Storm-Tossed Governor Throws Out a Lifeline

BATON ROUGE, La. —  Less than two weeks before the state begins its regular legislative session, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco has found herself in a tenuous position.

The debate over next year’s budget and the fate of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina -- including how to rebuild a crumbling healthcare system and develop cheap rental housing -- promises to be fierce, and she lacks the political support to push through her ideas.

Blanco knows she needs help.

So one night recently, she reached out to former rival Hunt Downer. She called to tell him that she wanted his help to unify a divided Legislature, gather support for her ideas to rebuild Louisiana, and repair her tattered reputation.

Blanco’s plea surprised Downer, a highly respected Republican who served in the Legislature for 28 years. He ran against her in the 2003 gubernatorial race and has been critical of her leadership.

They talked for nearly an hour and Blanco prevailed: Downer would serve as her legislative director for the duration of the session that begins March 27. “We were opponents, but never enemies,” said Blanco. “He understands the legislative process. This is where I need him.”

Historically, Louisiana governors have kept a relatively strong hold over the Legislature. State law allows the governor to appoint a host of legislative positions, including House speaker and Senate president. That gives governors influence.

But loyalties to Blanco faded after the storm, amid finger-pointing over the delayed evacuation of New Orleans and the region’s overall pace of recovery.

Blanco acknowledged she must regain legislators’ confidence to push through her agenda in Baton Rouge: The next gubernatorial election is nearly two years away, but she has already been dismissed as a longshot.

Blanco isn’t faring much better with voters. A recent Gallup poll showed Blanco’s approval rating around 33%. Roadside signs read “Impeach Blanco!”

“The only poll that counts is on election day,” Blanco said. “There’s time to think about that later.”

Talk to anyone in the political world here about Blanco, and they will usually say the same thing: Blanco is a very nice lady. But in the ruthless arm-twisting world of Louisiana politics, “nice” isn’t a flattering term.

Family and friends insist that her outward reserve hides a steely resolve, and that she’s been a scapegoat of the White House and the media. As the state’s first female governor, Blanco says, she’s been the target of sexism and was unfairly criticized for being exhausted.

“It’s a woman thing, isn’t it?” Blanco said with a shrug and a grin. “If a man looks weary, he’s working so hard. If a woman looks weary, she’s not able to handle it. What a nice double standard that is.

“Lesser mortals probably would have crawled into a hole and just disappeared.”

As a child, she never dreamed of being in the spotlight.

Blanco was born in the rural French-speaking hamlet of Coteau, surrounded by fields of cotton and sugar cane about a 90-minute drive southwest of Baton Rouge. She is one of seven children; her family squeezed into a house with three bedrooms.

The schoolhouse sat a block away. Fun meant checking out novels when the bookmobile came to town; work meant summers harvesting crops.

After graduating with a degree in business education from what used to be known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana (it’s now called the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), she married Raymond Blanco in 1964. She spent the next 14 years raising their six children. She picked up bookkeeping jobs on the side to bring in extra money. Later, the couple started a political polling company out of their living room.

When a state representative retired in 1983, Blanco decided to run for his seat. With a budget of $60,000 -- against a rival who outspent her nearly 10 to 1 -- Blanco won by building grass-roots support and campaigning door-to-door. She served five years in the Legislature and two terms as lieutenant governor.

When Blanco narrowly won the governor’s race in 2003, most people knew her as a pro-business politician who had brought in thousands of tourism jobs and millions of investment dollars. Conservatives liked that she opposed abortion. Liberals supported her plan to allocate more money for education. Legislators were comfortable with her behind-the-scenes negotiating style.

“Before K,” she said, “life was simpler.”

After Katrina, Blanco called two special legislative sessions to deal with recovery. She was able to shepherd through a handful of overhauls. But several proposals -- including one that suggested New Orleans might not need two elected sheriffs, two largely parallel court systems and two elected clerks of court -- died amid acrimony.

Afterward, legislators complained that she and her staff were distant, and vague in their direction. Even some of her closest allies, such as the members of the Black Caucus, turned on her.

“The timing on her policies is all wrong,” said state Rep. Regina Ashford Barrow, a Democratic caucus member. “It’s not that the ideas aren’t good. It’s the timing and how they’re presented that doesn’t work.”

Barrow, who is on the House Education Committee, points to Blanco’s plans to use state tax revenue to increase the pay of public school teachers. Blanco wants $135 million set aside for faculty raises, even if that means there won’t be enough to fully cover other programs -- such as rebuilding charity hospitals.

“With another storm season fast approaching us, and meteorologists saying that this season could be worse than last, do we really have the time to focus on teacher pay?” said Barrow, who supports the raise. “We keep asking the executive office, ‘What’s the plan for recovery from Katrina?’ I have yet to see a clear plan.”

Blanco argues that the pay raises are part of a broader push to promote education statewide, including efforts to fund training programs so residents can take part in the current boom of home-building jobs.

To draw Louisiana residents home, she’s proposed using as much as $7.5 billion to buy out the owners of flood-damaged houses or help them rebuild or relocate. Such proposals need legislative approval as well as approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which handles how such funds will be used in Katrina recovery projects.

The idea, Blanco says, is to use a mix of federal aid and state revenue to help people profit from the rebuilding effort, and prepare for a day when not every conversation in Louisiana revolves around Katrina.

Federal lawmakers agree that Louisiana can’t focus only on Katrina projects. But U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, a Metairie Republican who lost to Blanco in the gubernatorial race, warned that Congress would not look favorably on Louisiana if it skimped on state dollars to fix its problems and relied too heavily on federal aid.

“I know the situation is far different and the problems are much larger in Louisiana. But people here are still looking for the total price tag,” Jindal said. “I get asked all the time, ‘Well, what is it going to finally take?’ And I don’t think the state has an answer for that.”

Blanco insists that no one, including Congress, has a complete picture of the magnitude of the problems the state is wrestling with.

Downer, who has spent months working with the Louisiana Recovery Authority, is coordinating an executive team to visit legislators in their home districts. The plan, he said, is to “find out what everyone’s issues are, and figure out how the governor’s ideas will solve them.”