Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, is urging students to become more engaged in a public dialogue of state goals. The state senator met with campus leaders Monday night to discuss Blueprint Louisiana, a “citizen-driven effort” to identify and implement changes to fundamentally improve the state. The plan for Louisiana outlines five goals, including adopting the nation’s best ethics laws, preparing students for success, developing a skilled workforce, providing first-class access to health care and building a top-notch transportation system. Wes Gautreaux, director of young adult outreach for Blueprint Louisiana, said the program is “working extraordinarily hard to engage college students and young people as a whole in this overall conversation.” Democracy is supposed to be participatory, and too often in our state, it has not been, Cassidy said. “Blueprint Louisiana represents citizen involvements,” Cassidy said. Cassidy said it is not necessarily a bad thing that most of the citizens involved in this agenda are wealthy and have a stake in the state economy. He said the agenda represents a “nexus where there is broad public interest in things our elected officials happen to be interested in as well.” The first attempt to reform state ethics is the recent special legislative session. Cassidy said the most innovative result of the session is that tax budget spending information will be available to the public on the Internet starting Jan. 1, 2009. “Now we can hold folks accountable as to how they spend our money,” he said. “It’s our money – we’re the taxpayers.” Cassidy said the automatic feed of public budgets will be easily accessible – particularly to young adults who are “net savvy.” He said it will be easy to find out how much professors are earning at state institutions or how much taxpayers are paying for construction of a particular street. Cassidy said the ethics reform is a continuation of cleaning up the state’s reputation and providing transparency. “This is an ongoing process,” said Gautreaux. “It never ends.” Cassidy said the ethics reform will improve the state reputation because lobbyists will no longer be able to take legislators out for lavish meals. He said he never attended such a meeting though he has been invited in the past. “It cleans up the perception and also the inclination that such meals provide,” he said. Cassidy said education should be geared more toward training students for the workforce. He said preparing students for a trade ensures they are able to get higher paying jobs and are better suited to take care of their families. Requiring high school students to learn foreign languages they will never use in their careers is senseless, Cassidy said. The senator said some of these initiatives may require funding from residents, though many could be paid for by a budget surplus. Andy Palermo, accounting sophomore, asked Cassidy what more transportation development would mean for traffic congestion and related problems in the state. Palermo said his family lives near the recent construction on Perkins Road, and it seems like the state is constantly outgrowing its expansions. Cassidy said it is a great thing the state is growing and not shrinking in size, but more community-like developments that limit driving would benefit the state. He said areas that encourage walking improve the environment and the residents’ health. One student was concerned that coastal erosion was not on the agenda. Gautreaux explained that residents of New Orleans and Houma were interested in restoring the coastal environment, but many northern residents were not informed enough about the topic to consider it an essential change. He said educating the rest of Louisiana about environmental problems is important.
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