(Wesley Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)
The Louisiana Board of Ethics plans to hire its new ethics administrator in December, just before Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s overhaul of the board membership takes place in January.
The current administrator, Kathleen Allen, is leaving her job at the end of the year. She has been the board’s top staff member since 2009 and worked with the agency for more than 25 years.
Allen helps the board oversee elected officials, political candidates and public employees for potential violations of state ethics rules, including conflicts of interest and campaign finance reporting failures.
The board said Friday that it would interview candidates to replace Allen at its November meeting and pick her replacement in December.
That timeline means the decision about the new ethics administrator will happen before the board expands from 11 to 15 members in January. It will also occur before Gov. Jeff Landry and the new legislative leadership’s picks join the board.
Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said earlier this month he wanted the ethics board to wait to pick a new administrator until after Landry and the Legislature’s appointed members took their seats. But in an interview Friday, he said the board was within its authority to make the selection earlier.
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“We would rather have our appointed members on the board before they move forward, but that’s their prerogative,” Henry said.
Most of the members on the current board were chosen by former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, from lists of nominees provided by the leaders of Louisiana’s private colleges and universities.
But earlier this year, Landry pushed through a new law to give himself, as governor, more control over the board.
Landry has had a fraught relationship with the ethics board over the past few years and is currently in a dispute with its members over a failure to disclose flights he took on a political donor’s plane to Hawaii.
Landry and legislative leaders will get to pick their ethics board appointees directly, instead of having to rely on a list of nominees from private college and university leaders like their predecessors.
The expansion of the board also means most of its membership will likely be new in January. Seven of the 15 board seats will turn open up at the beginning of 2025. Under the old law, only three of 11 seats would have become vacant.
Under the new law, Landry will get to fill five of the seven seats that will be vacant at the beginning of January. The Louisiana Senate and House of Representatives will fill one each.
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