Signs of the times

It’s easy to predict that Louisiana will show up near the bottom of some lists of dubious achievements (or lack of any achievement) in 2007.

But last month, we saw a few bright signs of progress. Some encouraging developments point to good fortune—and we do mean fortune.

It started with a $1.6 billion surplus for the state budget. Faced with massive expenses to rebuild New Orleans and southwest Louisiana after Katrina and Rita, the money will go a long way toward helping the state get back on its feet.

Then in December, Congress finally voted to give Louisiana a much more robust share of offshore oil and gas royalties, a deal our state’s leaders had tried to work out for 50 years.

Now the big question is with our embarrassment of riches, will we spend it wisely? Or will our leaders squander it on pork projects for politicians to get re-elected? Or will it be handed out in government contracts to friends? Those were routine in Louisiana’s past, but they must not be part of its future.

There were other signs last month of change, but also some of regression.

The election of Dr. Bill Cassidy over term-limited state Rep. William Daniel for the District 16 Senate seat could spell trouble for other legislators planning to switch chambers next fall, which was how Daniel had hoped to keep his hand in state politics. Cassidy’s

election may be a sign that voters are looking for new blood to solve the state’s problems, rather than trusting the same old faces merely because they are familiar.

The elections brought some bad news as well, though. The dismaying re-election of U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson is an embarrassment for our state. It will be that much harder to shake our reputation for corruption when you re-elect a Congressman who the FBI has on tape taking bribes and who was caught with $90,000 cash in his freezer. Jefferson’s behavior in Katrina’s aftermath, where he commandeered a National Guard vehicle to salvage belongings from his mansion even while New Orleanians were dying in their attics, should have been enough to turn voters’ stomachs, and their hearts against him.

So the signs coming out of Louisiana at the end of 2006 pointed in multiple directions—some toward good, some toward bad. As a state we took an important, if tentative, step toward a brighter future.

The key will be getting our other foot out of a past of good ol’ boy politics, tolerance for corruption and weakness when it comes to spending the taxpayers’ money wisely, and for the future, rather than for personal gain today.

We can only hope.