The board was expected to adopt an advisory opinion at last Thursday’s meeting basically barring recently former Jindal top aide Kristy Nichols from doing much of what she hired to do when she took a lobbying gig with Ochsner Health System. Then the board decided not to decide.
According to Tom Aswell over at Louisiana Voice, the board chose to put off until February whether to adopt the advisory opinion prohibiting Nichols, who served as Jindal’s commissioner of administration for three years until October of this year, from doing business with the Legislature or the executive branch for two years per state ethics law. A spokesman told Aswell today (Monday) the opinion was withdrawn and the matter will be taken up again at the board’s Feb. 19 meeting.
As The IND reported this past Thursday, the day of the board’s monthly meeting: “On six possible employment restrictions — ranging from direct communication by Nichols with the current Division of Administration to Nichols’ role in Oschner’s communications with state lawmakers — the board nixed four of them and declined to take a position on two based on insufficient information.”
Aswell, a longtime journalist covering state politics and an astute gadfly of the Jindal administration, dives deeply into the possible political calculations at play in the board’s decision to put off a decision on Nichols’ post-Jindal administration employment restrictions. Read it here.