The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, known by the acronym LABI, is the largest and most successful business lobbying group in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It was founded in Baton Rouge in 1976, when Louisiana adopted a new right-to-work law during the administration of Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. The previous law, passed in the 1950s during the Robert F. Kennon administration, was repealed in 1956 by the Louisiana State Legislature under Kennon’s successor, Earl Kemp Long.[1] Teeming from its success with right-to-work, LABI quickly unified the state's business community into a visible, well-financed, fully staffed organization to speak for business year-round as well as during state legislative sessions.[2]
LABI has also been involved in education reform matters. Jackie Ducote, as an LABIU vice president, worked in the area of promoting alternatives to public education but with little success. In 1987, LABI issued the report "Ten Years of Education Reform in Louisiana: A Long Journey to Nowhere".[3] Most reforms, Ducote found, had been "watered down, ignored, not implemented properly, taken to court by the teacher unions and others, mired in turf battles, or not funded." Similar reforms pushed by Governor Buddy Roemer in 1988 met the same opposition from the Democratic constituency groups. LABI maintains that parents in effect must "pay twice" to obtain educational reform, taxes for public schools and their own private tuition.[3]
LABI’s founding former executive director is Edward J. Steimel (born 1922) of East Baton Rouge Parish, who had previously headed the nonpartisan think-tank, the Public Affairs Research Council, which had proposed various "good government" reforms during the administration of then Governor John J. McKeithen.
Originally a Democrat, Steimel over the years moved steadily toward support of the more conservative candidates, often within the Republican Party. LABI and Steimel often sparred with the Democrat Victor Bussie, long-term president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, who has long fought right-to-work. In 1989, however, the pair united to support Republican John S. Treen, older brother of former Governor David C. Treen, in a special election for the District 81 seat in the Louisiana State House of Representatives, vacated by Charles Cusimano, who became a state district judge. Treen narrowly lost the race to David Duke, then of Jefferson Parish, a former figure in the Ku Klux Klan. Duke later ran for the U.S. Senate and for governor in consecutive years in races which seemed to hamper the growth of the state GOP.
In 1987, Steimel encouraged Democrat-turned-Republican Jock Scott of Alexandria, an outgoing member of the state House, to run for the Louisiana State Senate, a position that Scott lost to the Democratic businessman Joe McPherson of Rapides Parish. Among the lawmakers consistently in support of LABI was Ron Gomez, a Democrat from Lafayette, who in 1986 secured the "Most Valuable Player to Business" designation. Despite his business voting record, Gomez, however, had criticized Steimel for unproductive negativity toward the state's educational structure.[4]
The LABI address is 3113 Valley Creek Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70898-0258. The association is now headed by Executive Director Daniel L. "Dan" Juneau.