FLOOD CONTROL HINDERED BY LEVEE BOARDS?

Monday, April 28, 2025.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

FLOOD CONTROL HINDERED BY LEVEE BOARDS?

 

Legislation is working its way through the Louisiana legislature that would strip levee districts of their autonomy. A  Board members of several large levee boards are crying foul, and charge that flood protection will suffer and emergency responses will slow down.  Louisiana has twenty-three levee boards that cover the state’s waterways from the Arkansas border to the Gulf of Mexico. But here’s the question.  Why have any levee boards at all?

 

For well over the first 200 years of Louisiana’s existence, all flood control efforts were constructed and initially paid for by the riverfront landowner, then by parishes adjoining the river, and then by funds raised by local levee boards. Federal involvement came about in 1917 with the passage of the Ransdell-Humphreys Flood Control Act, a flood control program designed to give protection up and down the Mississippi Valley. There was no requirement in this, and federal legislation that followed, that states seeking flood protection from levee boards.

Few other states have levee boards or levee districts. Mississippi has two. A number of states bordering the Mississippi River have none.

Louisiana spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on various other construction projects without the oversight of any appointed board. In this fiscal year, there is some $124 million in public building construction projects taking place in Louisiana. The state budget for highway construction this year will top $794 million. No Governor appointed board is in place to oversee any of this construction.

The simple fact is that having non-professionals appointed to boards that are given direct authority and control over basic protection to our public safety makes no sense in the 21st century. Professionals within the Louisiana State Department of Public Works and the U.S. Corps of Engineers would seem much better qualified to design the necessary flood protection plan, and oversee both the construction and maintenance of such important projects.

If the Corps of Engineers, as was alleged following Hurricane Katrina, made some serious errors in design and construction of our levy protection system, then certainly they should be held accountable. But do we continue to allow untrained, average citizens with no professional background to make decisions that, as we have tragically seen, can lead to serious of consequences including the loss of human life?

Merely scaling down the present 23 levee boards to a handful doesn’t really address the problem. Levee boards are outdated. They are a thing of the past.

The Dutch do not turn over the protection of their entire nation, a country that rests primarily below sea level, to a board of non-professionals. Neither do the Italians in their efforts to defend their city on the sea, Venice. We live in the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced nation on earth. Surely the Governor, the Legislature, and the federal government can get together and work out a better administrative system than what we now have in place. There’s too much at stake.

Is electing levee boards the answer, as has been suggested by former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu? That makes about as much sense as electing firemen and policemen.

The 23 levy boards that are scattered throughout Louisiana are, for the most part, made up of decent, hardworking people who hold a variety of jobs, and they all have one thing in common: they know nothing about building and maintaining levees.

In the levee district debate presently before the legislature, there is an opportunity to end the parochialism that pits one parish or district against another. Statewide oversight would allow decisions to be made that are for the good of the state as a whole instead of drawing lines that shouldn’t exist.

Simply put, these times call for changes in the age-old system of political fiefdoms in the Bayou State. Take the politics out of levee engineering. That’s the way it works all over the world.  Why should Louisiana be any different?

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.  

 

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND LA JUDGES!

Monday, April 14^th, 2025

 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND LA JUDGES!

 

Is Louisiana a judicial hellhole where decisions by state judges are influenced by campaign contributions?  Apparently, the Louisiana legislature and business lobbying groups think so. In recent legislative sessions, laws were passed taking away the authority of state judges to make decisions involving small claims above $10,000.  Evidently elected judges often do not make fair decisions.  Or at least that what insurance companies and other business groups want you to believe.

 

Under recent changes in the law, Louisiana’s threshold for jury trials will drop from $50,000 to $10,000. What this means is that insurance companies can demand a jury trial for even smaller collision cases where no injuries are involved.  Jury trials for reduced claims means the cost of bringing a lawsuit will significantly increase.

 

Insurance lobbyists argue that “auto claim disputes in the state presently heard before elected judges, providing opportunity to shop for favorable venues for frivolous cases.”  The implication is that elected judges receive campaign contributions, and are influenced in their decisions by plaintiff lawyers who contribute.  If this is the case, then why hasn’t the legislature address such judicial favoritism?

 

Can campaign contributions accepted by those seeking to step up to the bench and wear black robes influence a judge’s decisions?  To many observers, such contributions pose a great problem for those who want impartiality.

Even if a judge swears not to be swayed by campaign contributions, there is a real perception problem here. Let’s face it — lawyers who practice before elected judges are often the prime source of campaign contributions. And too often, vested interests that have a case pending before an elected judge are significant sources for the same campaign contributions.  So how do you deal with the conflicts, or the perception of such, when it comes to campaign funds?

 

The majority of voters in Louisiana want more accountability, and would like to have judicial candidates pass by them for approval on a regular basis. But how do you deal with the conflicts, or the perception of such, when it comes to campaign funds?

 

There’s an easy way to accomplish this goal. In most jurisdictions, it doesn’t even require an act of the legislature. Louisiana, and most other states could, by their own court rules, require that a judge recuse him or herself from ruling on any case where either the attorney, the attorney’s law firm, or a party to the case has made a campaign contribution to this judge. Prohibit the campaign dollars, and the public gets a much better chance of seeing both impartial decisions rendered, and having a system in place where there is a clear perception that both sides are getting a fair shake.

 

Some will argue that appointing rather than electing judges the way to go in Louisiana. But this raises the question — who will do the picking? To paraphrase Huey Long, “I’m all for appointin’ judges as long as I get to do the appointin’.” After all, most appointed judges receive their job through the good ole’ boy network. It’s not what you know, but who you know, and few get these plumb appointments for life without being well plugged in to the political system. So those who sanctimoniously talk about the politics involved in electing judges are turning a blind eye to the heavy-handed politics of an appointed system.

If legislators on the state level want to see an immediate improvement in the perception of the state judicial system, changing the rules of raising campaign funds will be an important first step. Oh, there will be some hollering from those who sit on the bench. But on balance, it is a solution that merits some review. And it is a lot better system than lifetime appointments where the guys and gals in black robes show a disdain for both scrutiny and accountability.

 

The 2025 session of the Louisiana legislature begins with just a few days. Yes, lower insurance rate are necessary and critical for Louisiana drivers. Yet the legislature does not need to take away basic rights of drivers just to get those lower rates. by putting judges under more scrutiny,  

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOUISIANA AND THE TURMOIL IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!

Thursday, April 7th, 2025

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

LOUISIANA AND THE TURMOIL IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!

 

We all know that there is a crisis in the Catholic Church right now. Allegations of sexually abusive clergy are pouring in worldwide.  Unfortunately, the roots of this terrible tragedy engulfing the Catholic Church have strong ties to the Bayou Sate.  Here's how National Public Radio in Minnesota titled their investigative story on sexual abuse by priests: “It All Began in Lafayette, Louisiana.” And it did, back in 1984.” 

 

Lafayette criminal defense attorney Ray Mouton was contacted back then by the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette.  Diocese officials badly need a criminal defense attorney who was a Catholic and who would have the church's interest at heart.  Ray felt an obligation to help his church, but quickly learned that criminal charges had been filed against a local cleric, Father Gilbert Gauthe, who was the first Catholic priest in U.S. history to be criminally charged with molesting numerous children throughout South Louisiana. 

 

Ray had been a longtime friend and political supporter of mine, and he would tell me how this case had taken over his life.  He was quoted in USA Today recently in saying that “he waded into his defense of Gauthe with a certain naiveté. As a criminal defense lawyer, he thought he had seen the worst of humanity, but this was his mother church. Gauthe must be an aberration, he reasoned.  "I honestly believed the church was a repository of goodness," Mouton said. "As it turns out, it wasn't.”

 

Ray was appalled at the growing number of priests involved in the same molestation accusations. He ended up fighting with church officials who opposed any effort to make his evidence public.  "The church fought me at every turn," Ray said. "They wanted me to plead him out and make it go away." 

 

The case cost Ray dearly.  His marriage ended, his law practice was in ruins and he became an alcoholic.  “I worked, battling the diocese, the American church and the Vatican until I literally burned myself up spiritually, mentally, and physically."   My friend now lives peacefully in southern France.  Ray has written a novel related to his experience called “In God’s House. “He is no longer a Catholic but he does slip into a local church from time to time. "I only go into churches to light candles for all the innocent children whose names I will never know," Ray said, "all those children who have been abused."

A second good Louisiana friend, Jason Berry from New Orleans, has written compellingly about similar problems in the church in his book, “Lead Us Not into Temptation,” published back in 1992.  In his forward for Jason’s book, Father Andrew Greely concludes that sexual abuse may be the greatest scandal in the history of religion in America.  Now this was written some 26 years ago. Yet the disgraces within the Catholic Church would seem to be at an all-time high today.

 

Jason, who is a devoted Catholic, has been one of the most compelling voices in church reform for a number of years. His writings have received numerous awards, both within and out of Catholic circles including the Investigative Reporters and Editors Best Book Award for his book “Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church. “Simply put, Jason’s view is that the church hierarchy needs purifying, not the faith itself.

 

Now I’m not Catholic.  But I’m close.  I was married in the Catholic Church, my three daughters were baptized as Catholics, and I have been attending mass for years.  Just two weeks ago, I was the only layman joining 20 Benedictine monks on my personal weeklong retreat at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Covington, Louisiana. My home state is 28% Catholic, and like most Louisianans, I am deeply concerned about this ongoing church crisis.

 

I want to give accolades to the Ray Moutons, the Jason Berry’s and a host of other lay Catholics who have the courage to openly confront the abuse that has been allowed to simmer in Louisiana and throughout the nation. And maybe that’s part of the answer.  More believers who stand by their faith yet are stirred to actively protest.  Hopefully, such committed Catholics are out there in growing numbers.

 

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.