Is Hurricane Gustav, which was lashing Louisiana on Monday, a threat to the Republican Party and its vision of limited government? According to conventional wisdom, disasters like Katrina and Gustav demand the big-government solutions that Democrats favor.
But don't try that line on the Louisiana delegates assembled in St. Paul this week. They'll tell you that conservative ideas are not only rebuilding Louisiana, but ensuring that the state is in far better condition than before Katrina hit.
The people of Louisiana are fed up with the institutions that failed them so miserably during the Katrina disaster, says Scott Wilfong, a delegate from Baton Rouge.
"For so long, our state has been near the bottom of the list in everything good -- like educational excellence and business opportunity -- and at the top in everything bad, like corruption and poverty," he explains. "People are tired of the old model, of being the nation's laughingstock."
Today, Louisiana's dynamic new governor, Bobby Jindal, a 37-year-old Republican, is meeting the state's many challenges head-on. Jindal took office in January with a powerful mandate for reform.
One of his first acts was to call a special legislative session to tackle Louisiana's deep-rooted culture of government corruption. Under Jindal's leadership, the Legislature passed a groundbreaking ethics law, which the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity has described as the strongest in the country.
"There's an old saying in Louisiana -- 'You can get any legislator to vote for anything if you buy him a big enough steak,'" says Wilfong, who ticks off a long list of former officials now in federal prison. "But after this law, you can't get a seat on, say, the levee board by making a political contribution."
Jindal also moved quickly to put the state's fiscal house in order. He balanced the budget -- making liberal use of his veto pen -- and imposed a state hiring freeze.
