Business group rates lawmakers on their votes

(See lawmakers voting percentage table at the bottom of the page.)

 Scalise, Boasso top N.O.-area legislators

Saturday, August 18, 2007

By Ed Anderson

 

BATON ROUGE -- Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and Sen. Walter Boasso, D-Arabi, were the New Orleans-area lawmakers who voted most often for the position taken by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry over the past four years, according to a scorecard released Friday by the state's largest business lobby. Scalise was tied for fifth among all 105 House members with a 2004-07 score of 93 percent on key LABI issues. Boasso was the third-highest in the 39-member Senate at 86 percent.

Association President Dan Juneau said the rankings help the association's political action committees determine which incumbents to support in the upcoming election cycle. Lawmakers who vote with the association at least 75 percent of the time win an almost automatic endorsement, he said. Lawmakers who score less than 75 percent, Juneau said, are not out of the running for the association's support. "We have to look at the different types of districts people are in," Juneau said. "Someone with a 50 percent in Carl Crane's district (which is conservative and pro-business), that person would be opposed. . . . If we had someone at 50 percent in Cedric Richmond's district (a heavily Democratic district in eastern New Orleans), that person would be a mini-all-star." Richmond, a Democrat, came in at 33 percent on LABI votes. As "a rule of thumb," Juneau said, anyone with a four-year score of less than 40 percent probably would be dropped from consideration for backing.

Ranked at bottom

Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, had the lowest LABI score among all House members at 23 percent. LaFonta has not served a full term and was seated in March 2005. LaFonta said the rating could cause some political angst among "some conservatives" and business interests in his district. He said that the votes selected by LABI for the ratings do not reflect his involvement in legislation with small business groups and interests, helping get grants for small businesses recovering from Hurricane Katrina and business mentoring programs."My focus is on the small business person," LaFonta said. "Those are the people who need more help, the mom-and-pop (operations), and not the Fortune 500 companies."

In the Senate, Diana Bajoie, D-New Orleans, and Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, were tied for the lowest LABI score at 27 percent. Bajoie could not be reached Friday.

Fields said he questions how LABI selected the votes. "It depends on what they were grading me," he said. "If they were grading me on whether I was giving insurance companies millions of dollars (in incentives to locate to the state), I don't make any apologies for voting against that."

Key business votes

Juneau said the voting records are based on votes considered key to the business community, such as increasing the minimum wage, which the group opposed, and tax relief or increases for businesses. He said one issue that was a key vote in the 2006 session was a resolution to lift or hold in place the existing cap on state spending. Juneau said that measure was important to businesses because a growth in government spending often means a growth in taxes on business. Some of the issues that were key in the past session were bills granting tax breaks to consumers and incentives to insurance companies to locate to the state; reducing by 1 percent the state's sale tax on utilities, which Gov. Kathleen Blanco vetoed; abolishing the state's insurance-regulating panel; and mandating insurers to cover certain mental conditions.

"The people I represent want to see a more pro-business environment," Scalise said. "I am proud to be pro-business."

Boasso, who is running for governor in the fall elections, said he has not seen the rankings. I have no idea what LABI put out," he said. "If those are the votes, then those are the votes." Earlier this year, he jumped from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party so most of the votes he cast were as a GOP lawmaker.

Republicans near top  

Many Republicans in the House and Senate are clustered near the top of the business association's rankings. The highest LABI scores in the House in the four-year period were racked up by Reps. Carl Crane, R-Baton Rouge, at 99 percent, and rookie Rep. M. J. "Mert" Smiley, R-St. Amant, at 98 percent. In the House, the Democrat with the highest score is Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesville. In the New Orleans area, the lowest-ranked GOP lawmaker was Rep. Alex Heaton, R-New Orleans, at 51 percent. Heaton became a Republican in the past year. Sen. Robert Barham, R-Oak Ridge, was the most reliable LABI vote in the Senate in the past four years, voting with the association 95 percent of the time. "I would love to be 100 percent on everything but that is not going to happen" said Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego, the dean of the Legislature. Alario, whose four-year record totaled 59 percent, said that, because he has been a floor leader with the Blanco administration, he has had to align himself with the governor on some issues and not with LABI. "In some districts (a LABI rating) makes a big, big difference," mainly in conservative areas, Alario said. "I am pretty much a middle-of-the-road kinda guy."

Ed Renwick, director of the Loyola University Institute of Politics, said rankings by special-interest groups can hurt or help a candidate in a campaign.

"If an ad agency does a good job in packaging someone, (voters) can be influenced," he said. "It may be appealing to some" but may also give an opponent fodder to label the other candidate as being too aligned with a special group. "It depends on what type of voter has to be appealed to," Renwick said. "If the numbers don't address the representative makeup of the district, the candidate could be in trouble." He said ratings by special-interest groups may not make or break a candidate but could become one factor in a campaign.

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Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5810.