Eliminating an elective statewide position or making it appointive is never easy, and it has only happened twice in recent Louisiana history. Legislators made the superintendent of education’s job appointive in 1985, and they moved the commissioner of elections job back into the secretary of state’s office in 2001.

An effort will be made during the current legislative session to make the commissioner of insurance position appointive. A previous effort failed in 2001 even though three earlier commissioners had gone to prison.

While researching how lawmakers were successful in making the superintendent of education’s job appointive in 1985, I ran across some interesting information that made it possible.

First, and perhaps most important, making the education superintendent an appointive position was one of then-Gov. Edwin W. Edwards’ 19 items in his education reform package.

The fact that Edwards and Tom Clausen, the elected superintendent of education, were bitter enemies at the time helped the governor’s case. Clausen had also been involved in many controversies while he was superintendent.

The Senate and House each had bills to get the job done. The first vote in the Senate on its bill on May 14 was 25-14, one vote short of the necessary 26 (two-thirds).

The Associated Press said the vote came up short “despite the dramatic appearance of Sen. Nat Kiefer of New Orleans, who got up out of a sick bed to fly by helicopter to vote.”

It was a different story on May 15 when it passed 27-9. The AP said Edwards lobbied for the bill on both days, but he said he had cut no deals or trades in exchange for votes.

Edwards said of Kiefer’s vote, “It was very dramatic. It was a tribute to the philosophy of the legislation as well as (Kiefer’s) courage. I’m sorry he was not here when it passed …”

The Senate on July 8 approved a resolution to “commend and congratulate” a critically ill Kiefer for his 16 years of service. He was waiting for a liver transplant in Los Angeles. Kiefer died July 10 at the age of 46 at the Los Angeles Medical Center.

“Edwards still has ‘magic’ power,” The AP said after that successful Senate vote on the education bill. It said he got the two-thirds he needed and added that “his pied piper act” got the House to reverse itself and strip a damaging amendment from a resolution giving legislative backing to the New Orleans Saints purchase deal.”

The governor was also successful in the House on June 6 when the education appointment bill passed 71-31, one vote over the 70 (two-thirds) required. However, the House took out a requirement that the education superintendent would have to be confirmed by the Senate.

The Senate had a different move up its sleeve to get that power back. Then-Sen. Allen Bares, D-Lafayette, amended one of his bills so it contained only a provision restoring Senate confirmation of the education post. It passed 26-9 on June 10 and needed only 20 votes, a majority.

Bares said, “All it (his bill) does is restore the confirmation provision. We’ve gutted everything else out of it.”

The Bares bill got to the House and was up for a vote on Friday, June 28, but there was trouble because of that bill. Some House members left the chamber and the necessary 53 votes (majority of 105 members) to conduct business weren’t present.

The AP said, “On at least three occasions during a bizarre two and a half hour period, state troopers — at Speaker Pro Tem Joe Delpit’s orders — refused to allow legislators to leave. Other troopers were sent after absent members.”

Several veteran lobbyists said troopers hadn’t been ordered to do that since the days of Gov. Earl Long. When enough members showed up, the vote on the Bares bill was 25 for and 29 against, nowhere close to the 53 votes needed.

What was described as “an emotionally drained House” adjourned until Sunday. It was a different story Monday when votes by the House and Senate made the superintendent’s job an appointed one with required confirmation by the upper chamber.

Although Clausen came up on the losing side of the difficult effort to make his job appointive, he got some licks in at the end. He said he had no chance of getting the appointive job but assumed there would be a new governor, too.

Clausen was talking about Edwards going to trial on federal charges, which did eventually send him to prison in 2002. However, he had earlier won a fourth unprecedented term as governor in 1991.