Going the Extra Mile

What do the Carville educational center for at-risk youth, the Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Comite River Diversion Canal, Baton Rouge's HOPE VI housing grant, and major Wall  Street reforms have in common?

They're all examples of Richard Baker getting out front, leading a charge to do the right thing for the good of the people, keeping at it, and then going the extra mile to see it through.

Carville

Baker's interest in Carville dates back to conversations in 1996 with Baton Rouge Chamber President Jimmy Lyles and Federal Judge Frank Polozola, and focused on Louisiana's dual needs of expanding skills and opportunities for young workers and finding ways to bring positive direction to the lives of troubled youth.  Together they investigated the National Guard's Youth Challenge program and explored the possibility of using the federal government's soon-to-be abandoned Hansen's Disease facility at Carville.

For the next two years Baker worked to establish the program at Carville through legislation he drafted to transfer the site from federal to state ownership, upgrade the facility to be used for education and training of at-risk youth, and to respect the rights of the current occupants, former Hansen’s Disease patients and medical staff.  In 1999 Baker successfully landed the Job Corps facility now being constructed at the site.  And in 2000 Baker began personally appealing to area business and industry to assist in hands-on, on-site training through the Job Challenge program.

Today, the 360-acre campus has been transformed into a top-notch training facility, with Youth Challenge grads across Louisiana topping 6,000.  "That's 6,000 more young people with renewed hope in life, and 6,000 fewer kids moving toward various forms of government assistance," Baker says.

Baker was drawn to YCP precisely because it stressed attitude as much as education, starting with the fact it isn’t a court-mandated sentence but a voluntary choice a young person makes.  Students actually write an essay application to willingly enter the rigorous five-week residential military-style program open to all Louisiana high school dropouts between 16-18 years of age who are drug-free with no felony convictions.

Results of the program have been superb, with Louisiana’s YCP quickly earning recognition as the best in the nation.  Post-residential statistics show, for instance, that a year after graduation, upwards of 90 percent of the March 2002 Carville class is either employed or pursuing continuing education and training in school or through the military.  And in the ten years of Louisiana YCP’s existence, 83 percent of graduates taking the GED have passed.

Baker describes the programs as good "compassionate conservative" investments in Louisiana's future.

"Because what Youth Challenge, Job Challenge, and Job Corps all have in common is breaking cycles of hopelessness and government dependence, steering the young away from crime, giving them skills to succeed, and teaching them the lessons of hard work, responsibility and the self-esteem that comes from self-sufficiency," he adds.

Cat Island

Demonstrating his commitment to the environment, Baker devoted several years to fighting to protect one of Louisiana's greatest treasures, Cat Island.

It was Baker's legislation, signed into law in 2000, that designated Cat Island in West Feliciana Parish as a National Wildlife Refuge and authorized Congress to begin purchase of 9,500 acres of land that would constitute its core.  In ensuing years Baker also secured some $8 million in federal funds to establish the nature preserve.

Among its many plant and wildlife treasures, Cat Island is home to the largest known bald cypress tree in the United States, roughly 17 feet in diameter and with a circumference of 53 feet.  Many of the bald cypress trees in the Cat Island Refuge are estimated to be 500 to 1,000 years old.

Cat Island is a peninsula of land that extends into the Mississippi River.  It is one of the few remaining unleveed sections of floodplain along the lower Mississippi River and remains influenced by the natural flooding of the river.  Numerous water holes formed by the meanders of the river provide excellent habitat for waterfowl and also serve as a home to alligators, otter, mink and a host of other species.  Conservation of this property prevents logging of a remarkable old-growth forest.

"I'm proud to have devoted myself to saving this Louisiana environmental treasure for future generations of nature lovers," Baker says.

Comite River Diversion Canal

The culmination of twenty years of vision and hard work, the Comite River Diversion Canal has been a long labor of love for its chief advocate, Congressman Baker.  When built, the $162 million project will divert overflow to the Mississippi and reduce flood levels one to six feet for portions of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, and Ascension parishes.

Baker has fought to secure the vast majority of the funding, worked to reduce the local share of the cost, and coordinated agreements among state and local government to see the project to completion.  After groundbreaking for the canal in April 2003, Baker has also kept up pressure among all participants to make sure construction proceeds toward timely completion.

"Few things are more devastating to a business or homeowner than floods.  I've heard their call for relief and acted on it, and with this technologically innovative project, I expect them to get the relief they deserve," Baker says.

HOPE VI

When the East Baton Rouge Housing Authority was awarded a federal Hope VI grant in the amount of $18,640,495 in 2003 toward revitalizing a historic blighted Old South Baton Rouge neighborhood between downtown Baton Rouge and Louisiana State University, it was a victory for the entire parish, particularly for the residents of the area, but also for those who led the effort.

Congressman Baker is widely recognized as a driving force behind the effort, even despite the Housing Authority’s three previous years’ unsuccessful applications to participate in the HUD program that revitalizes severely distressed public housing.

For two years Baker led an effort in Congress to remedy a Hope VI award process he perceived to be unfairly biased in favor of larger cities.  In April 2002, as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal housing programs, Baker worked to get Hans Dekker, executive vice president of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (BRAF), invited to testify before the Housing Subcommittee during debate of HOPE VI reauthorization from Congress.  Dekker presented Baton Rouge’s case before the subcommittee and helped demonstrate that small- to medium-sized cities did in fact need HUD's help but were historically short-changed by HOPE VI.

But Baker's help was local as well, as he personally raised $20,000 toward the cost of the grant application.

"It was literally an investment in hope for Baton Rouge, and therefore well worth every penny," says Baker.

Wall Street Reforms

Beginning with his rise to chairman of the House subcommittee on capital markets in January 2001, Richard Baker has led a charge for conservative reforms of the way business is done on Wall Street.  Well before the scandals at Enron, Baker was raising concerns about conflicts of interest unfairly harming average investors.

When the Enron scandal broke, his subcommittee held the first congressional hearing to investigate the matter.  Baker was subsequently instrumental in drafting accounting and corporate governance reforms, including his policy to create a federal restitution fund to take the ill-gotten gains away from the fraudulent and giving them back to the defrauded.

But no other issue has demonstrated Baker's commitment to taxpayers and average investors than his 5-year effort for greater oversight of quasi-governmental housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Baker's concerns have centered on the fact that if trouble ever befell the companies , whose combined debt tops $1.5 trillion, taxpayers would be tapped to pick up the tab in a massive bailout of a problem they played no part in creating.

With an accounting scandal revealed at Freddie Mac in June 2003, Baker's long-sought reforms finally received the attention they were due, and his reform legislation came closer to final resolution in improving important national policy.

Conclusion

If there's a consistent lesson in all these efforts, it's that bringing about positive change doesn't happen overnight.  Changing the status quo often faces resistance or requires persistence to overcome obstacles built into our system of government.  But these efforts also demonstrate that the leadership and determination of one man can make a difference.  And Richard Baker has consistently battled for what's good and right, in many cases over the course of many years, to improve the lives of Louisianians and all Americans.

He also could not have achieved success without the support of countless others in our community, especially from those who understand that his brand of leadership doesn't come from throwing in the towel at the first sign of difficulty or abandoning an important task half done.

Not all of these initiatives has reached completion, and Baker understands that more work and persistence is left to accomplish.  But the record is clear: Richard Baker won't quit until the job is done.  There's always more to be done, but the people of Louisiana's Sixth District can be proud to know that Richard Baker is a congressman who's going the extra mile.