Three candidates say they’ll voluntarily ‘weaken’ the governor’s office if elected

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Three of the seven candidates for Louisiana governor said they would voluntarily give up some of the office’s wide-ranging power and influence if elected this fall to replace Gov. John Bel Edwards.

“I think the power of the governor is too strong,” said former business lobbyist and Republican candidate Stephen Waguespack at the annual conference of the Louisiana Municipal Association in Alexandria Thursday.

“The office of the governor will be weaker,” under a Waguespack administration, he said.

Louisiana’s political chattering class has, for decades, said the position comes with more control than it does in other states.

Republicans, in particular, have groused about the authority of the governor ever since Edwards took office in 2016. Edwards is a Democrat in an increasingly conservative state, but still manages to wield significant influence over public policy. He expanded Louisiana’s Medicaid program, for example, when leaders in other, more liberal states struggled to do so, because Louisiana’s constitution didn’t require him to get permission from state lawmakers first.

It remains to be seen whether that outrage will continue into the next administration, especially if a conservative wins the governor’s race. Few GOP officials were willing to publicly criticize Edwards’ predecessor, Republican Bobby Jindal, despite his reputation for bullying state officials.

Notably the two gubernatorial candidates leading in recent polls, Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry and Democrat Shawn Wilson, also haven’t made any commitments to relinquish power if elected.

But the remarks from Waguespack, who worked as Jindal’s chief of staff, about weakening the governor’s influence echo talking points of other Republican gubernatorial candidates, including state Rep. Richard Nelson and Treasurer John Schroder.

Nelson has been pushing an ambitious tax plan to give local governments more flexibility to raise money and shift fiscal responsibility away from state government. He says the concentration of power in Baton Rouge has made Louisiana a poorer state.

Both Nelson and Waguespack traced the origins of Louisiana’s problems back 100 years, to when Huey Long was first elected governor.

Long restructured government in order to give himself influence over a wide range of money and services, and the state has never recovered, Nelson often says on the campaign trail. The arrangement puts local governments in a position of having to rely on the governor and legislators for basic services.

Louisiana should aspire to function more like Texas and Florida, where local governments enjoy more independence and control over their finances, Nelson and Waguespack have said.

Schroder also said he would be willing to renounce some power as governor, albeit in a more tepid manner.

He promised not to cut funding for local communities if their state lawmakers voted against his wishes. Edwards, Jindal and other governors regularly used local community funding as a carrot to pressure lawmakers into supporting their agendas.

“I don’t believe in transactional politics,” said Schroder at the Louisiana Municipal Association meeting, where over 100 mayors and other local government officials gathered. “I will not punish you for a decision your legislator makes.”

Candidates may be promising to cede authority to local governments, but few have committed to keeping full local government control of a high-profile tax break in place.

Edwards created new rules for the Louisiana industrial tax exemption program seven years ago that curb a lucrative property tax break mostly given to industrial users.

The changes generated hundreds of millions of dollars of extra revenue for parish governments and school systems, potentially moving them toward the independence that some candidates express an interest in seeing.

Under Edwards’ rules, industrial facilities can no longer receive a total exemption from property taxes – which fund local government –  for 10 years at a time. Instead, Edwards capped the tax break at 80% and said it has to be renewed every five years.

The governor also gave local governments – parish councils, school boards and sheriffs – some power to decide whether the property tax breaks go into place. Previously, an obscure state board had the final say on whether corporations received the tax incentive and local governments didn’t get a vote.

Staff with the Louisiana Municipal Association – whose members are directly affected by the industrial tax exemption program – said keeping Edwards’ rules in place is a top priority for the organization. The group asked all seven governor candidates appearing at their forum this week to explain where they stood on the issue, but most didn’t make their position clear.

Six of the seven candidates have previously said that they are comfortable keeping the 80% cap on the tax break in place and want to retain the sheriffs’ voting control over the tax incentive. The remaining candidate, Nelson, wants to go further and eliminate the industrial tax exemption program altogether.

But only Wilson, who ran the state transportation department for Edwards for seven years, said he would continue to give local parish councils and school boards – in addition to sheriffs – a say on industrial tax exemption applications.

“You should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to your resources,” he told the gathering of mayors and other local elected officials.

Landry, the presumed Republican frontrunner in the race, didn’t explain his position on the industrial tax exemption program at all during his remarks.

Instead, he discussed Louisiana’s high crime rate – a focal point for Landry’s campaign, but not a topic the municipal association had asked gubernatorial candidates to address at the meeting.

The attorney general said he thought crime committed by minors was driving the overall high rate of violence in Louisiana, and asked the local elected attending the governor’s forum to raise their hands if they agreed.

A smattering of hands in the crowd of more than 200 people went up.

He then pivoted to another one of his favorite campaign topics: parents’ rights.

“How many of you would trust the state of Louisiana to raise your child?” Landry asked.

He then said education would be a high priority for his administration, but offered no specifics on what he would do to improve school outcomes.

“There’s nothing new about who I am,” he said at the end of his remarks.

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