State integrity news for Louisiana, from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard each received $40,000 in campaign contributions from companies that the Louisiana Board of Ethics now alleges are "straw man entities" used to launder illegal donations from the embattled River Birch landfill's parent company. Jindal's campaign reported receiving $5,000 contributions from six River Birch-linked firms on the same day in April 2007.

The $30,000 haul would violate a $5,000 cap on donations from one company if all the money ultimately came from River Birch Inc., as the Board of Ethics asserts in a lawsuit against the alleged shell companies.

Read the rest of the story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

By Barry Erwin, Council for a Better Louisiana

One of the first things Buddy Roemer did when he became governor of Louisiana in 1988 was create the Office of Inspector General. He figured, correctly, that the state needed an independent watchdog agency to weed out corruption and misuse of state funds.

Four years later, when former Governor Edwin Edwards and former Klansman David Duke knocked him out of the runoff for re-election, Roemer fought to maintain the office. He got Edwards to promise that if elected he would keep the Office of Inspector General alive. That surprised a lot of people, since Edwards himself had been the target of various federal investigations and later went to jail. But Edwards kept his word, and continued to fund the inspector general position.

Given that history, it caught almost everybody off guard when a couple of weeks ago the Louisiana House of Representatives agreed to an amendment to the 2013 state budget bill that completely eliminated funding for the Office of Inspector General. That’s not a good thing.

State integrity news for Louisiana, from The Advocate:

If there is one bargain in the state budget, we think it’s the less than $2 million a year spent on an office targeting public corruption and fraud. It makes no sense for the Legislature to economize by eliminating the funding for the Office of Inspector-General in state government.

The House of Representatives deleted the funding for the office, a signal that officeholders may be unhappy about investigations by Inspector-General Stephen Street, a veteran prosecutor.

Read the rest of the story at The Advocate.

State integrity news for Louisiana, from The Town Talk: 

Any candidate running for the Louisiana Legislature or for statewide office should complete ethics training, says Rep. Stuart Bishop, R-Lafayette.The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved Bishop's House Bill 365 and sent it to the full Senate for final approval.

"I don't see a problem with people knowing what they're getting into," said Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans.

Read the rest of the story at The Town Talk.

State integrity news for Louisiana, from The Advocate:

House Bill 942 would allow the Ethics Board — which prosecutes cases of alleged ethics violations — to challenge decisions of the Ethics Adjudicatory Board, which decides cases when questions of interpretations of law are involved.

The Ethics Board wants the appeal right, but not an amendment added by a House committee that would require it to pay attorney fees and court costs of the other party if they lose appeals.

Read the rest of the story at The Advocate.

State integrity news for Louisiana, from the Times-Picayune:

A trio of adjustments to the ethics laws passed in 2008 breezed through a House committee Wednesday morning. The bills, which make up a part of Gov. Bobby Jindal's ethics package for this session and have been endorsed by the independent Public Affairs Research Council, would create an appeals process for ethics decisions, give the Board of Ethics more flexibility in investigating complaints and clarify issues surrounding fines for violations of campaign finance laws.

Read the rest of the story at the Times-Picyune.

Corruption news for Louisiana, from the Times-Picayune:

Gov. Bobby Jindal says he will have a package of bills to make changes in the state's ethics laws, to clarify legislation passed in a special session shortly after he began his first term. Jindal spokesman Frank Collins said that the bills are still being drafted.

The package will include enhancing enforcement of state campaign finance laws by spelling out that the state Board of Ethics is the body that enforces campaign finance laws and the Ethics Adjudicatory Board hears the cases. The legislation is designed to clarify the roles of the agencies charged with prosecution and enforcement of campaign finance laws, Collins said.

Read the rest of the story at the Times-Picayune.

Corruption news for Louisiana, from the Times-Picayune:

Sure, state courts in Louisiana will award you damages against government agencies that do you wrong, but hold off on the champagne. If they refuse to cough up, as they frequently do, there is nothing you can do about it.

That is a hell of a catch or, as the court of appeal in Lake Charles recently termed it, "a frustrating dichotomy for the state's judgment creditors." The court so observed in a case that shows citizens who want the open government guaranteed by the state constitution had better be prepared to pay for it.

Read the rest of the story at the Times-Picayune.

Corruption news for Louisiana, from the Times-Picayune:

William Roe, who helped himself to more than $6,000 in public money as a Plaquemines Parish judge, will finally begin his three-month prison sentence on Dec. 20. Retired Judge Jerome Winsberg refused a request to reduce the former judge's sentence, and rightly so.

Mr. Roe kept money he had obtained from the state Supreme Court as reimbursement for expenses incurred during judicial seminars in Florida in 2005, 2006 and 2007. When Judge Winsberg (pictured, right) sentenced Mr. Roe in 2010, he described what he had done as "a serious crime, an egregious crime'' and "reprehensible conduct.''

Read the rest of the story at the Times-Picayune.

Corruption news for Louisiana, from The Advocate:

Attorneys for the Governor’s Office and two other state agencies urged a judge Monday to throw out former Alcohol and Tobacco Control Commissioner Murphy Painter’s wrongful-termination and defamation claims.

The attorneys argued Painter’s public service came to an end in the summer of 2010 — and that he was the focus of a scathing report by the state Office of Inspector General earlier this year — because of his own misdeeds.

Read the rest of the story at The Advocate.