by Bobby Jindal
I had made fighting corruption a centerpiece of my 2003 campaign for governor, and I stressed the issue again in my successful 2007 campaign. The problem in Louisiana has not only been that elected officials were breaking the rules, but that the rules were too lax. This created what I would call systemic corruption, otherwise known as business as usual.
Cleaning up corruption in our state is not just some do-gooder crusade. There is also a tangible benefit: jobs. People don’t want to invest their money or start companies in a state they don’t trust. For years, companies have admired Louisiana’s workforce, climate, natural beauty, and plentiful energy resources, but have been chased away by fears they would not get a fair shake or that they would be subject to a shakedown. In a 2004 Louisiana State University survey, 945 out-of-state business CEOs were asked what could be done to make Louisiana more business friendly; eradicating corruption was tied as the top recommendation.
During my 2007 campaign, I introduced a detailed plan for ethics reform based on five pillars.
1. You cannot be both a lobbyist and a legislator.
Our state has a part-time Legislature that sits in session less than one-quarter of each year. Over the years too many legislators had been allowed to augment their income by working as lobbyists or as “consultants” for lobbying firms. In my view, this was an inherent conflict of interest that cost us business and hurt our reputation.
2. Legislators should be required to submit to financial disclosure.
The best way to prevent corruption is to mandate transparency. Statewide elected officials in Louisiana were required to submit financial disclosure forms, but legislators, local officials, and other state appointees were not. Some complained they would not serve if they had to fully disclose their income, assets, and debts. I responded that they should not let the door hit them on the way out. You can now go online and see full disclosure for these officials.
3. You cannot serve in government and do business with the government at the same time.
It had become routine for legislators or their family members to own or be part owners of businesses that work for the government. In my view, you can do business with the government or you can serve in the government, but you cannot do both. You are elected to serve the public, not yourself.
4. Lobbyists must fully disclose all their actions.
The public has a right to know who is lobbying whom and for what.
5. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
When the penalty for breaking ethics laws is a small fine or a slap on the wrist, the whole system becomes a joke. Severe offenses must be punished by expulsion and/or criminal charges.
After I became governor, many in our state capitol were startled to learn this wasn’t just empty campaign rhetoric. In fact, when we first announced our ethics platform in 2007, some reporters didn’t cover the event because they thought it was just a meaningless pledge.
It’s said that Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill had the same reaction to President Reagan’s election in 1980. A year into Reagan’s first term, O’Neill reportedly told the president they had assumed his campaign promises to reduce government and cut taxes were just rhetoric. He said they were shocked to find out he really meant it. Now that is a great compliment.
In my first month as governor, I called a special session of the Legislature, and we completely rewrote our ethics laws along the lines of my proposals. As a result, we’ve finally begun to change our century-long reputation for corruption. The Center for Public Integrity says we have gone from 44th to 1st in the country in terms of legislative disclosure laws.3 And we have gone from the bottom 5 to the top 5 on the Better Government Association’s “Integrity Index.”4
Still, there’s more work to be done. In fact, I warned folks that the new rules could result in many more politicians getting prosecuted, creating the perception that things are actually worse than ever. But make no mistake—the casual toleration of corruption is a thing of the past.
It’s a bit sad that ethics in government has become such a pressing topic. Conducting one’s business in an ethical manner, be it public service or any other pursuit, should be seen as standard practice, not as some wonderful virtue. Being ethical is only a minimum requirement for a politician. I can only laugh when politicians brag that they have never been involved in corruption. So what? I should hope not. That hardly seems like grounds for support.
Unfortunately, the public today often expects the worst from politicians. Can you blame them? Certainly corrupt politicians have been with us for all of human history. That said, we are on a strong bipartisan run of “men behaving badly” in the past few years. Bill Clinton was just the tip of the iceberg. In just the past year or two, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after getting caught with prostitutes; New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey stepped down over a homosexual affair; South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was censured for “hiking the Appalachian Trail”; Idaho Senator Larry Craig was caught toe tapping in a bathroom stall; Nevada Senator John Ensign preyed on his staffer who also happened to be his best friend’s wife; and New York Congressman Eric Massa resigned amidst allegations he had sexually harassed his male staff. I could go on—but this is plenty.
And of course, there’s the saga of morally bankrupt former North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Here’s a guy who had a real shot at becoming president. And while he pursued that goal he was breaking his marriage vows as his wife courageously battled cancer. He stared into the camera every day, lied through his near perfect teeth, and convinced a staffer to claim paternity of his “love child.” Again, you just can’t make this stuff up.
I’ve heard many people blame the sordid transgressions that marred Bill Clinton’s presidency for causing a moral decline in America. But I don’t think one person can cause a moral decline, nor can one person improve our society’s moral condition. The way I see it, we often get the politicians we deserve. True, this unethical behavior sometimes comes out of the blue. But in the case of Bill Clinton, for example, Americans already knew a lot about his ... er ... unusual personal history during his first presidential campaign—and we elected him anyway.
It should be noted that unethical behavior is by no means confined to politics. It’s all around us, in big business, on Wall Street, in athletics, in entertainment, in the legal profession, in education, and even in the clergy. If you’re looking for prominent Americans who act badly, you can find them everywhere. Golf comes to mind...
During his playing days, former basketball star Charles Barkley famously declared, “I am not a role model.” That’s not true, because it wasn’t his decision to make. You don’t choose to be a role model. That choice is made by the young people who admire you and try to emulate you. Our kids get it. Our kids instinctively know to respect those who protect us, those who wear our nation’s uniform, those who run towards danger, not away from it, so that we can be safe. One day, I returned to the Mansion shortly after being sworn in as governor. I arrived before the kids had gone to bed, and my three-year-old son Shaan came running to the door yelling, “Daddy is home!” He hugged my legs, and I picked him up to see him face to face. He excitedly asked me to show him my badge. Confused, I told him I didn’t have a badge. He asked, “Aren’t you a state trooper dad?” I told him, “No, I am the governor of the great state of Louisiana.” He gave me a disappointed look that only a son can give a father and asked, “Well, do you think you might become a state trooper some day?” I told him I would work on it.
All people—regardless of their job or role in society—have the responsibility to notice when they are viewed as a role model and live up to that responsibility. No excuses. That admiring kid of today could be a political leader, athlete, parent, or teacher of tomorrow.
I believe leaders gain people’s confidence by earning it, not by demanding it. And the only way to earn the opportunity to lead is by example. The real test for leaders, and indeed the real test for all of us, is to answer this q
uestion: are my actions designed to help others or to help myself? Taking advantage of others, or exploiting powerful positions to enrich ourselves or to feed our own appetites, is the opposite of real leadership. Real leaders focus on one thing: service. Effective leadership is “servant leadership.”
Becoming involved in unethical behavior can be a slippery slope. It often begins by denying the temptation exists—that is, to believe you are so great a person that you could never possibly stoop to corruption. Humility is the key to keeping a proper perspective on power, and is thus one of the most important character traits we should look for in our elected leaders.
So, yes, it’s true, I am indeed hoping to be the most boring governor in the history of Louisiana. I don’t believe we should elect politicians to entertain us. We have movies, music, sports, books, plays, and Mardi Gras for that.
That said, I also want to aim high and try to be Louisiana’s most effective governor ever. The public is desperately seeking competence from elected leaders. I won’t be perfect, but I will strive for excellence, and I will pursue it with everything I have.
CHAPTER 10
DO WE REALLY WANT TO BE LIKE EUROPE?
When you look in the mirror in the morning, what do you see? Do you see a victim?
Is the person staring back at you a helpless victim of fate, incapable of making the important decisions that steer his or her life? Are Americans like you and I so incompetent and powerless that we are unable to assume the responsibilities other generations of Americans have met?
Over the course of my life, I’ve been told numerous times that I should think of myself as some sort of victim. I was told by teachers and elites that if I didn’t see myself as a victim, I needed to be awakened to my true state of existence. Because of how I was raised, these conversations would usually prompt me to break out in laughter.
Now President Obama and many of the advocates of bigger government in Washington are having the same conversation with America. We all need help. Or, as my staffers, might put it, “They think Americans have become wusses.”
This is the tug-of-war going on in America today. Two different sides are pulling on the rope. The side that wins will determine what sort of country our children grow up in, and whether we continue to be the greatest country the world has ever seen.
Tugging on one side are those of us who believe that what made America great is what makes us great today: freedom and all the things that come with it—individualism, self-reliance, limited government, and personal responsibility. These are the sort of values I’m raising my children with. Pulling on the other end are those who see Americans as sheep, lost and helpless souls unable to find their way around our complex world without the enlightened guidance of what David Brooks of the New York Times calls “the educated class.” How can Americans get along without a much wiser elite to guide us? Our future, they say, lies in becoming more like Western Europe, with the government playing a larger role in our lives. We sheep, they tell us, can’t get along without sheepherders.
Now the debate is not exactly presented in that way. President Obama and those on the other side of the discussion don’t call us “sheep” or admit they want to take America the way of Europe. Instead, they beguile us with promises of safety. They promise government-run healthcare, automatic wage increases, environmental regulations, and expanded social welfare programs. They overflow with guilt about our unmet collective responsibilities and economic inequality, and promise to “spread the wealth around.” They cloak their arguments in compassion: If you care about the elderly, poor, disabled, disadvantaged, single moms, unemployed, middle-class, homeless, children, fill-in-the-blank—then you will of course support their agenda.
That’s what we hear every day from the White House. And that’s exactly the argument I heard on the House floor every day that I served in Congress. If you care, you better vote for more government spending. If you oppose more spending, it means you don’t give a damn.
As a result, Republicans in Congress often fall into the “Democrats Lite” trap: we taste just as bad as the Democrats, but we are less filling. The Dems want to spend several bajillion dollars to help some unfortunate group of people, and the Republicans, fearing being painted as uncaring, decide to go along. To maintain some shred of principle, however, we propose to spend a little less—maybe half a bajillion. And away we go. Now we are in a bidding war with the Obama White House and the Democrats in Congress. The minute we are in a contest with a Democrat in Congress to see who can spend more tax dollars—we are goners. That, my friends, as Senator John McCain would say, is a war Republicans will never win. Remember, Democrats really like spending. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali, they will beat us so bad we will need a shoe horn to put our hat on.
Trying to outbid Democrats not only won’t work, it is wrong. As tempting as it may be to try, we can’t produce a no-fault, no-pain society. It’s not possible, and the costs to our liberties would be incredibly high. What Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1775 should be spoken out loud by every congressman before they cast a single vote: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
What our government can guarantee is our freedom, the liberty that is the miracle of America. That freedom, if we preserve it, is what guarantees both our prosperity and our safety. As many have noted, that liberty has allowed roughly 4 percent of the world’s people to create approximately 20 percent of the world’s wealth and prosperity. That liberty has allowed millions of Americans to create strong families, prosperous communities, and a powerful and generous country. It has allowed generations of Americans to roll up their sleeves and achieve their dreams. It has allowed us to build the miracle of America, the strongest, safest, and most successful country man has ever known.
My parents reminded me about this almost every day when I was growing up. They knew what living in a less free society was like. They knew what it was like to grow up in a society where the circumstances of one’s birth could easily outweigh the substance of one’s efforts and accomplishments in determining one’s fate. Today we need to hold on tight to that rope and pull. We might get tired, we might get rope burns, but we need to fight for freedom and protect it. The U.S. Constitution is a brilliant document—but it works only so long as we, the American people, want to be free. Freedom is rare in human history. We can’t assume it will come up with every sunrise. It won’t last, unless it lives within each of us and we each stand up to keep America strong.
I’m not embarrassed to confess that as a governor responsible for the safety of nearly 4.5 million people, the threat of terrorism keeps me up at night. I worry about the random act of violence in a shopping mall or a madman deploying the nearly unlimited power of the atom. The single greatest threat to our freedoms isn’t external, however. Islamic terrorists can’t rob us of our liberty. America is too big and powerful for them. No, the biggest threat to our freedom comes from within our borders, not beyond them. It comes when we are tempted to bargain away, little by little, the liberties other Americans have fought and died to place in our hands.
When times are tough, that temptation grows. Left-wing Democrats who offer to wrap a blanket around our shoulders can sound comforting. I remember as a student reading both George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World about totalitarian governments in the future. Huxley’s vision frightened me more. Orwell saw Big Brother as controlling people through fear and force. Huxley imagined that people gave up their freedoms because they liked to be taken care of.
Don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe each and every one of God’s children has an obligation to care for those who can’t care for themselves, and government has an essential role in that. There are times government can and should lend a hand. In Congress, I cast a few votes along those lines that irritated my fellow conservatives.
However, it is always our obligation to see if we can meet America’s challenges from the bottom up, at the l
ocal level, as individuals in our communities, through the private sector, churches, and charitable institutions, without first turning to the heavy, expensive, and inefficient hand of big, old, slow, top-down, industrial-age government in Washington. We don’t need so many czars in the White House!
A surprising number of Americans do not see any connection between the growth of government and the loss of freedom. It just doesn’t compute for them. They figure that government is supposed to protect them, therefore bigger government means more protection.
So let me bypass political correctness and say exactly what I mean: the more you pay in taxes the less free you are—the less free you are to do what you want with your money, to start a business, to chase your dreams, to chart your own course, to live the way you want and make your own way in this world.
When government grows too large, we begin to lose pieces of our freedom.
Big government programs that try to take care of everyone are like cement. When Washington pours them, they set and last forever. Their heavy weight crushes innovation, kills competition, chokes our work ethic, erodes responsibility, and suppresses the rugged individualism fundamental to the unique experiment that has made America a great nation.
The American experiment with freedom has survived wars and economic setbacks in the past. We’ve faced threats to our freedoms, both internal and external, before. Why is the threat so great right now? In my mind it’s simple: the American character qualities of self-reliance and independence have been eroded. Many have bought the collectivist idea that Americans are victims of fate who can only be saved by all-knowing, all-spending, all-powerful politicians and bureaucrats. As a result, we have some people in this country who’ve been told they don’t have to grow up because government will always be there to take care of them. So they haven’t grown up. They expect someone else to pay their bills or give them “free” healthcare. They’ve become adult children who avoid personal responsibility and assign others the blame for their own failures.
