We already knew that the Legislature was prone to getting into trouble when money was tight.
Turns out an embarrassment of riches can give legislators scope to quarrel even more.
The recriminations from the end of the 2023 regular session are in full throat, after some very last-minute budget writing — prompted at least in part by obstruction from far-right conservative House members who wanted to rein in spending in accord with decades-old, arguably irrelevant legislation — broke down the machinery.
With major bills emerging late out of a conference committee, and a 6 p.m. Thursday adjournment deadline looming, members voted very much in the spirit of the famous Nancy Pelosi remark: They passed the most important legislation to learn what's in it.
Or what’s not in it, as some bad decisions were made behind closed doors.
The jibe fits, even if it’s not entirely fair to Pelosi, the former speaker of the U.S. House, who is hardly as amateurish as Louisiana’s legislators turned out to be.
State Rep. Larry Frieman, a fiscal conservative from Abita Springs, said that ''basically the Speaker (Clay Schexnayder) used the Nancy Pelosi approach of you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.''
Rep. Tanner Magee, a Schexnayder ally from Houma, responded several hours later: ''You set out to cause havoc, caused havoc, and are now upset about the havoc you caused.”
Havoc is a good word, and it represents the triumph of extreme tactics and the signal failure of legislative leaders to get their act together at the ultimate moment.
So what’s not in the bill that worries us? Say, the last-minute and completely unexplained $100 million cut to the Department of Health, which is quite likely to trigger cuts in federal matching funds.
Or the deletion of a badly needed bridge project across the Red River connecting Shreveport and Bossier, amid complaints that legislative leaders not only targeted specific conservatives from that area but aimed their fire too widely (Rep. Thomas Pressly tweeted out Monday that construction would go forward after all).
Weeks may be required to sort out the damage from a budget that started out flush with money. Talk about a gang that can’t shoot straight, even with piles of ammunition at hand.