Toeing the line in Louisiana.

• Author: Perkins, Jay

Louisiana's new speaker, a military man, is shaping up the House troops in an effort to be ready for term limits.

Louisiana House Speaker H. B. "Hunt" Downer Jr. is coming to terms with term limits. After less than three months on the job, he's already saying that the first term he will limit will be his own - as speaker. No speaker should be allowed to succeed himself in a term-limited legislature, he says. It's bad for morale and stifles others.

After less than three months on the job, he's already curbed the influence lobbyists have on the House and changed the way the staff does business. More changes are coming. When legislators' terms are limited, the lobbyists and staff will become the source of institutional knowledge, he says. That means the staff has to be built up, and the lobbyists cut down.

After less than three months on the job, he's already focusing (although he hasn't exactly told them) on people who will be tough opponents. Committee chairmen, and even vice chairmen, should serve only one four-year term, he says. Leadership experience has to be built up quickly if no one is allowed to serve more than 12 years in the House or Senate.

After less than three months on the job, he's already thinking of what undoubtedly will be his toughest job. Gaining respect for the institution.

Respect? For the Louisiana Legislature? Better call Aretha Franklin in on this one. After all, this is the body whose voting Governor Huey Long once opened and closed at will with two switches under his desk - a desk that Hunt Downer now sits behind. It's a body that 25 years ago considered decorum to be not throwing chicken bones at other legislators when you finished eating at your legislative desk. It's the body that a dozen years ago tossed bananas at a member who criticized Louisiana as a Banana Republic. It's the body that last year was the subject of an undercover FBI investigation into the influence of gambling.

The Legislature has come a long way in Louisiana, but it's got a long history to overcome. Respect will be a tough sell. So will the changes the speaker proposes.

Downer plans to be a full-time speaker. He already has stepped away from his law practice, becoming "of counsel" instead of remaining an active player, and he is spending a great deal of time in Baton Rouge. House Clerk Alfred "Butch" Speer says Downer "believes that all the responsibility - everything from paper clips to employee oversight - falls on him." He's a hands-on speaker.

It was Machiavelli who said, "There is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state's constitution."

It was Downer who said, "I may not have supported [term limits], but I voted for it. It's in place, and now our challenge is to make it work. So I'm not going to criticize it. Let's look toward tomorrow."

SUBTLE CHANGES

The Louisiana Legislature, everyone agrees, has not yet grasped the implications of term limits. It's a new law in the state, imposed only in the past year. The impact won't be felt for 12 years. The law allows current legislators to remain in office (assuming the voters don't rule otherwise) for three more four-year terms. Even then, a House member who has served 12 years can run for the Senate and, if successful, hang around for another three terms on the other side of the rotunda. Likewise, a senator can run for a House seat.

And, if moving to the other body doesn't happen, there's...