[StBernard] Campaign trail hears little talk about recovery

[Westley Annis]

Campaign trail hears little talk about recovery
Posted by Bill Barrow, Capital bureau September 15, 2007 10:48PM
Categories: Breaking News
BATON ROUGE -- Based on the early rhetoric from the governor's race, it
might seem that south Louisiana's recovery from the devastating hurricanes
of 2005 is no longer an issue. 

Republican front-runner Bobby Jindal has named as his top priority reversing
the state's reputation for corruption. The Kenner congressman promises a
written recovery plan, but the first three chapters of his self-described
reform agenda have dealt with ethics, crime and education policy. And
Jindal, the prohibitive favorite in the race, has concentrated his campaign
travels in north Louisiana, where rural white voters helped spell his defeat
four years ago in a runoff against Democrat Kathleen Blanco. 

Populist Democrat Foster Campbell, in a message undeniably bold but not
necessarily new, is hinging his run on a promise to repeal the state income
tax and make up that revenue and more by overhauling levies on oil
companies. 

Jefferson Parish businessman John Georges, running as an independent, has
focused his early campaign efforts -- and advertising buys -- on framing
himself as a family man with the business acumen necessary to manage state
government. 

Democratic state Sen. Walter Boasso of Arabi, the candidate most personally
affected by the storm, has trumpeted insurance changes as the key to
recovery. But he has pegged his identity as a candidate more generically to
his physical stature, styling himself in campaign advertisements and
materials as strong enough to meet "the big challenges that face Louisiana,"
as he juxtaposes himself with a cardboard cutout of the considerably
slighter Jindal. 

Recovery notably missing 

In the weeks before qualifying, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin noted the
paucity of recovery discussion as he waffled about his own gubernatorial
prospects. He said perhaps the biggest plus of a Nagin candidacy would be to
force other candidates to address a recovery widely viewed as laggard. 

Yet even with Nagin ultimately passing on the race, and despite the
campaign's tenor not driven by rebuilding issues, the four major candidates
all said in conversations with The Times-Picayune and through written
responses to the newspaper's questions that south Louisiana's plight would
be at the fore of their administrations. 

In their statements, they reveal perhaps why they haven't talked much about
the recovery until asked: With some exceptions, the candidates either speak
in broad themes, sans a commitment of action, or they offer goals and
observations that are difficult if not impossible to compress into a
30-second commercial or a sound-bite for the evening news. 

In the case of many of the most detailed proposals, the missing ingredient
is how some new effort or program might be financed, particularly related to
the near uniform proposal of giving law enforcement agencies more money. 

And, in some instances, the candidates manage to contradict themselves. 

Red tape criticized 

Georges joined the other three in stating that the federal government's
shoddy flood protection is responsible for much of the damage to New
Orleans. All the candidates promised to lobby Congress and the Bush
administration to plug any deficit that might remain for the Road Home grant
program for displaced homeowners. Jindal and Campbell directly referenced
President Bush standing in Jackson Square and promising to do whatever it
takes to rebuild New Orleans. 

Yet Georges, speaking in the context of the recovery process, said, "It's
the delay and the red tape, not the resources." 

Not surprisingly, Boasso, Campbell and Jindal all echoed the need to cut
bureaucratic delays in delivering aid, though none laid out exactly where
that might occur. 

Jindal's seeming contradiction came both in his call for additional federal
money and in his answer to the question of how he would finance additional
resources for the criminal justice system in Orleans Parish and around the
state. 

On the latter front, he offered a critique of special legislative projects
that constitute tens of millions of dollars in a $30 billion state budget,
and he noted that revenue forecasts show continued growth, albeit at a much
smaller rate, in state cash flow. 

One of the congressman's rallying cries is his declaration of a "war on
spending," as he notes that the state budget has about doubled since 2000.
He rarely, if ever, tells his audiences that several billion dollars of the
increases in recent years have come directly from the federal government for
hurricane recovery. Jindal supported many of those appropriations in
Congress, and if Washington continues to send money for Louisiana's
rebuilding efforts as Jindal advocates, the state budget could continue to
grow and certainly would not drop to anything approaching its pre-storm
level. 

Recovery ideas run gamut 

Perhaps the most stark distinction came on the question of whether there
should be government restrictions on redeveloping the most flood-prone areas
of metropolitan New Orleans. Boasso, Campbell and Georges all said
explicitly that there should be no limits. Jindal did not make such a
commitment. 

"We need to educate the country on the fact that so much of the flooding in
New Orleans was caused by faulty federal levees," he said. "Successful
rebuilding efforts depend on the fulfillment of long-standing commitments
made by the Corps of Engineers years ago to build safe levees and restore
our wetlands. While zoning, elevation and rebuilding decisions will and
should obviously be made at the local level, the state should aid such
decisions by providing federal hazard mitigation dollars to help compensate
landowners and advocating to the federal government to keep its commitment."


Asked whether he would push for denying hazard mitigation grants in certain
areas, the congressman said: "In the disbursement of any federal or state
dollars through state government, we would be open to working with city
leaders to support their plans to prioritize investment first in targeted
areas or projects to help jump-start the recovery." 

Explaining his top priority for the recovery, Jindal took a broad view. 

"The governor must create a sense of urgency and action," he said. 

He also attempted to cast the recovery as an opportunity for sweeping
changes to public systems -- health, criminal justice and education -- that
faced significant problems long before Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. 

Role of LRA debated 

He was noncommittal about what role the Blanco-appointed Louisiana Recovery
Authority might play in his administration, though he signaled the
possibility of some restructuring. He promised to review "all appointments"
and said: "It is important to have the LRA serve as an advisory group, but
ultimately the responsibility for our recovery cannot be delegated away." 

Boasso said the key to a successful recovery is making insurance more
accessible, and he offered a litany of ideas to do so. But when asked about
his vision for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the senator promised only
to "get in there and get a complete account of how the LRA is being
operated." 

Campbell applied his detailed tax proposals to several recovery issues,
saying the forecast increase in revenue would give the state options on
several fronts, including any Road Home deficit Congress doesn't cover and
the investments necessary to bolster crime prevention and prosecutions. He
also turned his proposed income tax into an insurance break, saying the tax
cut could help property owners deal with increased premiums as the market
continues to settle after the storms. 

But he spoke more generally about what he would do first on the recovery:
lead a reassessment among the private sector and local, state and federal
government officials in forming "a new, consistent strategy." Campbell
promised to appoint a "high-profile individual to follow through on
coordination," but has not laid out how that person would interact with the
LRA, the responsibilities of which he said "must be determined in part by
the broader review and the status of recovery efforts at the beginning of
2008." 

Georges offered perhaps the most specific plan for LRA, promising to
subjugate the agency to a recovery czar that he would appoint as coordinator
of all state recovery activities and chief liaison to other levels of
government and the private sector. 

He also pledged to fire ICF International, the private firm running the Road
Home program, if the company does not perform. Boasso also pledged to hold
ICF "accountable." Neither man specified what performance thresholds he
expects the agency to meet. 

Jindal said the Blanco administration's recent negotiations setting stiffer
penalties and tougher performance marks for ICF are adequate for now. He
expressed hope that ICF would meet and exceed those benchmarks and that
Congress will cover any shortfall, perhaps making the issue moot by the Jan.
14 inauguration. 

Crime policies differ 

Boasso attempted to carve a distinction between himself and Jindal on crime
policy in New Orleans. The senator criticized Jindal for not supporting
Democratic amendments offered in Congress to finance more local police
officers around the country. And he took a dig at Jindal for supporting
Bush's Iraq policy to the peril of the Louisiana National Guard. Both
actions, Boasso said, keep police and guard troops from Orleans streets,
where he said they should be. 

Jindal focused his crime plan on financing labs that process evidence and on
stiffening sentences for those convicted of intimidating witnesses, a
circumstance that guts many Orleans criminal cases according to prosecutors.
Boasso mocked that view, saying Louisiana needs "legitimate options, such as
real and guaranteed protections for witnesses who step forward." 

Georges said he would push increased technological availability to link
parishes to the crime databases that help police and prosecutors track
criminal histories. He did not say how he would pay for the measure, though
he has listed crime prevention among his top five budget priorities. 

Campbell's most specific crime proposal, which he said his tax plan could
finance, is a special team of assistant district attorneys to prosecute gun
crimes by convicted felons. 

Insurance takes backseat 

On insurance, Campbell is perhaps the most hands-off. He said several
legislative actions taken this year, including an incentives fund for
insurance writers and the phase-out of the Insurance Rating Commission,
should be implemented and observed before proceeding further. 

Jindal was also relatively laissez faire, at least from a state perspective.
He said the insurance crisis is more a national issue requiring
congressional action, and he championed legislation he is trying to move
through Congress, including a bill that would put the federal government
into the business of selling wind policies, in addition to its flood
coverage. Campbell advocated the same philosophy. 

Boasso and Jindal both advocated a national catastrophe fund to absorb some
of the risk that private insurance companies now seem unwilling to carry. 

Georges advocated a more regional approach. He said he would call a meeting
of all Gulf Coast governors to discuss how to put together such an account. 

Meanwhile, Nagin said he remains unconvinced that his would-have-been rivals
place a high enough priority on the region's struggles. 

"I have met with Campbell, Georges and Boasso," he said, notably glossing
over Jindal, "and while they have voiced general support, I am not satisfied
that this issue is being sufficiently addressed. I believe that voters will
hold all candidates accountable for ensuring the full recovery of our state
and its citizens." 

Bill Barrow can be reached at bbarrow at timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5590.