WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s a tough time for a governor to come to Washington, hat in hand, to ask for billions of dollars for a hard-hit state, especially with Congress in the midst of election-season dysfunction and dominated by tightfisted tea party Republicans.
But Gov. John Bel Edwards is back for the second straight week, pleading for almost $3 billion to help Louisiana rebuild from last month’s devastating floods, undeterred by warnings that he should keep expectations low. This is, after all, not the same Congress that voted for $60 billion in the span of a week after Hurricane Katrina slammed Louisiana in 2005.
“What I was told to expect was that there would be a tremendous difference in the way I’m perceived than what would have happened after Katrina because even disaster recovery funding seems to be caught up in partisan gridlock, whereas that was never the case before,” Edwards said in an interview. “But that has not been my experience thus far.”
Congress was generous in approving $95 billion to help Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas rebuild after Katrina. Funding to help the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy four years ago was a much more difficult lift, with the bulk of President Barack Obama’s aid request opposed by House Republicans. More recently, GOP conservatives have been slow to embrace the need for $1 billion or so to battle the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Edwards, a first-year Democrat, has teamed up with the Pelican State’s GOP-dominated delegation behind a drive to add Louisiana flood aid to a short-term, government-wide spending bill that Congress needs to pass to avoid a government shutdown in a little more than two weeks. Louisiana is known for rough-and-tumble politics – Edwards handily beat GOP Sen. David Vitter in last year’s gubernatorial race – but the rival sides are united now.