BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Lawmakers in the House refused to carve out an ethics exemption for members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that would have let them enter into contracts with state government.
The proposal got tacked onto a separate Senate bill by a House committee. But the House wouldn’t accept the provision, voting 63-26 Thursday to strip it from the bill.
BESE members are prohibited from doing business with state government under a law pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal as part of his 2008 ethics code rewrite.
Sulphur Rep. Mike Danahay, a Democrat, said giving BESE an exemption would backpedal on Louisiana’s strengthening of ethics laws.
Ruston Rep. Rob Shadoin, a Republican, said the restrictions are dissuading people from government service.
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Senate Bill 303 can be found at www.legis.la.gov
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