Political Horizons

The Baton Rouge Advocate

By JOHN LAPLANTE Capitol news bureau

The Rotary Club of Baton Rouge is U.S. Rep. Richard Baker’s kind of crowd. At his latest appearance Wednesday, the Republican congressman got two standing ovations - one before he said anything.

Baker told the Rotarians he has passed a milestone: “I’m beginning my 36th year of continuous elected duty in the state of Louisiana without an indictment.” They have heard the joke before but still laughed.

At age 58, the former boy wonder, now dean of Louisiana’s congressional delegation, is seeking his 11th two-year term in Congress after 15 years in the Louisiana House.

Baton Rouge’s seemingly permanent emissary to Congress has faced some tough campaigns. But the Democrats have not fielded a credible candidate since Baker won a squeaker in 1998.

Baker’s only challenger in the Nov. 7 election is Richard Fontanesi of Baton Rouge. Fontanesi and four other Libertarians signed up for congressional races to celebrate their party’s new status. They are now listed by party on the ballot instead of settling for the “other” party label.

Fontanesi is hardly a household name, while Baker is more well-known than ever as the author of Louisiana Recovery Corp. The failed but much-praised plan would have created a federal agency to borrow billions to buy up property damaged by last year’s hurricanes and packaged the land for redevelopment.

The “Baker bill,” as even nonallies called the plan, would have inserted some order into recovery efforts, Baker said. Instead, each individual is deciding whether to rebuild. The plan would have brought relatively quick and complete redevelopment at minimal cost, Baker still insists.

His topic at Wednesday’s Rotary meeting was the “unfinished business” of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To hear Baker tell it, hardly any business has been finished.

Louisiana people, he said, have showed both compassion and gumption since the storms. But government - especially the much-cursed Federal Emergency Management Agency - has not done its part, he said.

“I appreciate the job they are not doing,” he said, echoing the bitterness of many residents.

Baker can’t help harping on those nearly 10,000 FEMA trailers sitting empty in a south Arkansas field instead of sheltering storm victims in south Louisiana. He notes that FEMA has kept billions earmarked for storm recovery for its own administrative costs.

Baker is an ally of President George Bush but noted that the president’s brag about providing $110 billion toward Gulf Coast storm relief is a bit premature. The government has actually obligated less than a third of that amount so far, Baker said. And the billions Louisiana does have to spend are not all going to the most-effective uses, he said.

“The remedies that have been pursued are not going to bring relief to large numbers of people for a long time,” Baker told the Rotarians.

He said the Blanco administration’s federally financed recovery program offers too little to business, especially small businesses that Baker said employ 80 percent of Louisiana workers.

The longtime business-backer said it’s not just that businesses can use the money. They are a key part of recovery, he said. Any piece that ends up missing could doom the recovery effort.

State government’s budget is flush this year. But that is a temporary “bubble” fueled largely by federal aid, insurance settlements and sales taxes paid on reconstruction materials and replacing lost household goods, Baker said.

Rather than expand government in Louisiana, “We really must grab the reins and wind it back and prepare for the inevitable reduction,” he said.

He said the lackluster federal storm response should not be an excuse for inaction: “We should use our assets, gather ourselves up by our bootstraps and just get on with it.”

He floated one self-help idea to the Rotarians-a “technology vacation package” that could include the Michoud facility in New Orleans, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, the LIGO physics experiment in Livingston Parish and the Stennis Space Center just over the Mississippi border. Families might stay a few days to visit such places, he said. A visitor’s center already is nearing completion at LIGO, he said.

Despite his firm status in Louisiana politics, Baker said he is not interested in higher office such as governor. He hopes to chair the House Financial Services Committee soon.

“I can help the state better there,” he said.

John LaPlante is Capitol editor for The Advocate.

Story originally published in The Advocate