid vacation that allows world class bullshitters and con artists to drink beer and smoke hash in England and try their skills on each others. Rhodes Scholars become Rhodes Scholars because they desire all their lives to be known as a Rhodes Scholar. Has one ever produced anything of value with the scholarship?
How about Jindal’s abbreviated time out of college in the private sector at McKinsey Co? A report on Medicaid that wowed Mike Foster? Or was that a college paper? Head of DHH? If he’s such a whiz guy, what did he actually do to repair LA’s failing health care system and services? Head of the President’s Commission on Medicare? Where’s that report? Higher Ed Commssioner? Yes sirree, he loves higher ed. Congressman? Moving on, moving on, moving on, polishing my credentials, perfecting my resume’, moving on, see ya, good to know ya, moving on.
Who is Bobby Jindal? Who are his friends? Who does he really talk to about anything other than the Bobby Jindal Project?
Do his wife and kids even know?
Is Bobby Jindal even a conservative?
How is one to know today? The views of real conservatives should be respected and weighed carefully, but as is the case with Christians real conservatives are virtually extinct. What is one to do? In search of Christians at least one can find solace in the company of dogs.
One can’t sort this out without painting today’s political landscape in broad strokes, but two old sayings provide some base colors from which to work. One is No Good Deed Shall Go Unpunished, which says more about people than politics, but which contains a great deal of truth. The other, more applicable to public policy and which gets to the heart of the matter, is The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.
Liberals or Progressives too often want to change and make the world a better place, but they lack sufficient (or any) skepticism of change, and too often they are inconsiderate of potential blowback (true of conservatives as well). They seem incapable of admitting that they may not know and that, lousy as things might be, the status quo might actually be a better than any solution. Before glasses are raised to toast the toppling of Hussein’s statue and before we join the raucous party in Cairo’s main square, we should at least try to weigh forthcoming–unintended–consequences, which is never easy and may be ultimately impossible. It is important to say We don’t know, so let’s hit the pause button, for Arab springs can become nightmarish summers. The benign Dictator might be better than a complete power void. Women might be better off under his rule, that of a secular Sunni, than that of old, impotent, Shiite mullahs back in Tehran. Supplying the mujahideen against the Ruskies may lead to burning towers. Wars, revolutions and rapid change are romantic only to the young and those who have never loved.
In contrast, today’s Republicans seemingly want no change at all; they have become little more than supporters and defenders of economic wealth and power. They avow that the marketplace, freed from government rule and regulation, will deliver us–whoosh–straight to Utopia (notwithstanding, of course, the market not being up to the task of addressing climate change). Today’s Republicans declare that Liberals don’t understand or appreciate the powers of the market and want only to destroy it, but they can’t bring themselves to acknowledge its many failings and flaws. How’s that privatized flood control going for your constituents, Senator Dinko? And so on. Neither Liberals nor Conservative are sufficiently suspicious or skeptical of power, now matter where accumulated; nor appreciative enough of how much the computer and telecommunications revolutions have augmented and magnified power, esp. corporate and government police power.
So is our man Jindal a conservative? Given his wholesale destruction of public health and education in Louisiana and his seeming desire to make huge, rapid changes without any seeming empathy for those impacted by the change, without any seeming care or consideration long term consequences; given his love of power and tendency to favor secrecy over openness; given his willingness to destroy any who oppose him; given his willingness to throw under the bus even those who support him, but become a hindrance; I’d say our Governor more resembles Robespierre than Edmund Burke.
Keep up the great work. What follows law school? BOGE
Reblogged this on The Daily Kingfish and commented:
LAMAR SMASH
“Jindal also championed the passage of a thoughtless, overly broad constitutional amendment that critics rightly warned could allow convicted murderers the right to possess automatic weapons.”
This statement has a lot of problems.
First of all, nobody can possess automatic weapons in the State of Louisiana with the exception of “war relics.” So that’s flat-out wrong.
Secondly, the amendment was not thoughtless nor overly broad; strict scrutiny is already applied to other constitutional rights and proponents of the amendment (including myself) thought and argued a great deal about it.
Thirdly, the idea that the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision was “creative” is ridiculous; I don’t know of any serious legal scholar that considers the ruling to be a stretch. Restrictions on the rights of convicted felons to certain exercise constitutional rights have been broadly upheld, and Louisiana’s law is actually quite narrow (it only applies to violent felonies and drug felonies, and lapses after 10 years). Even to the degree there was some argument that Louisiana’s prohibition was overbroad, nobody conceived that it could not be reasonably applied to “convicted murderers.”
I won’t get into your other points, but on this you were wrong across the board. Your rhetoric is verging on agit-prop. You know better than this, Lamar.
I’d refer readers to the thread on Facebook if they care to read the extended discussion with Owen: https://www.facebook.com/cenlamar/posts/980621654211