Governor Landry is $900 lighter in the wallet this morning. Steven Procopio, the president and CEO of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, says Landry was fined that amount of money related to travel during his time as attorney general.
“He took six flights that were paid for by someone else. On other people’s planes and a helicopter, I think, in one case,” Procopio said.
Procopio says there was nothing illicit about these flights; all these flights were for a public purpose related to his duties as attorney general, such as conferences and things of that nature.
“It is not actually illegal to do this, to take these contributions or assistance from other people providing you private flights, if they’re for a public purpose. But you have to disclose that, and he didn’t disclose it,” Procopio explained.
It was that non-disclosure of those trips that drew the fine against Landry. The big question now is – is the $900 fine appropriate? The fines could have been as high as $10,000 per occurrence. Procopio says due to changes in the law that governs ethics investigations, we will never know whether Landry would have been fined more than the $900 he was fined in total in this instance.
“And if we were under the old system where it’s like, there’s an independent group, we could have far more certainty, this was the ethic board doing what they thought was right and reasonable. And now we don’t know,” Procopio said.
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