(Louisiana Illuminator) — Gov. Jeff Landry has the power to appoint three more members to the Louisiana Board of Ethics this year, giving him control over the majority of the entity that enforces campaign finance and government transparency laws.
Three of the 15 board members’ terms expired Jan. 1. The governor controls all seats now open to new appointees. He selected five new members last year. Appointing three more would give him a slim majority of eight members.
Outgoing board members Alfred “Butch” Speer and Anne Banos, appointees of former Gov. John Bel Edwards, stepped down in December. The term for member Jacqueline Scott, also an Edwards appointee, has also ended, but she plans to remain on the board until Landry replaces her, state Ethics Administrator David Bordelon said Thursday.
Landry’s office said announcements about new ethics board members might come Friday. Bordelon said the ethics staff hadn’t received notice of any new appointments yet.
Landry, who has clashed with the board in the past, has more control over its members than his predecessors. In 2024, he pushed through a law that reworked the board selection process to give the governor more influence.
He also expanded the board from 11 to 15 members last year, with the number of seats the governor gets to pick going from seven to nine. State lawmakers appoint the remaining six members, up from four under the previous structure.
More significantly, the governor and legislators get to appoint members directly to the board, although the governor’s appointees are required to receive state Senate confirmation. Previously, the governor and lawmakers could only select ethics board members from a list of nominees provided by leaders at Louisiana’s private colleges and universities. These college leaders were included in the selection process to insulate the board members from political pressure, but Landry removed that attempt at a firewall.
The change upset government transparency advocates, who said it weakened the ethics board’s independence.
As a concession to those concerns, there is a recommendation in the new law — but not a requirement — that the board be made up of five retired judges, five other retired elected officials and five people who have never served in public office.
The ethics board currently includes three retired judges: Vanessa Whipple, John Crigler and Joel Davis. Three retired elected officials — Jason Amato, Mike Huval and Rick Nowlin — also hold seats. All except Huval, a Louisiana House of Representatives appointee, were chosen by Landry last year.
Until recently, Landry and the ethics board were in a standoff over the governor’s failure to disclose trips he had taken on private planes owned by campaign donors while he held public office.
In September, the ethics board dropped charges it filed against Landry in 2023, when he was attorney general, for failing to disclose trips he took on a donor’s private plane. In exchange, Landry paid a $900 fine and publicly admitted to 19 instances in which he had accepted rides on private planes without publicly reporting them.
In the past, the board has also told Landry in private letters to stop using money from his political accounts to pay off his vehicle and a Washington, D.C., gym membership. But earlier this year, the governor and lawmakers approved a law that now allow for some of this previously restricted spending.
