Travels from Baton Rouge and points north to Fourchon and/or Grand Isle are so much easier and quicker these days.
Once upon a time, this trip meant getting across the Mississippi River somehow, then getting to LA 308 (somehow), then getting to Golden Meadow where you could cross Bayou Lafourche, then getting on LA 1 to this end-of-our-world destination. Four hours, if you were lucky.
Today, with bridges and four-lane roads, it’s a little more than half that time. Lucky us, right?
Yet, I can’t forget those old memories, the planning, the anticipation, stopping at Dufrene’s Bakery for French bread and other equally enticing eats, or at Randolph’s Restaurant for dinner.
There was something else, something noticeable about that drive, something that needed an answer to a young man’s question: why is it you could drive and bounce for miles along LA 308 then come to a stretch of newly paved blacktop that calmed the trip?
One more learned than I in our newsroom said I should ask our governor.
What?
“Yep,” the learned one said. “Don’t you know that’s how the system works? The new asphalt started at the northern end of a state senator’s or representative’s district and covered his entire district to serve as a reward for backing one or more of the governor’s pet projects.”
Whoa! That really happens?
“Yep. Welcome to the world of Louisiana politics,” the learned one affirmed.
So, you think that only happened in the good ol’ days.
Oh?
What about a promise to a politician considering a run for governor and a promise from another gubernatorial candidate to halt a coastal project the former’s constituents opposed if the former would not run for our state’s highest office?
Or, hefty campaign contributions to keep commercial fishing operations unimpeded along our coast?
Are these continued examples of “asphalt” politics?
Four bills
One can only wonder why the results of public comments made in the wake of a proposal to reduce the half-mile buffer zone to a quarter-mile buffer for the foreign-owned menhaden commercial fleet were never presented in a public forum.
Word on the street is near 1,700 public-comment responses came in the wake of that proposed move offered during the last quarter of 2025.
Word is that fewer than 50 responses supported that move, which, by simple subtraction, meant that more than 1,600 comments opposed rolling back the half-mile barrier hashed out just a year before.
In the second week of April, four bills, meaningful in their targets of controlling the take of menhaden off Louisiana’s coast, passed the House Natural Resources Committee.
The four included:
House Bill 855 (Rep. Joseph Orgeron) seeks to push menhaden operations out to a minimum of 22-foot depths, a depth a 2024 study showed would significantly reduce the menhaden industry’s bycatch of redfish and speckled trout among other species, including shrimp;
HB 757 (Rep. Vincent Cox) provides stiffer penalties for buffer-zone violations — $50,000 for a first violation, then graduated to a $250,000 fine (and license revocation) for a fourth offense;
HB 872 (Rep. Jerome Zeringue) demands tracking devices be installed on all commercial menhaden boats, including the small purse seine boats, to record movement;
And, HB 886 (Orgeron) requiring public access to the menhaden industry’s take — called “harvest data” — which the industry appears to believe is their private information.
Next steps
While the track of these committee-approved bills is set in stone, first to a floor vote in the State House, then, if passed, to the same senate committee, then, if passed, to the entire State Senate, the backers of these bills are forced to wait on Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature.
All that could happen if these bills are not derailed before hitting the governor’s desk.
And, that’s a distinct possibility, because some state representatives or state senators might need a new surface on a road in their district.
It’s here where we must note that we, as a state and a nation, do not anoint nor hold a coronation for our elected officials — our “public” servants.
Somehow our elected must understand we got away from anointing and/or crowning our leaders many years ago — and come Fourth of July this year, we’re celebrating 250 years of not having to hold those kinds of ceremonies.
