Political Horizons for Sunday 1-29

Internet blogger C.B. Forgotston spent several minutes of his appearance on “The Jim Engster Show” Thursday complaining about a Jindal deputy criticizing Michael Walker-Jones, of the Louisiana Association of Educators.

Trying to explain how parents might go about choosing a school for their children, which is the narrative Gov. Bobby Jindal has chosen to sell his education revamp, Walker-Jones said: “If I’m a parent in poverty, I have no clue because I’m trying to struggle and live day to day.”

The deputy, Aaron Baer, wrote: “This type of rhetoric is insulting.”

Forgotston pointed out that Baer is a publicly-paid government employee who used state-owned computers on taxpayer time to comment on a proposed government policy.

“I don’t think it’s the job of a spokesman, for the governor, who is on the public payroll to be issuing his own commentaries about anything, much less another individual,” Forgotston said. “That was not the governor talking in that press release.”

Engster suggested that Baer, as the governor’s deputy communications director, merely was parroting Jindal’s own views. Indeed, in an earlier email sent from Jindal’s campaign website, Jindal, a graduate of Brown University, called the union leader’s comments “elitist.”

The email that caught Forgotston’s attention was but one sent by Baer during the past couple of weeks.

Baer’s column is similar to a 2009 blog called “The Ledger,” written by Michael DiResto, a spokesman for the state Division of Administration, and posted on the agency’s website. DiResto, at the time, said the blog was being used to tell Jindal’s side of the story on budget issues.

The administration pulled down DiResto’s blog after state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, said, “It’s a website where the writers who write on it draw a state salary. It’s against the law.”

Under the title, “Setting the Record Straight,” Baer critiques newspaper coverage and scolds critics.

For instance, on Jan. 20, the update “to highlight important facts” Baer wrote that an article in The News-Star, the Monroe daily newspaper, failed to include Jindal’s belief that his “scholarship” expansion idea “may actually create a cost savings.”

In an interview Thursday, Kyle Plotkin, the governor’s communications director and Baer’s supervisor, said his office sends Baer’s critiques only to the media. He said he has no idea how the emails are making their way to Republican voters and others around the state.

The point of Baer’s emails is to keep the governor’s narrative from being diverted with factual errors. Plotkin said it’s more than answering criticism in real time. It’s also about trying to keep innocently reported errors or misleading interpretations from being repeated as facts, he said.

For instance, education officials have long said that about 1,500 students are eligible for a program that gives taxpayer money to some parents to help pay for private school tuition.

That number has grown to 1,800. But, more to the point, Plotkin says, that number reflects eligible students from nine eligible schools receiving taxpayer aid from the New Orleans Scholarship Program. The number does not represent those who would choose to, but those who “have chosen to participate,” he said.

“Enrolled” and “eligible” are not synonymous, Plotkin said, and that distinction is important because Jindal proposes to expand the New Orleans pilot statewide, using criteria that could make about 380,000 of the state’s roughly 700,000 public school students eligible for the program that critics call “vouchers.”

“Scholarships,” Plotkin corrected with a smile.

Plotkin’s attention to policy detail, however, does not seem to have been embraced universally.

For instance, also on Thursday, another Jindal staffer was asked for details about a state contract with Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc. The Memphis-based investment banker is being paid $150,000 to analyze whether Jindal should privatize the Office of Group Benefits, the state-run insurer for state workers, retirees and their families.

Should Jindal, based partially on that advice, decide to hire a private company to manage the health plan, then Morgan Keegan stands to make up to $900,000 to help set up that privatization.

DiResto, the Division of Administration spokesman, discredited queries about the contract’s terms, saying that merely asking the question implies “something nefarious.”

Mark Ballard is editor of The
Advocate’s Capitol news bureau. His email address is [e-mail].