[StBernard] Reshaped 1st Louisiana Senate District pits veteran lawmakers against each other

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Sun Oct 2 17:04:11 EDT 2011


Reshaped 1st Louisiana Senate District pits veteran lawmakers against each
other

Published: Saturday, October 01, 2011, 3:00 PM

By Bob Warren, The Times-Picayune

State Sen. A.G. Crowe says his first term in the 1st Senate District laid
the groundwork for a windfall of economic prosperity via the Louisiana
International Gulf Transfer Terminal port facility he has championed.
Another four years in Baton Rouge, he said, will help him bring the plan to
fruition.

But state Rep. Nita Hutter, who cannot seek re-election to her formerly
Chalmette-based district through a combination of term limits and
redistricting, has set her sights on the 1st District post and said Crowe's
constituents have been badly underrepresented the past four years.

The Louisiana Senate's 1st District includes portions of St. Tammany,
Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. After the Legislature's
redistricting this session, eastern St. Tammany Parish residents now make up
a substantial majority of the district: 85 percent, up from 30 percent in
the 2007 election.

Crowe, a Republican from Pearl River, said he has made the Legislature a
full-time job, noting his hard work brought the endorsement of Gov. Bobby
Jindal.

"I'm not there to see how many bills I can put my name on," he said. "This
is not an ego thing."

But Hutter said Crowe has done a poor job, which has prompted numerous
complaints from residents and officials.

"They all pretty much had the same spiel: They just couldn't point to
anything he's done and couldn't point to anything important in his
legislation," said Hutter, a Republican from Chalmette.

The veteran legislators espouse numerous common campaign issues: job
creation, flood control, tightening the budget, and improving education and
the state's aging infrastructure.

But Crowe says his biggest platform revolves around the Gulf Transfer
Terminal that he says will create 15,000 jobs in Louisiana in the next five
years.

Crowe said his legislation formed the groundwork for the terminal that will
be built with private investments on a 260-acre tract on the east bank of
Southwest Pass in Plaquemines Parish. The facility, which Crowe estimates
will cost $1.1 billion, will be poised to take advantage of the surge in
container shipping expected to come with the widening of the Panama Canal.

"It's the right time and the right place," he said.

Crowe said he also will again push legislation to force Louisiana to change
the way its projects revenue to better protect higher education and health
care and will push for state and federal financing for levees and coastal
erosion.

In his latest finance report filed with the state, Crowe had $41,072 on hand
as of Sept. 12 and had spent $18,649.

Hutter doesn't think the Transfer Terminal is viable, pointing to studies
that she says cast doubt about its success. "I certainly would be doing a
lot of cheers for something that is reality, especially in that neck of the
woods," she said, adding that Crowe keeps talking about investors, "but no
one has shown their face yet. No legislator has heard anything."

More realistic, Hutter says, is her proven track record of legislation
during the past 11 years.

She said she has written legislation that tightened pain clinic regulations,
provided tax incentives for shipping and helped pave the way for a public
hospital under construction in Chalmette.

One of her first bills, she said, will be to create a levee board for St.
Tammany Parish. "That would have been an easy thing he could have done," she
said. "The citizens of St. Tammany would have had a voice in the region."

Hutter said she will continue to push legislation to improve higher
education with an emphasis on workforce training to help sustain and expand
businesses.

In her latest finance report filed with the state, Hutter had $69,865 on
hand as of Sept. 12 and had spent $29,253.







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