Congressmen call on White House to quicken recovery
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| With the backdrop of two tents flapping in the bitter cold, Democratic members of a special House committee investigating the Hurricane Katrina aftermath lashed out at the Bush administration Tuesday for what they called its sluggish response.
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Scott, Richardson release two-year economic forecast
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| A two-year economic outlook for Louisiana estimates hurricanes Katrina and Rita wiped out 11 years of job growth in the state, reduced its population by over a half-million people and establishes Baton Rouge as the state’s largest metro area.
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Governor makes plea for unity
Monday, November 7, 2005 MICHELLE MILLHOLLON - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Gov. Kathleen Blanco opened the first legislative session since the hurricanes on Sunday with a plea for lawmakers to put aside their political agendas and pull together for the good of the state.
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St. Bernard residents return
Monday, September 19, 2005 DEBRA LEMOINE - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Joseph Liemann may have ridden out Hurricane Katrina in Arabi, but he will not rebuild his home on Esteban Street that is now covered in mud and mold, he said while salvaging his belongings on Saturday.
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Roberts: High Court no place for ideologue
Thursday, September 15, 2005
AP's DAVID ESPO - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Chief Justice nominee John Roberts said Thursday there is no room for ideologues on the Supreme Court, declaring an "obligation to the Constitution" and to no other cause as he concluded three grueling days of confirmation testimony.
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Veterans protest actions by federal and state agencies
Sunday, August 7, 2005 DAVID JACOBS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Members of the Louisiana Veterans Advocacy Group during a rally on the State Capitol steps Saturday afternoon accused the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs of deliberately denying rightful health benefits to Louisiana veterans.
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Feeding tube bill goes to Gov. Blanco's desk
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
AP's Doug Simpson - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| A violent husband would be barred from making "end of life" decisions for his wife if his actions put her in a coma, under a bill inspired by the Terri Schiavo case that reached final legislative passage on Tuesday.
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Huge endowments affecting U.S. education
Sunday, June 5, 2005
AP's JUSTIN POPE - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Forty-seven U.S. colleges and universities now have endowments of $1 billion or more, compared to 17 a decade ago, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Harvard alone has $22 billion, nearly $10 billion more than No. 2 Yale.
For American colleges, $1 billion has become a benchmark, a point beyond which schools can stop worrying about the day-to-day and dream big.
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Vitter faces hostility on importing drugs
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., defended his proposed drug importation bill before a Senate committee Tuesday, facing a hostile Republican colleague who said such legislation would create "a Russian roulette in the name of politics."
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Private account debate rages on
Saturday, April 16, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The situation in 1981 was eerily similar.
Social Security faced a deficit and 2,000 workers in Galveston County, Texas, confronted a decision: stay with the broken system or form their own retirement plan. They hired an actuary, who spent nine months devising a private investment plan they adopted.
Today, many of those employees are retiring with a 6 percent return on their investment, as much as three times higher than if they stayed in Social Security.
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La. lawmakers seeking credit for coastal funds
Wednesday, April 6, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| No one disputes that Louisiana is going to get more than $1 billion in authorization for coastal-restoration projects under the Water Resources Development Act unveiled Wednesday.
The question remains: Who gets the credit for securing the money?
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Vitter makes stops in BR, Gonzales
Friday, April 1, 2005 JOHN McMILLAN and DEBRA LEMOINE - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The cost of health care "is killing" people who operate small businesses, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie, told a town hall meeting Thursday.
Vitter spoke to groups in Baton Rouge and Gonzales during the first two stops he said he plans to make in all 64 Louisiana parishes.
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Blanco: Law may sway D.C. on oil funds
Thursday, March 31, 2005 MICHELLE MILLHOLLON - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Gov. Kathleen Blanco acknowledged Wednesday that she doesn't have any guarantees that Washington, D.C., will loosen its grip on the $5 billion it receives from oil and gas interests for offshore drilling privileges.
But the governor wants Louisiana to get a portion of the federal money from drilling in federal waters.
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La. senator plans feeding-issue bill
Friday, March 25, 2005 MICHELLE MILLHOLLON - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Louisiana state Sen. James David Cain is taking a cue from the drama unfolding in Florida regarding Terri Schiavo.
Cain, R-Dry Creek, plans to file legislation next week that would prevent medical providers from removing an incapacitated person's feeding tube without the patient's written consent.
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Schiavo vote based on district's Catholic roots
Friday, March 25, 2005 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said Thursday that in his time back in the 3rd Congressional District while Congress is on break, he's been hearing much about Social Security fears and the federal government's attempt to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case in Florida.
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Boustany, Melancon face issues
Friday, March 25, 2005 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, said Thursday that while the debate on what to do about making the nation's Social Security system more financially stable continues to run hot, people are still struggling to define terms to begin to form a plan around.
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Castro meeting analyzed
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other members of last week's trade delegation to Cuba said they were surprised when Fidel Castro summoned them during the final hours of their trip.
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Democrats targeting Boustany
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee appears to either be getting in a late dig from last year's 7th District race or is warming up for a new round in 2006.
The DCCC played a large part in a vicious campaign for the seat between Lafayette Republican Charles Boustany Jr., the eventual winner, and state Sen. Willie Mount, D-Lake Charles.
With Republican President Bush pushing his Social Security reform agenda, the DCCC has taken aim at Boustany again with an Internet-based ad claiming Boustany is waffling on campaign promises to protect the Social Security system.
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Baker now 'old man' of state's delegation
Saturday, March 12, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, sits at his orderly desk at about 8:30 a.m. staring down at 157 pages of paper. The document is the latest version of Baker's chief legislative initiative for the past 10 years, a proposal to create a new regulatory agency to oversee mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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Rising pressures have driven some off the land
Saturday, March 12, 2005 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Malcolm Landry grew up on a sugar-cane farm and dairy outside Jeanerette, and harvested cane for 19 years. Now he harvests used tires.
After a three-year run of rough luck for Louisiana's sugar farmers, he filed bankruptcy this year and called it quits.
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Cuba signs deal for La. products
Thursday, March 10, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Cuba's largest buying agency signed deals Wednesday to purchase rice and dairy products from two Louisiana businesses on Gov. Kathleen Blanco's trade mission, but the deals appear to be caught squarely in a political struggle between Cuba and hardening Bush administration policies affecting the communist nation.
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Cuba, La. trade may be caught in political quagmire
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Cuba’s largest buying agency signed deals Wednesday to purchase rice and dairy products from two Louisiana businesses on Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s trade mission, but the deals appear to be caught squarely in a political struggle between Cuba and hardening Bush administration policies affecting the communist nation.
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Blanco's deal with Cuba not good news to everyone
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 BRETT TROXLER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The Cuban government has agreed to a deal in which it will buy $15 million in goods from Louisiana in 2006. The deal came as a result of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's trip to the island nation in an effort to create economic opporWhile many businesses in the state are glad to hear such news, not everyone is happy with the new Cuban ties.
tunities.
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Blanco: La. needs to be poised on world markets
Tuesday, March 8, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The head of Cuba’s largest buying agency greeted Gov. Kathleen Blanco Tuesday at Havana’s airport, where a crush of reporters were asking why she decided to wade into the political controversy that surrounds the communist nation.
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Blanco skirts political risk in Cuba trip
Monday, March 7, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who is in Mexico today on the first leg of a business trip that will take her to Cuba on Tuesday, has left some observers wondering why she would choose such an emotionally charged trade mission to the island nation.
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Louisiana to seek trade with Cuba
Monday, March 7, 2005 NED RANDOLPH - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Louisiana Pride Catfish is the largest private employer in Franklin Parish with 400 full- and part-time workers. But its two processing plants are running at half-capacity these days because the company can't compete against cheaper imports of catfish coming from Vietnam and China.
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Vitter says action wasn't to aid lobbyist
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., again distanced himself from a Washington Republican lobbyist after a newspaper revealed that Vitter inserted a provision in a bill last year that aided a Louisiana Indian tribe and its casino.
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Bush seeking ways to calm ire of France
Monday, February 21, 2005
AP's CALVIN WOODWARD - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| People on both sides of the Atlantic called it the perfect storm in French-U.S. relations. Now there is hope of calm.
A relationship Colin Powell likened to 200 years of marriage counseling appears finally headed toward a degree of rapprochement after a fracture over Iraq and snippiness over much else.
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Louisiana working to replace voting machines
Thursday, February 17, 2005 BRETT TROXLER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| State officials are in the process of picking which company will get a multimillion-dollar contract to supply new voting machines to the state.
Finalists displayed their next generation voting machines to the public on Wednesday. The winner of the competition will receive $47 million to replace 5,000 of Louisiana's old level-style machines that are still in operation.
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La. representatives bash Bush's budget
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Even some Republicans don't like it.
President Bush introduced his $2.7 trillion budget plan Monday and Louisiana Congress members from both sides of the aisle were quick to pounce. Aside from homeland security and defense, Bush is calling for a general 1 percent reduction across the board.
U.S. Rep. Charles "Charlie" Melancon, D-Napoleonville, took exception to Bush's cuts to the agriculture industry.
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Coastal deal signed
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 MICHELLE MILLHOLLON - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Gov. Kathleen Blanco got some federal stroke Monday in her efforts to find money to restore Louisiana's receding coast.
Blanco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement that calls for them to work together to reverse the degradation of the state's coastal ecosystem.
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Desegregation resolution near?
Thursday, December 23, 2004 ANGELA SIMONEAUX - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The resolution of the Lafayette desegregation case may be just around the corner.
After a seven-hour hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Haik said he will rule soon on the school system's request to be released from its 39-year-old suit.
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Tauzin takes pharmacy industry post
Thursday, December 16, 2004 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Nine months after severing contract negotiations when his ethics were challenged, U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, announced Wednesday that he would become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
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BR native wins Neb. seat
Monday, December 13, 2004 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Jeff Fortenberry grew up in Baton Rouge and was recently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
But the 43-year-old Republican father of four won't be representing Louisiana. That's because Fortenberry was elected in the 1st District of Nebraska. That doesn't mean that Louisiana pride isn't going with him to Congress.
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Futrell says new senator to provide access
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 MARSHA SHULER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Incoming U.S. Sen. David Vitter wants a "zero-tolerance" policy for political corruption and will seek federal funds for a toll-free hot line for Louisiana residents to report abuses, his soon-to-be state director said Monday.
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Boustany, Melancon top vote
Sunday, December 5, 2004 PATRICK COURREGES and ANGELA SIMONEAUX - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Southern Louisiana voters Saturday appeared to have decided the last two congressional races in the nation, electing Democrat Charlie Melancon in the 3rd District and Republican Charles Boustany Jr. in the 7th District, giving the Democratic and Republican parties a split of the final two seats available.
But the 3rd District race was decided by slightly more than 500 votes out of more than 114,000 cast, and 3rd District Republican candidate Billy Tauzin III is not conceding the race.
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Candidates boosted by powerful allies
Thursday, December 2, 2004 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Republican Vice President Dick Cheney made a day trip back to Louisiana on Wednesday, telling party faithful at two rallies that Republican congressional candidates Charles Boustany Jr. and Billy Tauzin III have his backing and that of President Bush.
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Jindal backs Tauzin in race
Wednesday, December 1, 2004 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Louisiana's newest congressional young gun spoke up for a congressional hopeful even younger Monday, saying age matters less than passion for and grasp of the issues facing the state and nation.
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Report on SU grade case due
Saturday, November 27, 2004 JESSICA FENDER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Southern University’s grade-buying scandal will come to a head next month when the school releases the results of its in-house investigation, officials announced Friday at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting.
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La. Becomes Latest Political Battleground
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
AP's ADAM NOSSITER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The swamps, bayous and rice fields of Louisiana's Cajun country have emerged as the site of the nation's latest political battleground.
Two congressional districts in southern Louisiana will decide runoff elections next month, giving the Republicans an opportunity to extend their Election Day winning streak. For the Democrats, the races represent a chance to blunt the GOP's momentum.
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Democrat leadership uncertain
Sunday, November 21, 2004 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The retirement of U.S. Sen. John Breaux, D-La., leaves a vacuum among state Democrats as to who will emerge as the titular party leader.
The recent Republican victories in Louisiana highlighted the fractures in the state Democratic party's leadership.
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La.'s congressional delegation brainy, modern, less experienced
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 GERARD SHIELDS - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| As a result of the recent election, Louisiana is becoming known as the land of the scholars, debunking its long held "good ol' boy" political reputation.
The recently elected Congress will have 24 House members and seven senators with advanced degrees next year. But no state will be able to top Louisiana, which will have two Rhodes scholars among its delegation. In addition, depending on next month's runoff in the 7th District, it could add a heart surgeon to the roster.
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Wholesale Prices Up on Food, Energy Costs
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
AP's JEANNINE AVERSA - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Wholesale costs - catapulted by more expensive energy and food - soared last month by the largest amount in more than 14 years.
With inflation at the producer level accelerating sharply after months of being quite well-behaved, chances are rising the Federal Reserve will boost interest rates for a fifth time this year on Dec. 14.
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Jindal backs Lafayette Republican
Saturday, November 13, 2004 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's newest Republican congressman-elect, said Friday in Lake Charles he is supporting 7th Congressional District Republican candidate Charles Boustany Jr.'s bid to join the state's delegation.
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Thibodaux questions GOP loyalty
Saturday, November 13, 2004 PATRICK COURREGES - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The third-place and fourth-place finishers in the Nov. 2 vote for Louisiana's 7th District congressional seat pulled in about 35 percent of the vote between them, but neither has given an indication of which candidate, if either, he'll urge his supporters to back.
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Democrat jabs 'mandate' claim
Friday, November 12, 2004 MARSHA SHULER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party on Monday disputed claims by President Bush that his re-election last week was a strong voter mandate for the man and his policies.
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Fallujah Violence Leaves 10 Troops Dead
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
AP's Jim Krane - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| U.S. troops powered their way into the center of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on Tuesday, overwhelming small bands of guerrillas with massive force, searching homes along the city's deserted, narrow passageways and using loudspeakers to try to goad militants onto the streets.
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Expert: Longer classes needed
Saturday, November 6, 2004 WILL SENTELL - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| School days that last from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., classes on Saturdays, and longer school years are among the changes needed to improve student performance, the co-founder of an innovative cluster of public schools told top state educators on Friday.
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Official: Women vets left behind
Saturday, November 6, 2004 ROXANNE C. HARE - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| When Precilla Wilkewitz began working for the state Department of Veterans Affairs about 25 years ago and toured different military installations, she was dismayed to see the conditions women in service had to endure.
As a veteran of the Women's Army Corp from 1966 to 1969, Wilkewitz knows that women's needs -- especially women serving in the military -- are unique.
Although Wilkewitz, state coordinator for women veterans, said things have improved, she said more could be done.
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Vitter avoids runoff, first Lousiana Republican to Senate
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
AP's ADAM NOSSITER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| David Vitter, a Harvard-and-Oxford-educated congressman from the New Orleans suburbs who ran as a tough-minded conservative, became Louisiana's first Republican U.S. Sen. in modern times Tuesday, besting three Democrats with 51 percent of the vote.
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FDA Wants More Safety Data on Merck Drug
Saturday, October 30, 2004
AP's THERESA AGOVINO - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| The Food and Drug Administration told Merck & Co. that it requires further safety and efficacy data before it will approve its successor drug to now defunct pain reliever Vioxx, the pharmaceutical maker announced Friday.
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Close race predicted for Senate seat
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 BRETT TROXLER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| David Vitter has a chance to become the first Republican Senator from Louisiana, but although he currently holds a lead in the latest polls, it is unclear whether he can take home a majority of the vote on Election Day.
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Bush support among African-Americans may be rising
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 BRETT TROXLER - - Baton Rouge Advocate
| One important group targeted by both presidential campaigns this election year has been the African-American community. Despite the historical fact that African-Americans vote predominantly Democrat, the latest polls shows that could be changing.
| Discuss
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