SENATE BILL ATTACKS MUSEUM!
EXPLANATION OF THE LANDRIEU TAKEOVER BILL
Lt. Governor Landrieu has caused his political allies to introduce legislation which, if enacted, would radically undermine the Louisiana State Museum.
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WHAT CAN I DO TO STOP THE LANDRIEU TAKEOVER BILL?
Please send an email to the Bill’s authors Senator Ed Murray and Senator Francis Thompson, and to other Legislators (particularly your own) expressing your opposition to the Landrieu takeover bill. Some sample messages are attached for your use or please write your own. The following are key email addresses to contact:
> READ SAMPLE MESSAGES
EXPLANATION OF THE LANDRIEU TAKEOVER BILL
Lt. Governor Landrieu caused Senator Ed Murray to introduce Senate Bill 311 which, if enacted, would radically undermine the Louisiana State Museum. In the face of public opposition, Senator Murray may soon withdraw his bill. Lt. Gov. Landrieu has, therefore, caused Senator Francis Thompson to introduce an identical replacement bill, Senate Bill 724. This explanation refers to these identical bills as the “Bill.” The Lt. Governor may be trying to preserve the option to push either identical version of the Bill depending on his evaluation of his chances of success in the respective committees in which they will be heard.
To recognize the Bill’s significance, it is important to understand the current governance structure of the Louisiana State Museum. Under current law, the Louisiana State Museum is part of the state government. The Museum’s director holds the key executive role in the LSM’s administration, supervising the LSM’s approximately 145 staff members, hiring and firing (subject to Civil Service rules) the staff, selecting exhibits, coordinating with the LSM’s support organizations (such as the Friends of the Cabildo and the Louisiana Museum Foundation), and generally serving as chief executive officer of the LSM.
The director reports, however, to two supervisory authorities: the Louisiana State Museum Board and the Secretary of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism (DCRT). The DCRT Secretary, in turn, is appointed by and serves purely at the pleasure of the Lt. Governor. The executive director thus reports both to the Board and, through the DCRT Secretary, the Lt. Governor.
The Board consists of 20 members, 9 of whom are appointed by LSM support groups, 3 of whom are appointed by the Lt. Governor, and 8 of whom are appointed by the Governor. The Friends and the Foundation each appoint 2 of the 9 members appointed by the support groups, thus controlling 4 seats.
From an operational standpoint, in comparison to the Board, the DCRT secretary has the more active role in supervising the director on a daily basis because state law has, since the late 1970s, placed the LSM within the DCRT for administrative purposes. In other words, the LSM handles its bureaucratic responsibilities to the State through the DCRT. If, for example, the LSM needs to hire an outside consultant to develop a new exhibit, the LSM must administratively process the contract through the DCRT in order to obtain all necessary bureaucratic approvals. To recognize the LSM’s location in the state organizational structure, the LSM director holds the title of Deputy Secretary of the DCRT.
The Board exercises no day-to-day supervision over the LSM’s operations, although the director actively consults with the Board on strategic decisions. The Board has no authority over state budget funds for the LSM, but the Board serves as the trustee of the William Irby Trust, which owns the Lower Pontalba Building and provides approximately $1.3 million in annual support for the LSM (in comparison to approximately $9 million in state funding). Even more significantly, the Board has the sole power to hire and fire the director. Yet, while the Board can hire or fire the director, the Lt. Governor has the sole authority to set the director’s salary.
This three-headed division of authority reflects a system of check and balances developed over many years to curb political abuses.
The Louisiana State Museum was organized a little over 100 years ago. For its first half century of existence, the Governor’s office held almost all control over the LSM, with the museum director serving as a patronage position filled by the governor as a reward to political supporters. Not surprisingly, the quality of directors was generally poor, the LSM’s contracts were used to enrich politically connected supporters of the then current Governor, and the Museum’s collections were freely handed out to state politicians to decorate their offices. The Board, then controlled by the governor, provided no effective checks and balances to limit those abuses.
In 1956, concerned citizens, shocked at the museum’s deplorable condition, organized the Friends of the Cabildo to raise money for the museum and to campaign for political reform. The Friends’ key political objectives were to pass legislation ensuring that civic groups such as the Friends would have a stronger voice on the Board, requiring that the director be appointed by the Board rather than the Governor, and mandating that the director be a museum professional with at least 10 years’ experience in museum administration.
Ultimately, the Friends were successful with all of these objectives, although support groups never obtained a majority of the Board’s seats and the LSM remained an administrative unit of the executive branch for daily operational purposes in the DCRT. In 1970s, in the face of questions concerning whether the Lt. Governor’s office had a sufficient purpose to remain in existence, the Legislature transferred the DCRT to the Lt. Governor’s office, thus offering the Lt. Governor a greater purpose in state government.
One effect of this transfer was to transform the LSM from a very minor part of the Governor’s very large sphere of responsibility to a relatively large part of the Lt. Governor’s very small sphere of responsibility. In theory, this change could have benefited the LSM by offering greater attention from the Lt. Governor than could ever be expected from the Governor. In practice, however, the transfer tended to exacerbate the ancient conflict between the political realm wishing to use the LSM for political purposes and the professional realm hoping to improve the LSM as a museum. Because the Lt. Governor’s office has relatively few sources of patronage, the LSM has increased in importance as a patronage machine despite its small resources.
Please note that we are not accusing Lt. Governor Landrieu, or any recent Lt. Governor, of any direct financial impropriety, but it is clear that both the current Lt. Governor and prior Lt. Governors have had limited interest in the LSM’s success as a museum and have instead focused their interest on ways in which the LSM could be used for the Lt. Governor’s political benefit.
The effects have ranged from the almost tragic to the comical. On the tragic end of the spectrum has been the focus on building new units for the LSM system, which offers the “bricks and mortar” glitz that politicians love, while failing to fund the existing units’ most basic operating needs.
The LSM, for example, once had a staff of six to seven persons operating its huge historic archives (which include the entire colonial archives of Louisiana) for the benefit of historians, genealogists, and the general public. Long before Katrina temporarily dispersed the LSM archives, the LSM had been forced to eliminate this staff, leaving the archives available only on a sporadic basis. The Cabildo itself offers a sad example of similar damage—we still have the same exhibits that were installed 15 years ago after the fire because the budget never seems to have enough money to finance a new exhibit. The 2008 budget will apparently have zero funds allocated for conservation of the LSM’s 300,000 artifacts.
On the more comic end is the insistence on making the Lt. Governor the centerpiece of any communications with the news media. Although we call this comic, the Lt. Governor’s insistence on his staff pre-clearing and recasting almost every interaction with the media often results in paralysis. By the time approval is granted, the media opportunity is often long gone.
This conflict between the division of the museum as part of a political machine and the vision of the museum as a professional museum of history leads to tension among the Board, the professional museum staff, and the Lt. Governor’s office. The Lt. Governor intends to resolve this tension through adoption of the Bill. If passed, this bill will implement the following changes:
The Bill strips the Board of its power to hire and fire the director, transferring that power directly to the Lt. Governor, and the Bill eliminates the requirement that the director only be fired for cause and after a hearing. Under the Bill, the director will hereafter serve at the pleasure of the Lt. Governor, subject to being fired at any time without cause or a hearing. The directorship will thus revert to its former status as a pure patronage position, although the Bill retains the requirement that the director have at least 10 years’ museum experience.
Putting aside the questions of possibly inappropriate influence being brought to bear on the current or a future museum director, the conversion of this position into a political appointment will have a long-term negative impact on the quality of the applicant pool, particularly if the office becomes vacant during the latter half of a Lieutenant Governor’s term. We feel that it will be very difficult to recruit quality candidates from other areas of the country for this position if the potential applicant believes that, within the next year or two, a new Lieutenant Governor will be elected who will likely wish to select his own appointee for this position. This situation of instability will greatly diminish the pool of qualified applicants and will likely result in long periods of time during which the Louisiana State Museum operates under interim directors while waiting for the next Lieutenant Governor’s election.
In addition to creating a problem filling the position of museum director during the latter half of a Lieutenant Governor’s term, we more broadly question the conversion of the office into a four-year appointment rather into a potentially longer term position. We understand that it is often desirable to change senior management under the appropriate circumstances, but we would be very disappointed if the position of museum director becomes a political position that is routinely filled by a new person with each change of the Lieutenant Governor. We believe that this type of rotation will be unattractive to qualified potential applicants.
The Bill reduces the Board size from 20 persons to 11 persons. The Lt. Governor would have complete discretion to appoint 4 of the 11 Board members and would select the remaining 7 board members from a pool of 21 nominees submitted by 7 identified support organizations, including the Friends and the Foundation. Although each of the seven support organizations would submit 3 nominees, the Lt. Governor could select multiple nominees submitted by several of the organizations and none from others. In practice, the Lt. Governor would only need one support organization to cooperate with his agenda in order to have majority control of the Board (combining his 4 discretionary nominees with the 3 nominees the cooperating organization submits, the Lt. Governor would control 7 of the 11 Board seats). This change would give the Lt. Governor complete control over the Irby Trust revenues, which are attractive because they are outside of the Legislature’s control. The Lt. Governor has already evidenced interest in the Irby funds by, for example, pressuring the Board to use Irby funds to buy a painting of Louis Armstrong for the Lt. Governor’s office.
The Bill moves the Board’s official domicile from New Orleans, where it has been for over 100 years, to Baton Rouge. The Lt. Governor’s office has stated the museum’s central staff will also move from New Orleans to Baton Rouge after passage of the bill. The board’s and staff’s move will certainly do much to separate the LSM’s two most active private support groups, the Friends and the Foundation, from continued significant involvement in LSM’s future.
The staff’s move will moreover create significant operational problems for the museum. The vast majority of the museum’s visitorship is at the New Orleans units, and the staff will be forced to manage these units long distance. Further, most of the museum’s 300,000 artifacts are located in storage facilities in New Orleans and will become inaccessible to curators and other staff members unless they are willing to dedicate most of the day to travel to New Orleans and back simply to access those storage facilities. The net result is that the staff’s ability to perform its routine job functions will be greatly reduced by the move from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. This sort of operational inefficiency will only further damage the museum system.
The Bill will also strip the rump Board of one its few remaining powers, the power to control the leasing of the commercial space in the Mint facility. As many Friends’ members will remember, that space was traditionally leased to a coin store but is currently vacant following Katrina-related renovations. We do not know why the Lt. Governor is stripping the Board of this minor power, but it may relate to his as yet secret plans for the Mint. The Museum’s professional staff has been working diligently to renovate the Mint as a major jazz museum. The Lt. Governor has, however, stated on occasion that he has other plans for the Mint which he has declined to share with the Museum’s professional staff. The speculation is that his secret plans for the Mint somehow require him to take control of the commercial space rental at the facility.
In sum, enactment of the Bill will concentrate all authority over the museum in the hands of a single individual: Mitch Landrieu. Mitch Landrieu regularly claims that he wants: the LSM to be the best state museum in the country; to encourage a stronger public/private partnership in the museum’s management; and attract additional private investment in the state museum system. If enacted, the Bill would weaken the involvement of already well-established 501 (c)(3) support organizations in the museum’s management and discourage them from raising private money for the museum. The result: more government control, less private sector involvement.
MESSAGE TO ANY SENATOR:
Please vote against SB 311 and SB 724 (identical bills) introduced at Lt. Gov. Landrieu’s request. These bills are patronage bills that will allow every Lt. Governor to hire and fire the Louisiana State Museum director at will and without cause. No future director will dare question the Lt. Governor’s orders, no matter how destructive they are to the Louisiana State Museum. Few qualified museum executive directors would apply to serve at the whim of the Lt. Governor or subject to the likelihood of being replaced with each election of a new Lt. Governor. These bills will also give the Lt. Governor complete control over the museum’s board of directors which will, in turn, give the Lt. Governor complete control over revenues contributed by the William Irby Testamentary Trust, a privately created trust meant for the museum’s benefit and not as a slush fund for the Lt. Governor.
Please note that this structural change will confer these powers on the current and all future Lt. Governors and represents a rolling back of reforms that generations of citizens labored to implement over the last fifty years.
MESSAGE TO ANY REPRESENTATIVE:
Please vote against SB 311 and SB 724 (identical bills) introduced at Lt. Gov. Landrieu’s request. These bills are patronage bills that will allow every Lt. Governor to hire and fire the Louisiana State Museum director at will and without cause. No future director will dare question the Lt. Governor’s orders, no matter how destructive they are to the Louisiana State Museum. Few qualified museum executive directors would apply to serve at the whim of the Lt. Governor or subject to the likelihood of being replaced with each election of a new Lt. Governor. These bills will also give the Lt. Governor complete control over the museum’s board of directors which will, in turn, give the Lt. Governor complete control over revenues contributed by the William Irby Testamentary Trust, a privately created trust meant for the museum’s benefit and not as a slush fund for the Lt. Governor.
Please note that this structural change will confer these powers on the current and all future Lt. Governors and represents a rolling back of reforms that generations of citizens labored to implement over the last fifty years.
MESSAGE TO SENATOR MURRAY:
Dear Senator Murray:
Popular wisdom is that you intend to run for mayor as a good government candidate when Mayor Nagin’s term expires. If so, please reconsider your SB 311 and do not support SB 724. These bills are pure patronage bills that will irrevocably tarnish your reputation. These turn the clock back 50 years to convert the museum director once again into a patronage position to be hired or fired at the whim of whoever is Lt. Governor. No future director will dare question the Lt. Governor’s orders, no matter how destructive they are to the Louisiana State Museum. Few qualified museum executive directors would apply to serve at the whim of the Lt. Governor or subject to the likelihood of being replaced with each election of a new Lt. Governor.
These bills also give the Lt. Governor absolute effective control over the museum’s board of directors, thus giving the Lt. Governor control over the William Irby Testamentary Trust. These funds were specifically bequeathed for the museum’s benefit and were not intended to be treated as a slush fund for the Lt. Governor. |
