Most Louisiana lawmakers in the dark about ethics board nomination process, Democrat rep says

Rep. Candace Newell, pictured at the May 26, 2022, meeting of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

A Democratic legislator is criticizing the Louisiana House of Representatives’ leadership for their lack of transparency about the chamber’s selection of a future state ethics board member.

The full House must approve its appointees to the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Yet only one person, former state lawmaker Mike Huval, a Republican from Breaux Bridge, has nominated for the House’s board seat that opens up in 2025.

With no competition, Huval, a longtime friend of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, will win the post by default.

State Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, claims more ethics board candidates weren’t proposed because House members were in the dark about the nomination process. State representatives didn’t realize they could submit their own picks for the board until it was too late to do so, she said.

“I don’t like the fact that other members of this body didn’t have the opportunity to put forth nominations for this seat,” Newell said Thursday during a House and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting on Huval’s nomination.

“I hope it’s a more transparent process in the future,” she said.

The ethics board selection process changed dramatically this year after the governor and GOP legislators rewrote the state laws concerning its makeup. For years, Landry has had a strained relationship with the ethics board, which has cited him multiple times for campaign finance and ethics law violations.

In previous years, leaders from Louisiana’s private colleges and universities vetted ethics board candidates and put forward a short list of nominees to the governor and legislators for the 11 ethics board seats. The House and Senate then held elections to choose from those candidates to fill their board posts. Previous governors picked their appointees from the lists the college leaders compiled.

With the law change, the governor and lawmakers now pick their board appointees directly without the involvement of the college administrators. The board has also been expanded to 15 seats.

The House and Senate will still hold elections for their six board members, but it’s unclear how candidates such as Huval get on the ballot. Landry and legislators didn’t include a new process for picking the ethics board nominees when they rewrote the law earlier this year. 

Newell said House members were never solicited for nominations or given information about how the new board selection process would work. 

“If this is the only stop, we need to make sure that we have multiple candidates that are in front of us,” she said.

Previous ethics board candidates also came with more thorough background checks, Newell said. In the past, she was given reports from Louisiana State Police and the state Department of Revenue on nominees before a committee interview took place. 

Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, said he personally put forward Huval’s name to House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, for the ethics board seat. 

Beaullieu, chairman of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee, chastised Newell for not doing the same. 

“You have had since April or May to talk to the speaker about a nomination,” he told Newell, referencing when the ethics board overhaul legislation initially passed. “You had all the opportunity after the bill passed.”

Beaullieu also said he went out of his way to ensure transparency in the ethics board nominating process by holding a committee hearing on Huval’s selection. The law doesn’t require the House and Governmental Affairs Committee to interview candidates ahead of time, he said.

In addition to being a former legislator, Huval has ties to the governor that go back three decades. 

Landry and Huval are both from St. Martin Parish. Landry’s first political job was working for the St. Martin Parish Economic Development Authority in the mid-1990s at the same time Huval was serving on the St. Martin Parish council. 

Despite Newell’s objections, she and the other House and Governmental Affairs Committee members endorsed Huval for the ethics board seat without any objections.

Newell said she personally likes Huval, who served in the House from 2010 to 2024, and thinks he will do a good job in the position. 

“This is not about you,” she told Huval. “This is about how this process has happened and taken place.”