Yesterday was such fun. Now, unfortunately, back to the boring local politics.
For Election 2003, I hung a sign on my porch reading "HOLD YOUR NOSE AND VOTE FOTI."
I'm not a big fan of Charles Foti. He did a fair job running Orleans Parish Prison for 30 years (a fair job as long as you were on the outside, looking at the prisoner-painted murals; inside "Hotel Foti" or in the tent city set up behind the jail for prisoner overflow was no joyful place), but he wasn't Attorney General material.
But his opponent in the 2003 AG race was Suzanne Haik Terrell, Republican ex-City Councilwoman, fresh off a loss to Mary Landrieu after a startlingly vicious, Rove-driven Senate campaign that featured state visits by such non-luminaries as Poppy Bush and The Dick Cheney. Given a choice like that, the "hold your nose" sign spelled out the only real option.
Looks like I'm going to have to dig around and find that sign again.
Now, damaged by court losses in the St. Rita's Nursing Home trial and the terribly ill-advised Anna Pou/Memorial Hospital case, Foti is facing a challenge by Republican Royal Alexander.
Alexander, formerly chief of staff and head fixer for Rep. Rodney Alexander (no relation), enters the race with the advantages of Foti's recent stumbles and the connections and influence gathered from his years as a congressional staffer.
But, in trying to exploit those connections, Alexander may have gone too far, pushing his fund-raising efforts to within a paint-coat's width of state ethics laws.
We're all familiar with the lobbying game. Representatives of a particular interest group, say, apple pie makers, contribute money to candidates they believe will be sympathetic to their cause. Then, when legislation that may advantage or disadvantage their interests, say, a tax credit for apple pies, comes up, they call the lawmakers they've supported to remind them of how strongly they feel about the issue, how they'd appreciate consideration, perhaps with some additional contributions. The lawmakers carefully weigh the issues and laws are made. Simple, efficient, ugly. But as American as those pies.
Now, according to an article by Bill Barrow in the Sept. 11 Times-Picayune, Royal Alexander has turned the process around and made it, in his words, "aggressive." Pre-emptively so.
Seeking money for his run against Foti, Alexander contacted several health care providers in Louisiana and offered to "reach out to my D.C. staffer friends" and lobby to have cuts in Medicare payments curtailed. He made this offer despite being, as he put it, "very busy."
But the offer wasn't the gesture of a naturally gracious fellow. No, Alexander was quite specific when laying out the cost of his assistance: "So, in return for the precious time I am going to take away from my campaign for Attorney General to assist you, I am going to ask you to make a substantial financial contribution to my campaign."
Louisiana's campaign finance law states: "No person shall knowingly coerce or attempt to coerce another person to give or withhold a contribution." Recipients said Alexander's tone might have been a bit unusual, but they didn't view his solicitation as a quid pro quo.
State law provides that a candidate turn over to the state any contribution determined to be obtained by coercive tactics banned by campaign finance statutes. Officials at the state Board of Ethics would make such a determination based on any complaint the agency might receive.
When asked by Barrow about his email solicitations, Alexander described his fundraising as "aggressive," but hoped he wasn't "overly aggressive."
Take a look (.gif image) at some excerpts from Alexander's emails and you be the judge of whether he was "overly aggressive" and whether a quid-pro-quo was offered.
So far, the state Ethics Board has received no complaints from the emails' recipients, so no penalties have been levied, but Lansing Kolb, a health facility director who was one of the lucky offerees, did note the rather, um, aggressive nature of the solicitation:
Still, Kolb said he thought the approach did not match what he has observed in more than three decades of volunteering for and supporting candidates for all levels of public office. "If you're in health care and a guy is inclined to vote for money for health care, then yes, I support him," Kolb said. "But quite this particular way, where, a candidate says, 'You've got this exact problem, and I can help you fix it,' I can't say that I've seen much of that.
Now, a quick action request for any of you 'round my way: This story, as stunning as it is, is likely going to be a one-day wonder, what with 9/11 commemorations, the second day of Petraeus Fest, and Vitter's hooker's press conference.
Perhaps a letter to the editor, complimenting Barrow's reporting and wondering why such a blatant shakedown for political contributions should carry no criminal penalty, might offer the story a bit of life support. Sadly, I have shot my month's Times-Picayune letter allotment in slapping around Michael Chertoff and whatever genius floated his name for U.S. AG on the anniversary of Katrina.
If you find the story as aggressively interesting as I do, why not let the T-P's editors know?