| Charlton Bath "C.B." Forgotston, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 19, 1945 Newellton, Tensas Parish, Louisiana, USA |
| Residence | Hammond Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Louisiana State University |
| Occupation | Attorney; Conservative political activist |
| Spouse | Ella Joy Adams Forgotston |
| Parents | C.B. Forgotston, Sr., and Elsa Forgotston |
Charlton Bath Forgotston, Jr., known as C.B. Forgotston (born January 19, 1945),[1] is an attorney, political pundit, and state government watchdog who resides in Hammond, the principal city of Tangipahoa Parish, a part of the Florida Parishes east of Baton Rouge in southeastern Louisiana. Forgotston served for seven years at chief counsel of the Appropriations Committee of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He is an outspoken fiscal conservative and critic of legalized gambling, unconstitutional legislation, and political corruption.[2]
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong," says Forgotston in quoting Voltaire.
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Forgotston was born to Charlton Forgotston, Sr. (1913–1987)[3] and Elsa Forgotston (born 1918) in Newellton in Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana. He graduated in 1962 from the since defunct Newellton High School.[4]
Forgotston thereafter procured a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1970, he received his Juris Doctor from LSU's Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Forgotston then worked for thirteen years for the legislature, the last seven as counsel of the Appropriations Committee. In 1973, he was a senior staff member of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention,[2] which drafted the current state constitution, ratified subsequently by voters in the spring of 1974. Many prominent politicians were delegates to the convention, including future Governor Charles E. Roemer, III, and future Louisiana Secretary of State and Insurance Commissioner James H. "Jim" Brown.
Forgotston has also served as director of the Taxation and Fiscal Policy Council and a lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, an organization formed in the middle 1970s to balance the power of organized labor, which was headed for four decades in Louisiana by Victor Bussie. He was the treasurer and a consultant for the Louisiana Council for Fiscal Reform, a statewide tax-reform interest group. He has been quoted in the major newspapers and other print and electronic media across the United States, including an appearance on CBS's news magazine, 60 Minutes. He is a fellow of the Institute of Politics of Loyola University in New Orleans. Forgotston has lectured at the law schools at Tulane and Loyola universities and at the Government Leadership Institute of the University of New Orleans. The Young Leadership Council of New Orleans selected him as "Role Model for Community Activism". Readers of Gambit Weekly named Forgotston "Best Community Activist" in the New Orleans area.[2]
Clancy Dubos, in the website Best of New Orleans, describes Forgotston as a "dangerous adversary" to the political leadership because, having been staff counsel to the Appropriations Committee, he knows the weaknesses of those in power. "He knows first-hand how lawmakers sometimes pass laws that they know are unconstitutional – sometimes to assuage the demands of an aroused but largely uninformed electorate, but just as often to help themselves and/or their cronies. Forgotston has railed for years about the arrogance of those in power, but no official sin gets under his skin more than lawmakers passing blatantly unconstitutional laws."[5]
Forgotston has been dubbed the "on-line scourge of Louisiana politicians" by the Times-Picayune 's James Gill.[6] In 2006, Forgotston called for the resignation of Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot on a matter of conflict of interest regarding a company of which Theriot was an officer that handled state bond issues.[7]
Forgotston frequently appears on radio talk shows, including the statewide Moon Griffon program based in Monroe. Like Griffon, he has grown skeptical of Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, whom Forgotston rates an "A" in "self-promotion" and a "D" for actual performance in office.[8] Shortly after taking office in 2008, Jindal called a special legislative session to focus upon ethics reform. Forgotston declared that the session "accomplished nothing except it cost the taxpayers money."[9]
Jindal has frequently left the state on political trips, was apparently considered for the vice presidency in 2008 by party nominee John McCain, and has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. Forgotston, however, maintains that Jindal has not yet established a record of real reform in Louisiana, as he pledged in his successful 2007 campaign for governor.[8]
In 2008, Forgotston challenged Jindal's decision to permit the legislature to triple its pay, but as public outrage mounted, Jindal reversed himself and indicated that he would veto a legislative pay raise.[10]
On his website, Forgotston says that Louisiana should not "settle for last place on all the good lists and first place on all the bad lists."[11] He notes that the state ranks last in population gain since 2000, even behind the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This rating has cost Louisiana one of its seven seats in the United States House of Representatives following the 2010 census. "Where are the proactive efforts of the Jindal administration?" Forgotston asks.[11]
Forgotston has often been a lone public voice against the expansion of gambling in New Orleans. When Harrah's closed a large casino in 1995, Forgotston asked: "Why would you go to New Orleans, a historic city like we have, and go sit in some windowless casino? You want to go drive down St. Charles Avenue. You want to go to the French Quarter. This is an outdoor city. It would be like going to Aspen, and spending the whole time in a bar at a video poker machine."[12]
Forgotston maintains that gambling holds decreasing appeal for tourists in that forty-eight states as of 1995 had some kind of legalized gaming, and twenty-five states had casinos either on land, riverboats or Indian reservations. Harrah's, a consortium of investors led by Memphis-based Harrah's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1995 and laid off 2,500 workers at a temporary casino that had opened only six months earlier at New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. The bankruptcy also halted work on a permanent casino on Canal Street, in the heart of the municipal hotel district.[12]
In the 2008 elections, Louisiana supported McCain and elected six Republicans (three of them physicians) and only one Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Vietnamese Republican, Joseph Cao, of the New Orleans-based 2nd district, defeated incumbent William J. Jefferson in a stunning upset in the December 6 runoff election. Forgotston commented on the outcome: "It was a shock to all of us. We would have lost a lot of money if we would have bet on that race. Yes, it was great to get rid of Bill Jefferson, but everybody knows it's just a one-time thing." The assumption to which Forgotston was referring is that Democrats will unite behind a scandal-free opponent in 2010 and easily dispatch Cao. Forgotston was correct in his prediction, and Cao became a one-term member. Despite facing a criminal corruption trial, Jefferson was still assumed to have a formidable get-out-the-vote operation among fellow African Americans. In the general election, only 14 percent of black voters came to the polls, compared to 28 percent of whites, who comprise only 40 percent of district residents. Cao said that wetlands and levee restoration matters were crucial to his victory.[13]
Forgotston remains engaged in the private practice of law as a sole-practitioner limited to legislative and governmental matters. He and his wife, the former Ella Joy Adams—born in 1944 and known as "E.J."[14]—relocated to Hammond after Hurricane Katrina ruined their residence in the Lakewood section of New Orleans. "E.J." Forgotston is a daughter of Troy Adams (1901–1972) and the former Bernice Hart (1912–2002),[15] a retired nurse from Kentwood, which, like Hammond, is in Tangipahoa Parish.[16] C.B. Forgotston, a frequent columnist and blogger, operates the website forgotston.com in which he quotes Voltaire: "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."[2]
On June 22, 2009, as a regular guest on the Moon Griffon radio program, Forgotston said that the current Louisiana legislature contains not even a single reliable voice for fiscal conservatism. He noted that three past legislators -- V.J. Bella, Raymond Laborde of Marksville, and Ed Scogin of Slidell -- had served as fiscal watchdogs often at the irritation of colleagues. Forgotston also said that the legislators rarely read the bills that they pass and focus on minor matters irrevelant to average citizens.[17]
On August 18, 2009, Forgotston told the Louisiana Commission on Streamlining Government that "state government should stop paying for things that should be financed by local authorities":