Tenure as governor
Roemer entered the governor's office on March 14, 1988. In April 1988, under executive order, Roemer named William Hawthorn Lynch, a long-term investigative journalist who at the time was with the Baton Rouge bureau of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, as the state's first inspector general. Lynch was empowered to investigate corruption, governmental inefficiencies, and misuse of state equipment. He remained in that position until his death in 2004.
In October 1989, voters rejected a number of Roemer tax initiatives but approved a State constitutional amendment for transportation improvements.
Facing a $1.3 billion deficit in the state budget, his first job was eliminating the deficit. Roemer's first chief of staff, Len Sanderson, Jr., who had been a journalist with the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, had run Roemer's gubernatorial campaign and was a close confidant. He represented the reform-minded agenda that had redefined Louisiana politics during Roemer's first session. According to Ron Gomez, Roemer's secretary of natural resources and a former legislator from Lafayette, the LSU-educated Sanderson "with his blond hair spilling to below shoulder length, stepped on so many toes and got into so many faces that he didn't make it into the second year." After another interim appointment, Roemer named former State Representative P.J. Mills of Shreveport as chief of staff, to, in the words of Gomez, "bring some maturity and experience to the office." Roemer also hired the political consultant and pollster Elliott Stonecipher of Shreveport.
State Representative Bruce M. Bolin of Minden, later a state district court judge, supported Roemer's early reform efforts: "the state can't be everything to everybody, and the new budget reflects that." Bolin also correctly predicted that Roemer would in time run for president, but Roemer did not seek the White House for another twenty-four years. To make a presidential run, Bolin said that Roemer "needs no political baggage" and that Louisiana "must be viewed as a progressive state" for him to be able to accomplish that goal. Edward J. Steimel, executive director of the pro-business lobby, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, also applauded Roemer's early reform efforts. Business, said Steimel, achieved half of its goals in the 1988 legislative session. Another session of equal outcome, he added, could make the state competitive with its neighbors within a year.
The Cross bill sought to ban abortion in cases of rape and incest and imposed fines of up to $100,000 and ten years imprisonment on the practitioners. Roemer declared the legislation incompatible with the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. His veto alienated large numbers of his socially conservative electoral base. The legislature subsequently overrode Roemer's veto with an even larger margin than in the original bill. State Representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge, one of the leading abortion foes in the legislature, said the prohibition regarding rape and incest is needed to prevent women from filing false claims in such matters. State Senator Sydney Nelson said that he opposed the abortion ban because of the problems of unwanted children and defective births. Nevertheless, in 1991, United States District Judge Adrian G. Duplantier of New Orleans, a former state senator, ruled that the measure was in conflict with Roe v. Wade and the 1991 companion ruling Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v. Casey.
Roemer came under fire for hiring a friend to teach positive thinking to his staff. Staffers were asked to wear rubber bands on their wrists and were told to snap a band whenever they had negative thoughts.
