Governor Jeff Landry (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate, Pool)
Governor Jeff Landry could reach a settlement with the Louisiana Board of Ethics early next year about his failure to disclose travel to and from Hawaii that he was on a political donor’s private plane.
One of Landry’s lawyers, Stephen Gelé told administrative law judge Monique Baham on Tuesday that the ethics committee was expected to review a consent order in the case during their meetings on January 9 or 10.
“The parties have continued to work amicably toward a resolution.” Gelé said this on Tuesday during a short telephone status conference with the two parties and Baham.
If the parties cannot agree to a settlement, they can proceed with an in-person hearing on the dispute, scheduled for June 17 at the Administrative Law Division.
Ethics Board attorney Charles Reeves said the board wanted to set a hearing date as a deadline for negotiations on the case, which have lasted more than 16 months.
“I think there has been some movement, but the board has directed me to request a hearing date,” Reeves said. “That will not prevent us from working on a settlement.”
The ethics commission first filed charges against Landry for violating ethics laws in August 2023, when he was running for governor as the incumbent attorney general.
The board alleges Landry violated state statutes when he failed to disclose the flights he took to and from Hawaii on a private donor’s plane in 2021. At the time, Landry was a featured speaker at a general conference of lawyers in the island nation.
Louisiana law allows state officials to receive free travel and lodging expenses for events at which they represent the state in an official capacity, but they are typically required to disclose the compensation on a form posted on the ethics board’s website.
The governor’s dispute with the ethics board won’t be resolved until the board undergoes dramatic changes in early 2025 that give Landry more control over its members.
Currently, more than half of the board consists of members that former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards selected from a list of nominees submitted by leaders of Louisiana’s private colleges and universities. That makeup will largely change under a new law Landry pushed earlier this year.
Under the law backed by Landry, the board will expand from 11 to 15 members in January. Nearly half of the board members will also be appointed directly by Landry and the Louisiana Legislature, without input from private university leaders.
Like the governor, politics Retired oil and gas executive Greg Mosing, the donor who lent Landry the private plane, also faces state ethics charges for failing to disclose the flights through his company Stanton Aviation. His negotiations with the ethics committee have also not been resolved.
Mosing and Landry are using the same attorney, Gelé, to represent them in the dispute.
Charles Spies, an attorney who worked for a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and the Republican National Committeealso serves as co-counsel for Landry in the case.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
