Gov. Jeff Landry speaks during his inauguration ceremony at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge on Jan. 7, 2024. (Matthew Hinton/AP Photo, Pool)
The Louisiana Legislature gave final passage to a bill allowing the governor to directly appoint the leaders of over 100 boards and commissions.
The Senate endorsed House changes Thursday to Senate Bill 462 by Sen. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs. sending it to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk for certain approval. The senators’ approval came as a surprise because it involved restoring language they had previously stripped out of the measure.
Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, who previously predicted the Senate would reject the changes, said senators got more comfortable with the proposal once they learned it only applied to boards for which the governor appoints a majority of members.
It does not apply to boards statewide elected officials chair, such as the State Bond Commission.
Rep. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, dubbed Hodges’ proposal the “King Landry bill,” a reference to former Gov. Huey Long, nicknamed the “Kingfish” for the immense power he exercised over the state. After Long’s tenure, the state eventually passed a series of reforms designed to temper the governor’s authority, though Louisiana’s chief executive still exerts more control over state government than governors in other states.
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Critics have raised concern that giving the governor further power over the state’s five higher education boards could have an impact on college and university accreditation, a fundamental need for the functioning of a school that allows it to access federal funds.
Hodges argued her bill does not give the governor any additional power but rather moves up the timeline for the governor’s control of a board. Presently, most boards have staggered terms for their members. This design acts as a check on executive branch power and means a governor has to wait sometimes years before he or she has appointed every member of a particular board.
Landry, a Republican who supports the bill, has said it is about higher education.
“This fight is all about universities,” Landry said in an April interview with WAFB-TV. “The people of this state are ready for these universities to start taking some responsibility for putting out students that are graduating with degrees that they can’t even get a job for.”
Governors already appoint members of the four university and college system boards of supervisors. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), the accrediting body for Louisiana universities, requires that governing boards for its accredited schools remain free from undue external influence.
A violation of the SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation is determined by the SACSCOC board.
“It could impact accreditation if it violates the principles,” Rosalind Fuse-Hall, director of legal and governmental affairs for SACSCOC, said in an interview. “The board looks at everything on a case-by-case basis.”
Giving the governor the ability to appoint higher education board chairs could impact accreditation if the governor seeks to use that power to influence the operations of a college or university.
The organization has given notice to several schools where politics have played an outsized role.
In 2020, the organization Gov. Henry McMaster, also a Republican, had undue influence on the University of South Carolina’s search for a new president. In 2017, it gave the University of Louisville two years to right the ship after then Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, exercised undue influence by abolishing the University of Kentucky’s governing board. In 2021, SACS opened an inquiry into the University of Florida denying professor requests to serve as expert witnesses in a voting rights case.
Hodges has not denied that the intentions behind the bill are political.
“We need to align policy initiatives on the boards and commissions with the Republican governor that we elected to get the job done,” Hodges said.
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