.mp3 is here
the house ways and means committee met monday to consider hb642 (reducing orleans assessors from 7 to 1). the meeting started at 9:30 am but we didnt get to tune in until after 11 am. we were busy listening to moon griffon and must say we were impressed with his monday program as well as tuesdays. moon broke the story about senator mcpherson's partnership in a company called "rapides ethanol partners" apparantly from his reading a blog called cenla antics. cenla antics is an alexandria area oriented blog whos banner proclaims:
"Politics: Louisiana Style -- An anonymous venue of discussion on politics in Central Louisiana"
yeah, so you get the picture what this blog's about? lol
anyway back to the committee meeting and the assessors. if you follow these things you will remember that last time this came up in the second extra special session from 06 february 2006 this came up in the ways and means committee as hb50 and was killed by a vote of 8-6. the two votes that killed the legislation were cast by rep alex heaton and rep jeff arnold. arnold's brother is an orleans assessor and heaton's dad is an orleans assessor! their was an outrage after c.b. forgotston posted about it on his blog.monday when we joined the committee meeting in progress rep taylor townsend was speaking. unfortunately we didnt get to record that (our .mp3 opens from rep cedric richmond's remarks)and he went on about how the governor called him by fone over the weekend while he was bringing his son home from "the camp." that the purpose of the governor's call was to find out where he stood on the issue and that the governor didnt offer him anything despite media reports she was using the capital outlay bill over the leges heads to support hb642. representative thompson went on and on about how alex heaton and jeff arnold were honorable and got a raw deal when people (rightfully so too) questioned their ethics in that hb50 vote back in february. right after the governor testified another lege went on about how "both of these men (arnold and heaton) are very fine people and i was upset for them as the media and other outlets attacked them for their supposedly unethical conduct and i just thought that was wrong and iam here to tell you that they are two of the finest men ive dealt with in this whole process." they actually believe this crap? or worse expect us to? oh yeah we didnt get this part on .mp3 either but rep heaton's dad said that he was proud of his son and that he (heaton) would resign if he ever thought that his son did something wrong. whatever.if any of that crap was true then why didnt rep's heaton and arnold vote this time? they both left the room just prior to the vote. this is despite rep heaton during his remarks said that he had an heh heh heh ethics board opinion issued on 11 may 2006 (which we havent been able to locate on ethics website yet either resulting in this post being 2 days late) that he claims exonerated him for that first vote of his. next.
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added 9:10 am cdt thursday 08 june 2006
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edited 6:50 pm cdt saturday 10 june 2006
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