JANUARY 26, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
With its sub-freezing temperature, Inauguration Day in
Washington, D.C. was no time to be sitting in the shade. Yet
for rookie congressmen Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge and Joseph
Cao of New Orleans, seated up against the U.S. Capitol's
marble facade, sharing the new president's view of the flag-
waving masses on the Mall, the vantage point on history was
spectacular, despite their shivering.
"It was pretty cool," said Cassidy, figuratively,
literally.
They were warmer an hour later but, like their Republican
colleagues, the freshmen start their new careers, for the most
part, still out in the cold.
For all the promises by President Obama and congressional
leaders of inclusiveness and reaching across the aisle,
Democrats are calling the shots, especially on the first order
of business, the mega-dollar economic stimulus package.
For Cassidy, the stimulus initiative represents a seismic
shift of political responsibility. Were he still in his old
job, a Louisiana state senator, he would be faced with voting
for hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts to higher
education and healthcare. Instead, as a congressman, the task
is to direct hundreds of billions in new spending and tax
cuts.
The difference is that states are compelled to balance
their annual budgets, while Congress can just print more
money.
So while the stimulus plan is going to happen, the question
remains how much good will it do.
"It seems like rain falling on concrete," said Cassidy.
"Only so much money can be absorbed."
Especially considering where it is to be absorbed. The dean
of the state’s House delegation, Congressman Rodney Alexander,
R-Quitman, voted against the bill in committee because, he
said, "I have a strong question if this is something that will
stimulate the economy or will stimulate government."
There does seem to be a lot of bailing out of the federal
and state governments, with questionable effect on the overall
economy.
For instance, the Medicaid portion of the package could
spell major relief for this state, like other states, which
are running way short on providing healthcare to the poor. It
would give a one-time increase of almost five percentage
points of the federal match for what states spend on Medicaid.
That would not increase Medicaid benefits for poor people,
but, rather, the state won’t have to cut back services for
them as much.
The classic example of economic stimulus by government,
going back to the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s,
is spending on government infrastructure, which takes up about
half of the package. That comes in many forms, but, for
Louisiana, top priorities are highways and levees.
Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter have called on their
colleagues to include billions more for hurricane protection
levees that are not in the House bill. The Senate might also
increase the amount going to highways, as the House bill falls
short of what state officials and contractors hoped for. The
current measure contains $471 million for Louisiana
transportation projects and another $57 million for local
transit systems.
That's no pittance, but the state must share 45 percent of
the highway amount with local governments, according to state
transportation secretary Bill Ankner. That would leave the
state far short on its $1.3 billion wish list of "shovel
ready" road work, most of which would go to big Interstate
projects. Less will now.
A positive aspect of the package is what it doesn’t
contain, which are, at the president's insistence, earmarks.
Those are the specific projects that powerful congressmen and
influential lobbyists manage to get inserted into bills, such
as Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" and similar follies.
This time, Congress is to appropriate by categories of
infrastructure projects, which federal agencies will specify
through formula-based funding and priority rankings. Of
course, members who know how the system works can still guide
money in preferred directions. One of those, Congressman
Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, has coined a term for the
new practice: bookmarks.
Most Republicans, for now, are withholding their rhetorical
fire, since too much yapping would just cause their states and
districts to be less stimulated. If the plan works, the nation
will be better for it. If it doesn’t, if the economy is still
hobbled in 2010, Republicans will have a lot to talk about and
Democrats much to answer for.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Students, Not Systems, Deserve Second Chance
JANUARY 19, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
When hundreds of citizens show up at a meeting to raise hell with a public body, it's usually a healthy sign that people are engaged and government accountability is not dead. But the sound and fury that peppered last week's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education makes one wonder.
At issue was the recommendation by state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek to have his agency assume management of ten failing public schools in East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes. They will join 71 other schools, mostly in New Orleans, that were moved into the Recovery School District in the past three years.
Almost all attending the BESE meeting were there to protest the takeover, some by heckling Pastorek. They also cheered loudly for points made by Baton Rouge Superintendent Charlotte Placide, despite that the schools she and her staff have run failed to meet minimum--very minimum--academic standards for four straight years.
From the reaction of the crowd, what one wonders is: where were they and their wrath when the parish school board last met? Or their Parent-Teacher Association?
No doubt, many of the protesters are parents who are involved in their children's education. But there are many other parents who show little interest in what goes on at their children's school or see to it that their kids do their homework.
That so many students in failing schools come from impoverished and/or dysfunctional families, however, does not let the principals, school boards and central office administrators off the hook. Despite their efforts, what they have been doing has not been working. After four straight years of failure--for some schools, decades--they are not the ones who deserve a second chance. The kids do.
Many of the current Recovery School District schools have shown significant improvement in test scores, while some still struggle. Yet takeover opponents seem to think that the RSD, in only its third year, should prove itself more, while Baton Rouge and Shreveport systems should get the benefit of the doubt--when little doubt remains.
Some speakers at the BESE meeting, describing themselves as "community activists," demanded that the community be allowed to run its own schools. If they want to see real community activists, they should visit any of the dozens of RSD campuses in New Orleans now being run as charter schools. There parents and teachers, even community volunteers, devise curricula and make management decisions formerly made by central office bureaucrats. Pastorek plans for eight of the ten schools being taken over to become charters.
Such did not impress BESE member Louella Givens of New Orleans. She still hasn't gotten over the 2006 transfer of schools there, which she called "repulsive" and told the Baton Rouge protesters, "Welcome to my nightmare."
Amazing what she finds repulsive: well-maintained schools where there is a semblance of order and a chance for learning. What does she call the pre-Katrina dilapidated buildings, the chaotic classrooms and the dozens of system employees who were convicted of looting the system? The good ol' days?
Besides wounded pride, if one can put a price on a local school board's loss of control, it comes to $3,850. That's the amount the state pays each school district per pupil, which goes to the RSD when the state takes control. One wonders if that wasn't the real motivation behind Ms. Placide's call for public protest.
BESE's action demonstrates that failing schools are no longer exclusive to New Orleans. The ten taken over could eventually be joined by 23 more in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Lake Charles and a half dozen rural parishes that have been placed under state supervision while remaining under local control, for now.
The fate of those schools, like those in New Orleans, should be of major concern statewide. An average student can survive a mediocre school and still do well in college and life. But a struggling student in a failing school is one step away from being a dropout, and then a burden if not a danger to society.
Students in schools that have failed should not be told to be more patient with the administrators who have let them down. They deserve a new, intensive and sustained approach, and not after four more years.
When hundreds of citizens show up at a meeting to raise hell with a public body, it's usually a healthy sign that people are engaged and government accountability is not dead. But the sound and fury that peppered last week's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education makes one wonder.
At issue was the recommendation by state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek to have his agency assume management of ten failing public schools in East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes. They will join 71 other schools, mostly in New Orleans, that were moved into the Recovery School District in the past three years.
Almost all attending the BESE meeting were there to protest the takeover, some by heckling Pastorek. They also cheered loudly for points made by Baton Rouge Superintendent Charlotte Placide, despite that the schools she and her staff have run failed to meet minimum--very minimum--academic standards for four straight years.
From the reaction of the crowd, what one wonders is: where were they and their wrath when the parish school board last met? Or their Parent-Teacher Association?
No doubt, many of the protesters are parents who are involved in their children's education. But there are many other parents who show little interest in what goes on at their children's school or see to it that their kids do their homework.
That so many students in failing schools come from impoverished and/or dysfunctional families, however, does not let the principals, school boards and central office administrators off the hook. Despite their efforts, what they have been doing has not been working. After four straight years of failure--for some schools, decades--they are not the ones who deserve a second chance. The kids do.
Many of the current Recovery School District schools have shown significant improvement in test scores, while some still struggle. Yet takeover opponents seem to think that the RSD, in only its third year, should prove itself more, while Baton Rouge and Shreveport systems should get the benefit of the doubt--when little doubt remains.
Some speakers at the BESE meeting, describing themselves as "community activists," demanded that the community be allowed to run its own schools. If they want to see real community activists, they should visit any of the dozens of RSD campuses in New Orleans now being run as charter schools. There parents and teachers, even community volunteers, devise curricula and make management decisions formerly made by central office bureaucrats. Pastorek plans for eight of the ten schools being taken over to become charters.
Such did not impress BESE member Louella Givens of New Orleans. She still hasn't gotten over the 2006 transfer of schools there, which she called "repulsive" and told the Baton Rouge protesters, "Welcome to my nightmare."
Amazing what she finds repulsive: well-maintained schools where there is a semblance of order and a chance for learning. What does she call the pre-Katrina dilapidated buildings, the chaotic classrooms and the dozens of system employees who were convicted of looting the system? The good ol' days?
Besides wounded pride, if one can put a price on a local school board's loss of control, it comes to $3,850. That's the amount the state pays each school district per pupil, which goes to the RSD when the state takes control. One wonders if that wasn't the real motivation behind Ms. Placide's call for public protest.
BESE's action demonstrates that failing schools are no longer exclusive to New Orleans. The ten taken over could eventually be joined by 23 more in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Lake Charles and a half dozen rural parishes that have been placed under state supervision while remaining under local control, for now.
The fate of those schools, like those in New Orleans, should be of major concern statewide. An average student can survive a mediocre school and still do well in college and life. But a struggling student in a failing school is one step away from being a dropout, and then a burden if not a danger to society.
Students in schools that have failed should not be told to be more patient with the administrators who have let them down. They deserve a new, intensive and sustained approach, and not after four more years.
Friday, January 9, 2009
9 Politicos to Watch in '09
DECEMBER 30, 2008 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Unlike the year past, the year ahead will be short on elections but long on government, as state leaders try to get their arms and minds around a worsened financial picture, a revamp of public healthcare, the implementation of a new ethics regime and a potentially rockier relationship between the governor and the Legislature. And there still will be election politics, if not actual voting then key decisions to be made for some big 2010 races that will start before this year ends.
Driving these policies and politics will be the major figures--the governor, U.S. senators and legislative leaders--but also emerging players vying to make their marks. Here's the morning line on political newsmakers for 2009.
Charlie Melancon. In a House delegation very short on seniority, Congressman Melancon, the lone Democrat, stands as a relative giant. Though in only his third term, he has become a leader within the increasingly influential Blue Dog Caucus of conservative Democrats. He will be Sen. Mary Landrieu's counterpart in working with the Obama administration and congressional leadership on legislation, especially appropriations, vital to Louisiana. By year's end, however, he must decide if he will risk all that and answer the call of national party leaders to challenge Sen. David Vitter in 2010.
Jay Dardenne. The secretary of state gets a break from the demanding and shifting election calendar of the past two years, allowing him to ponder his own next electoral move. He too must decide this year if he will challenge Vitter in 2010, though doing so could cause a deep rift within the Republican party.
Angele Davis. The governor faces a major budget-balancing challenge, which he already has delegated to his commissioner of administration to solve. She will have to make do with less money after three straight years of legislators and bureaucrats having more and more to spend. Her challenge will be to reduce spending without so cutting services that her boss feels the heat.
Alan Levine. The success of Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed healthcare overhaul depends heavily on how well the head of the Department Health and Hospitals sells to wary legislators the managed-care plan that he devised in his earlier job in Florida.
Mitch Landrieu. The once rising star finds himself in a mid-career position that could stretch on and on. The lieutenant governor must decide by December if he will qualify to run again for mayor of New Orleans in February 2010. He leads all the polls now, but so did he four years ago before losing to Mayor Ray Nagin.
John Alario. The freshman senator kept a low profile in his first year in the upper chamber, but the longest-serving legislator is expected to play a greater role in the coming debates over the budget and healthcare. He might also position himself to broker a new relationship between Senate veterans and the governor, mending last year's frayed feelings over Jindal's vetoes of legislators' pay raises and local projects.
Charles Boustany. Though less outspoken than the two other doctors in the congressional delegation, the Lafayette representative in his third term could develop the role as a GOP counterpoint to Democratic plans to expand government-sponsored healthcare. He also takes a seat on the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, with an eye toward quietly building seniority and leadership in the mode of retiring Congressman Jim McCrery, who rose to prominence on the same panel.
Karen Carter Peterson. Her future seemed limited after losing the 2006 congressional election to Bill Jefferson, but the New Orleans Democrat rebounded to be chosen speaker pro tem in the state House. Then she was the first state politician to sign on to Barack Obama's nascent presidential campaign. If she doesn't take a high post in the new federal administration, she is seen as a viable contender for mayor or, again, Congress.
Frank Simoneaux. The governor is counting on the new chairman of the state Board of Ethics to make workable a new set of ethics laws that, critics charge, has weakened the board's power to prosecute alleged transgressors. If he can't, the attorney and former lawmaker must shepherd changes through a Legislature which is having second thoughts about what it wrought in the name of good government.
Unlike the year past, the year ahead will be short on elections but long on government, as state leaders try to get their arms and minds around a worsened financial picture, a revamp of public healthcare, the implementation of a new ethics regime and a potentially rockier relationship between the governor and the Legislature. And there still will be election politics, if not actual voting then key decisions to be made for some big 2010 races that will start before this year ends.
Driving these policies and politics will be the major figures--the governor, U.S. senators and legislative leaders--but also emerging players vying to make their marks. Here's the morning line on political newsmakers for 2009.
Charlie Melancon. In a House delegation very short on seniority, Congressman Melancon, the lone Democrat, stands as a relative giant. Though in only his third term, he has become a leader within the increasingly influential Blue Dog Caucus of conservative Democrats. He will be Sen. Mary Landrieu's counterpart in working with the Obama administration and congressional leadership on legislation, especially appropriations, vital to Louisiana. By year's end, however, he must decide if he will risk all that and answer the call of national party leaders to challenge Sen. David Vitter in 2010.
Jay Dardenne. The secretary of state gets a break from the demanding and shifting election calendar of the past two years, allowing him to ponder his own next electoral move. He too must decide this year if he will challenge Vitter in 2010, though doing so could cause a deep rift within the Republican party.
Angele Davis. The governor faces a major budget-balancing challenge, which he already has delegated to his commissioner of administration to solve. She will have to make do with less money after three straight years of legislators and bureaucrats having more and more to spend. Her challenge will be to reduce spending without so cutting services that her boss feels the heat.
Alan Levine. The success of Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed healthcare overhaul depends heavily on how well the head of the Department Health and Hospitals sells to wary legislators the managed-care plan that he devised in his earlier job in Florida.
Mitch Landrieu. The once rising star finds himself in a mid-career position that could stretch on and on. The lieutenant governor must decide by December if he will qualify to run again for mayor of New Orleans in February 2010. He leads all the polls now, but so did he four years ago before losing to Mayor Ray Nagin.
John Alario. The freshman senator kept a low profile in his first year in the upper chamber, but the longest-serving legislator is expected to play a greater role in the coming debates over the budget and healthcare. He might also position himself to broker a new relationship between Senate veterans and the governor, mending last year's frayed feelings over Jindal's vetoes of legislators' pay raises and local projects.
Charles Boustany. Though less outspoken than the two other doctors in the congressional delegation, the Lafayette representative in his third term could develop the role as a GOP counterpoint to Democratic plans to expand government-sponsored healthcare. He also takes a seat on the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, with an eye toward quietly building seniority and leadership in the mode of retiring Congressman Jim McCrery, who rose to prominence on the same panel.
Karen Carter Peterson. Her future seemed limited after losing the 2006 congressional election to Bill Jefferson, but the New Orleans Democrat rebounded to be chosen speaker pro tem in the state House. Then she was the first state politician to sign on to Barack Obama's nascent presidential campaign. If she doesn't take a high post in the new federal administration, she is seen as a viable contender for mayor or, again, Congress.
Frank Simoneaux. The governor is counting on the new chairman of the state Board of Ethics to make workable a new set of ethics laws that, critics charge, has weakened the board's power to prosecute alleged transgressors. If he can't, the attorney and former lawmaker must shepherd changes through a Legislature which is having second thoughts about what it wrought in the name of good government.
What Shaped Louisiana Politics in '08
DECEMBER 29, 2008 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
An historic year in national politics did not lack for precedents in Louisiana
Bobby Jindal's Rocket Ride. The last American politician before Jindal to attract as much national attention in his first year of statewide office will be sworn in as president in three weeks. Jindal's "new day for
"Vulnerable" Landrieu Victorious. Despite being targeted by Republicans as the most beatable Senate Democrat, Sen. Mary Landrieu ran strong on her post-storm record and growing seniority. She also waged a tougher campaign than Treasurer John Kennedy. In the words of columnist Clancy DuBos, she defined Kennedy before the former Democrat could redefine himself. She now is not only the state's senior statesman but also its undisputed connection to the Obama administration, in terms of projects and patronage.
The Pay Raise Fiasco. For a legislative act that never took effect, the bill to raise state lawmakers' pay, like no other issue, ignited a firestorm that burned careers and singed the governor's sky-high popularity. New legislators learned quickly that tighter ethics laws and the biggest-ever personal tax cut counted for squat in face of their self-serving salary over-reach. The controversy also demonstrated how fast and hot a public cause can grow when fanned by the Internet and other forms of new media.
The Improbable Mr. Cao. The most compelling political human interest story of the year belongs to Anh "Joseph" Cao of
GOP Sweeps the House. The rising Obama tide and financial meltdown doomed Republican congressional candidates nationwide, except here. After Democrats won the special election in the 6th Congressional District in May, they did not win another contested House race in 2008, their only winner being unopposed Congressman Charlie Melancon. Though
Vitter's Back. After a year of lying low following his escort-service scandal, Sen. David Vitter re-emerged to take a lead role in defeating the auto industry bailout bail, which won him political points in most of
Boom Times to Bust. In a year when the price of oil topped $144 per barrel before dropping by over $100,
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