Can Jindal stay on track?
By Alicia Haefele

BATON ROUGE, La. – Monday, March 31, 2008, the Legislature began the three month regular session meetings where Gov. Bobby Jindal’s priorities will compete with 144 other legislator’s priorities.

The 85-day regular sessions are extremely different than the two special sessions previously held. In the special sessions, Jindal kept on point and followed his agenda very closely. During the regular sessions, Jindal’s priorities, which include revamping Louisiana’s job-training program and upgrading mental health services in New Orleans, will be mixed in with 1,780 bills created by lawmakers so far.

“The special sessions were very short; the governor controlled the agenda; and the Legislature had very little flexibility to deviate from what the governor wanted to talk about," said Barry Erwin, president of the nonpartisan Council for a Better Louisiana. "All of that is gone for the regular session."

Jindal plans on taking a “hands off” approach to the regular session in order to allow others to voice their own ideas. We're not necessarily going to be in the center of every debate," Jindal said. "We're not going to be playing as active a role as we did in the first and second session."

Although Jindal’s mind is focused on a few central issues, he will not be able to avoid being dragged into other arguments regarding the 1,780 bills also being proposed.

“On the vast majority of the issues, we're going to abide by the will of the Legislature," Jindal said. "(But) there are going to be other areas that are priorities of ours. (I want to) make sure recently passed ethics laws aren't weakened or diluted."

I understand that the legislator’s voices need to be heard, but I also think that they should pay special attention to what Gov. Bobby Jindal has to say. The same goes for Jindal, the issues he deems important probably are, but other legislators might also have ideas that prove to be important too.