APPOINTED INS. HEAD FOR LA.’

Louisiana Governor Bob Foster recently asked visitors to the Governor’s Web site to vote on whether the state’s insurance commissioner should be an appointed official or an elected one. Currently the insurance commissioner is elected. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, on his weekly radio call-in show, “Live Mike,” Foster proposed changing that status out of his conviction that an appointed commissioner would be less vulnerable to the political pressures. The state’s last three elected commissioners have been convicted of crimes. Suspended Commissioner Jim Brown is asking the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to reconsider its recent ruling upholding Brown’s conviction on charges of lying to an FBI agent when he was interviewed about the state’s settlement with a failed insurance company. The Court sentenced Brown to six months in prison, but he has remained free during the appeal. Former Commissioner Doug Green, who served before Brown, is serving a 25-year prison sentence as the result of a 1991 money laundering conviction. Green’s predecessor, Sherman Bernard, was sentenced to 41 months in prison after being convicted of taking payoffs while in office. A two-thirds vote of the legislature is required in order to abolish the elected office. For his part, Acting Insurance Commissioner Tom Wooley opposes Foster’s idea of making the position an appointed one, on grounds that such action would put too much power in the hands of the governor. Wooley asserted that if the legislature makes such a change, it should require the appointment to be made by a panel of three judges, as is done in Virginia.