Recent editorials from Louisiana newspapers:
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Aug. 20
The Houma Courier on what the rewritten state constitution should contain:
We repeated our support Aug. 16 for a constitutional convention that would rewrite the state’s bloated and ineffective governing document in a way that puts Louisiana on solid financial footing and enhances its chance to improve residents’ quality of life for the long-term.
As a starting point, lawmakers and citizens can get some well-reasoned guidance in a new report by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, an independent, good-government group. “Louisiana Constitutional Reform: Getting the Foundation Right,” explains in straightforward language how we got here, why reform is necessary and what the underpinnings of a good constitution should look like. PAR’s followup report will include more-detailed recommendations.
Let’s take a closer look at the broad principles PAR suggests should guide the process. They are based on recommendations from a 14-member advisory committee that included experts in law, state finances, policy and economic development. The panel spent about year researching and discussing the issue. PAR also sought input from industry leaders and associations, local governments, current and former public officials and others. The constitution, PAR suggestions, should:
-Be understandable and accessible to the state’s citizens.
-Be a stable and static document that reflects long-term, enduring values of the state and its citizens. Policy provisions that reflect shifting attitudes or are responses to temporary matters should generally be placed in statute - not the constitution.
-Contain provisions state officials and lawmakers are able to understand and implement through practical, transparent means.
-Limit the budget rules it contains to those essential to the normal operation of state government or to address long-term issues.
-Reflect the values of the entire state by granting heightened protection only to issues that affect the well-being of all citizens, not individual special interests or alliances.
-Be clear and concise, with sufficient detail to avoid the need for judicial interpretation. But it should not be so detailed that it places excessive restrictions upon government agencies tasked with implementing its provisions.
-Avoid legislating policy matters that can be adequately addressed in statute.
-Require a high level of review and engagement from voters and lawmakers and set a high bar for voter ratification of proposed amendments.
Anyone who has followed state government’s persistent crises, including seven special sessions in four years just to patch together a piecemeal state budget, knows these ideas are the product of what has worked - and, just as importantly, what hasn’t.
With Louisiana’s long track record of bringing up the rear on so many national quality-of-life rankings, the status quo is unacceptable. This whole exercise is about far more than writing some document that only wonks will care about.
A successful revision of the constitution will give the state a fresh start. It will make the state’s priorities crystal clear, ensure taxpayers’ money is spent on delivering those priorities and providing a vision that makes Louisiana a state that leads the nation in health, education and the other services citizens value most.
Any undertaking this large will produce some ideas not everyone will agree with, and PAR’s report is no exception. But this collection of concepts and ideas, which anyone can review at parlouisiana.org, is a great place to start.
Online: www.houmatoday.com
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Aug. 18
The Advocate on the passing of former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux:
With the honesty of a woman facing a terminal diagnosis, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco recently told well-wishers that no one would have ever chosen to be governor of Louisiana when hurricanes Katrina and Rita savaged the state in 2005.
In the wake of Katrina, she went to the Superdome personally to meet refugees from the flooding, a visit that her aides wished she had publicized. But after the first, sad weeks of the event, a long slog was ahead.
She was always unapologetic that she gave everything she had to the recovery effort, after flooding caused by the failed levees devastated the greater New Orleans area.
Her mantra, “I gave it my all,” still resonated when she opted against a bid for reelection in 2007. Blanco died Sunday at age 76.
Because the storms were such a defining moment for her term in office, it is unfortunate that she never wrote a memoir of the experience, including the sharp conflict with then-President George W. Bush and his aides in the immediate aftermath, and then the long ordeal of fighting for federal aid equal to the damage suffered in Louisiana.
Wife and mother in a large and politically active family, Blanco held a number of firsts, including her role as the first woman to be governor of Louisiana. She served in the Legislature and on the Public Service Commission, showing a political savvy that eventually won her the top office in the state in 2003 over a young Bobby Jindal, who was to succeed her in 2008.
She was often called a moderate, working across party lines in the style of a pro-business Democrat. She was a strong supporter of public education, boosting teacher pay to the average in the Southern states, a goal often set at the State Capitol but only achieved on her watch. Blanco was equally a vigorous advocate for higher education, and her tenure is now looked back on as the halcyon days when Louisiana backed its colleges and universities.
On public health and financial grounds, she sought to raise the cigarette tax and at the same time backed tax breaks she thought good for business development.
Of course, her career changed post-Katrina. Gathering a broad-based Recovery Authority to coordinate state efforts, she lobbied ferociously for federal aid, at the time a harder sell than is understood today. Tougher new building standards were enacted for the future.
Ultimately, a multibillion-dollar flood protection system was created by the U.S. government for metropolitan New Orleans. Her contributions, though, were probably greater in the realm of education in the flood-ravaged city.
Before the storms, bucking her own supporters in teacher groups, she had pushed a Recovery School District to turn around tragically underperforming schools in the Crescent City. After Katrina, a dramatically new system of charter schools replaced the old failing Orleans Parish School Board.
A generation of public school students in New Orleans benefited greatly from Blanco’s leadership. She started as a public school teacher and was probably more pleased with that result than anything else.
Online: www.theadvocate.com
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Aug. 17
American Press on the factors behind Louisiana’s strong showing in a survey ranking states’ purchasing power:
While Louisiana ranks at or near the bottom on most national surveys, its ranks in the top 10, in a five-way tie for tenth place, in purchasing power among the 50 states.
The state can thank the current status of the U.S. dollar as one of the strongest currencies in the world, and its status as one of the poorest states in the Union, for its strong showing in this survey.
The survey was done by 24/7 Wall St. based on statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It calculated the value of the dollar in each state based on that data.
Among the factors taken into consideration were regional price parity, per capita income data and median home values.
They found that the value of the dollar in Louisiana is $1.11 (14th highest, in a five-way tie); personal income per capita: $45.542 (11th lowest); income adjusted by cost of living: $45,363 (19th lowest); and median home value: $162,500 (15th lowest).
Those figures placed Louisiana in a tie for 10th place with Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina and Tennessee (which makes them all 14th highest).
Not surprisingly, the dollar goes the furthest in America’s poorest states, where goods and services are not as expensive in order to get the business of relatively low-income residents.
Conversely, the highest income states and cities generally have less buying power per dollar because of the wealth and per capita buying power in those places.
Mississippi has the highest dollar value at $1.16; Alabama and Arkansas tied for second at $1.15; Kentucky and West Virginia, third, $1.14; South Dakota, sixth; $1.13; and Missouri, Ohio and Oklahoma, seventh, $1.12.
The five states where the dollar has the least buying power are Maryland, 46, $0.91; New Jersey, $0.88; California and New York, tied for 48th; and at rock bottom is Hawaii, 50th, at $0.84.
Our next door neighbor, Texas, was in a tie for 26th place with Minnesota, Nevada, Wyoming and Utah where the dollar has a buying power of $1.03. The personal income per capita in Texas is $49,161; adjusted by cost of living, $45,823; and the median home value is $172,200.
It is interesting to note that the strong dollar puts Louisiana on a near income per capita basis with Texas, when adjusted by cost of living.
Louisiana has some advantages over other states economically, even if it is because we’re one of the poorest states.
Online: https://www.americanpress.com
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