Montoucet joins call for veto override session

At least two area legislators are asking their fellow lawmakers join them in a veto override session.
Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, sent a letter to House and Senate members Tuesday urging a session “to override the senseless veto of a deserved and properly earned cost of living (COLA) that passed with only five no votes in the House and one no vote in the Senate.”
And Rep. Jack Montoucet, D-Crowley, is strongly supporting that call.
“I am totally behind (Rep. Jones) in calling for a veto override session,” Montoucet said. “As chairman of the Rural Caucus, I am calling on the membership to join with us to undo the governor’s veto not only for our state retirees, but also his veto of rural Federally Qualified Health Center funding.”
Montoucet said his is “amazed” that Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed one group of health centers but not another.
“The New Orleans Community Health Center funding was not vetoed, but those centers in our rural areas were,” he said. “These centers are our first line of defense for our citizens, especially those who don’t have hospitals in their communities.”
What makes the governor’s veto sting even more is that Montoucet was instrumental in getting the Legislature to agree to the COLA for July 1.
To do that, he held a large revenue bill needed to balance the state budget hostage until a majority of lawmakers agreed to the adopt the COLA in the final hour of the session.
Montoucet’s bill, which raised business utility taxes for one year, didn’t move forward until the final two minutes of the legislative session — after Montoucet was assured the COLA would pass.
Montoucet’s utility bill is expected to produce $107 million to help close the state budget gap. If he hadn’t moved the legislation, Louisiana wouldn’t have been able to fund as many health care and higher education services this year.
So legislators were motivated to go along with his COLA request.
“During the final minutes of this session, many of you came to me and assured me you would support me if the governor would veto the COLA,” Montoucet said in a letter accompanying Jones’. “I fulfilled my commitment to all of you by passing my bill that completed the budget package and now I am asking all of you to join me and many others to override all of this foolishness.”
The Louisiana Legislature appears to have only overturned a governor’s veto twice — for the first time in 1991 and and again in 1993. Both of those overrides took place during a regular legislative session.
The Legislature has never actually called itself back into a special veto override session, as some House members are threatening to do this year.
“All I am hearing is a veto override has never happened in Louisiana,” Montoucet said. “I believe the time has come for all of us to be the first to send a message to this governor and future governors. We will not allow any governor to bring havoc to our people.”