House OKs bill to give attorney general a separate budget

House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry’s contentious proposal to give the attorney general’s office authority over its own budget devolved into a lengthy and heated debate among representatives and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry Thursday.  
The measure ultimately passed 69-26 after Rep. Jack Montoucet, D-Crowley, added an amendment that cut Landry’s budget by $6 million to help fund rural hospitals.  
Henry, a Metairie Republican, called the debate “political,” and said the Democratic members questioning the bill would not oppose the measure if it applied to the secretary of state as opposed to the attorney general.  
Normally, all departments in the executive branch are included in House Bill 1, which Henry is carrying this session. The measure would break Landry’s budget into a separate bill, HB 105,  
Gov. John Bel Edwards called the move political and unconstitutional and promised to veto it.
“There has been absolutely no evidence presented to justify this politically-motivated move,” he said. “The state’s budget crisis demands 100 percent of our attention, and a power grab such as this only serves as a distraction at a critical time.”
Henry championed the amendment as a victory for his bill, whose purpose, he said, is to allow the Legislature to properly vet each department. He hopes to break each department out of HB1 in the future if his measure is successful.  
Landry called the current system, in which the governor’s office has oversight on the spending of each department, “bureaucratic tape,” and said departments have had problems in the past with autonomy over their budget.  
“This is a problem that statewide (elected officials) are having,” Landry said, adding that Henry’s bill would help fiscal crises in the future by allowing for more review of each department.  
“It give us the ability to operate with a scalpel before [lawmakers] come in with a chainsaw,” he said.  
Democrats interrogated Landry on the efficiency of his office and the reasons behind the bill. He was asked several times how many employees were in his office and Landry said he was unsure.   
Still, many questioned the bill’s constitutionality, citing a section in the state constitution that allows the governor to submit a general budget.