BATON ROUGE – In hearings before the House Committee on Appropriations today at the Louisiana Legislature, Rep. Cameron Henry resorted to an unconstitutional maneuver in an attempt to break out a separate budget for the state’s Republican Attorney General. Henry and other Republicans repeatedly made light of the state Constitution and went out of their way to “set aside the legality” of their attempted power grab. Having failed the test of leadership during the special session and left the state facing down a $600 billion shortfall, the “Jindal caucus” once again put obstructionist politics ahead of Louisiana’s people.

While Louisiana families are concerned with hospital closures and ongoing threats to funding for higher education, Henry and his cohorts in the state legislature continue to waste their time and our money attempting to do an end-run around the will of the voters. In defiance of state law and the language of Louisiana’s constitution, the hardline extremists of the “Jindal caucus” are attempting to exploit the budget crisis they helped create.

In his testimony before the committee, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne said: “The bill that you’re looking at right now is unconstitutional in its intent, and in its content.”

“Rep. Henry’s stunt today just goes to show that the Jindal Caucus is alive and well,” said Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. “Last year, these same usual suspects helped inflict the SAVE money-laundering scam on the legislature. This year, they are going farther still— attempting to flout the law, because they didn’t get their way at the polls last fall. Make no mistake, Washington DC-type politics has arrived here in Louisiana, and it was brought to us by the Jindal Caucus.”

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