Letter: La. taxpayers deserve better

Thanks to fine reporting by The Associated Press, we learned this week that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s staff has been using private email addresses in a deliberate and concerted effort to hide their work from the public.

These are public employees, paid by the taxpayers and responsible for spending taxpayer money. They must be accountable to all taxpayers.

The AP investigation found the governor’s top aides using private emails to concoct a public relations offensive around the $523 million in cuts they brought down on Louisiana’s health care system.

This tactic of the governor’s highest aides using private email accounts rather than public accounts has only one purpose: to hide the public’s business from public’s view. These private emails were not disclosed even after a public records request to the Department of Health and Hospitals despite the administration’s claims that electronic communications about the public’s business should are public records no matter what type of email account is used.

As one expert told the AP: “Absolutely people use private accounts to hide things.”

All this secrecy comes from a governor who ran in 2007 on a platform of transparency, open government and ethics reform.

From the first day of his administration, this governor has done everything in his power to hide his records from the public view. He’s passed laws limiting scrutiny and killed bills that would have provided more transparency all while twisting existing rules to keep the public in the dark.

The taxpayers of Louisiana deserve better.

Rep. John Bel Edwards

District 72

Amite

Comments

1) Comment by Bouncer - 13/12/2012

People in "government" are becoming less and less accountable to their constituents. It's a slippery slope, folks.

2) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 12/12/2012

@rgeraldwallace and Being_Stupid. No once here cares about whether or not the governor's people have, or use their personal emails.; What they, and I DO care about is making sure that the government's business is not done in secret. When lies, deceit, and the selling off of Louisiana for the profit, political or financial, of a few, we DO UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WANT TO HIDE IT. We simply think that forcing government to operate in the open is what makes our government different from a dictator's. Do you really believe that "muddying the waters" and lying to the public while conducting business behind closed doors is the best way to run any government? Really? And remember, this was going to be the most transparent governor's office ever!

3) Comment by Being_Stupid - 12/12/2012

More hate mail from the "I Hate Bobby Jindal" crowd. God Forbid somebody working for Bobby Jindal has a private email address.

4) Comment by NearBarbarian - 12/12/2012

Thank you, Representative Edwards. I hope that your colleagues in the legislature will follow suit and take their oversight duties seriously. There are also deeper security and criminal implications. Who else has access to those personal email accounts? Is there any way to track the recipients of the personal emails? It is apparent that administration staffers conspired to "go underground" with their budget correspondence, so will that conspiracy be investigated? If they didn't conspire, one can assume that they were ordered to use unofficial correspondence. If so, who gave the order? The questions can and should continue. All told, some heads need to roll.

5) Comment by [e-mail] - 12/12/2012

Yes, it's time for action; more transparency is needed. There have been rumors that some of Jindal's staff have even dared to whisper with one another in the Gentlemen's capitol washroom! It's time to install video and listening abililty in there, and to monitor all personal devices that might be able to convey a thought that the public can't see.

6) Comment by anon - 12/12/2012

The lack of transparency and treading the line with regards to ethics is rampant in all of the agencies that have direct appointees from the governor. The blatant disregard for rules, regulations, and written policies make it very, very hard for government workers to do their jobs with confidence.

7) Comment by postscript56 - 12/12/2012

Thank you Rep. Edwards. I hope you run for governor. Jindal is an effective politician, is probably as sincerely conservative as he seems, and might actually install every goofy far right agenda written up in big-monied think tanks, but the guy is a total phony. Ethics? Transparency? Laughable. Which makes his faith laughable as well. One cannot claim to be a follower of Christ and engage in deception on the scale of Bobby Jindal. Politics is no excuse. You're either who you claim to be or you aren't. And Bobby isn't.