BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana House of Representatives has nominated only one person so far to fill its open ethics board seat – a former legislator who is friends with Gov. Jeff Landry. 

House and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, said former state Rep. Mike Huval is the sole candidate to take the House’s open ethics board slot currently.

“It doesn’t mean he will be the only one nominated,” Beaullieu said, but the legislator acknowledged any other nominees would have to be put forward very quickly.  

Beaullieu’s committee is interviewing its potential ethics board candidates Thursday and Huval is the only person signed up for the vetting. The full House has to vote a new ethics board member into the job that starts next month. That process will likely take place through a mail-in ballot in the next few weeks. 

Beaullieu, who represented St. Martin Parish with Huval, said he personally nominated the former lawmaker for the job. It hasn’t been clear how the nominating process for the ethics board works after a law change earlier this year, but Beaullieu believes any House member can put forward their own nominee. 

A Breaux Bridge Republican, Huval works in the insurance industry and left the Louisiana House at the end of 2023 after 13 years in office. He also served as St. Martin Parish Council chairman and was a member of police jury before that time. 

“I’m honored to be considered for the position and look forward to serving if appointed,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Huval shares a home parish with the governor and has known Landry for years. His time in St. Martin Parish government overlapped with Landry’s first government job as the head of the St. Martin Parish Economic Development Authority, Huval said, though Landry didn’t work directly for the parish council. 

“Absolutely we’re friends. I’ve been knowing Jeff a long time,” Huval said. 

As an elected official, Huval said he was fined once by the ethics board. His brother, who was handling Huval’s campaign finance reports, turned in one of those documents late because he didn’t understand that Saturdays counted toward the overall reporting deadlines, Huval said. 

Other than the one late report, which isn’t unusual for elected officials, Huval said he hasn’t had any run-ins with the ethics board.

Landry has had a  fraught relationship with the ethics board for years and currently faces ethics charges over flights he took on a donor’s private plane to Hawaii.

The governor and legislators rewrote the state laws earlier this year to change the board’s makeup. Starting in January, the board will have 15 seats, with the governor getting nine appointees and six for the legislature. 

Ethics board member terms are staggered so Landry and the lawmakers won’t be able to replace the entire board in the first year. In January, Landry only gets to fill five of his nine seats, and the House and Senate get to pick one person each. 

Landry has not announced his appointees yet, according to spokeswoman Kate Kelly. The Senate also doesn’t have nominees yet, Senate Secretary Yolanda Dixon said.

Sitting on the ethics board comes with some extra restrictions that don’t apply to most other government appointments. 

State law dictates ethics board members cannot be a candidate for office or public employee within six months of their board service. They also can’t work as a registered lobbyist within two years of their selection or serve on a state board or commission to which the governor appoints members. 

Ethics board members also can’t be party to any contract with a state government entity.

They are also prohibited from making political contributions to candidates or causes and cannot participate in any political activities. Their only political acts while on the board are supposed to be voting in private.

Additionally, members must go through ethics board training before they are allowed to vote on board matters.