Louisiana Progress Journal August ‘09
The Games We Play: College Athletics in a Recession and SB 335 By William Broussard, PhD Across the state known as the “Sportsman’s Paradise” the face of college athletics is changing drastically. Unfortunately, due to an overwhelming “no” vote of 69-34 in the House of Representatives on SB 335 in the 2009 legislative session, it’s changing for the worst. Debate over SB 335 and the Game the House Played Governor Bobby Jindal’s posturing (and rumored preparation for a presidential run in 2012) about refusing federal stimulus funding, and GOP house legislators’ decision to not even vote on SB 335 at first, which would have nearly halved the proposed $220 million cuts to higher education in the state, have placed the state’s institutions in a perilous predicament. Whereas in most parts of the country, state legislators pride themselves in their funding of higher education, in Louisiana, adequately funding higher education is widely considered wasteful spending. According to the bill, SB 335, authored by Sen. Lydia Jackson, District 39, “Retains the deduction for excess federal itemized personal deduction at 65% for 2009, 2010, and 2011; provides a 100% deduction on and after January 1, 2012” (http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/). The delay of the restoration of this tax deduction would not institute any new taxes, and the revenue generated by it would be placed in a fund for higher education. Early projections predicted that SB 335 would effectively halve Governor Bobby Jindal’s projected cuts of $220 million1.
The bill easily passed in the Senate 29-9, with bipartisan support. According to LSU-S Political Science professor Jeff Sadow, Democrats Joel Chaisson (Senate President) and Jody Amedee and Republicans Buddy Shaw and Mike Michot (Senate Budget Chairman) endorsed the bill, noting that it would give institutions of higher education time to reform without completely forfeiting progress in recent years (http://laleglog.blogspot.com/). Additionally major state publications including the Times Picayune in New Orleans, the Monroe News Star, the Shreveport Times and Baton Rouge's Advocate all endorsed SB 335 alongside the Council for a Better Louisiana, Blueprint Louisiana, and the CEO's of three Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Louisiana2. Nonetheless, Governor Jindal vowed to do whatever was necessary to kill SB 335, from the start, and eventually used “rainy day” funds to lessen the severity of the cuts. While SB 335 would provide a temporary solution, three years is enough time for the state’s universities to eliminate redundancies and develop strategies for long term solvency and growth with the aid of the Tucker Commission. “Rainy day” funds would only be a one-time salve, thought by most economists to be unsound fiscal policy. Even his Lieutenant Governor, Mitch Landrieu, disagreed with him, stating, "If Louisiana is going to be a competitor in the 21st century, we have to prepare our students for a knowledge-based economy3," which cannot happen with debilitating cuts to higher education. House Republicans, for the most part, followed suit and did the governor’s dirty work for him, at the behest of their titular leader, Louisiana GOP Chair Roger Villere. In essentially a party line vote, every Republican in the House with the exception of Hollis Downs (of Ruston, who also sits on the Education 2
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According to a May 31st Times Picayune editorial, the projected amount of revenue from SB 335 would be $118 million (http://blog.nola.com/editorials/2009/05/louisiana_legislat ure_and_gov.html).
See http://www.2theadvocate.com/blogs/politicsblog/4667630 7.html. 3 “Lt. Governor Landrieu Applauds Senate Efforts for Higher Education.” http://www.ltgov.la.gov/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=d etail&articleID=152
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