Jindal brings hope to Louisiana

James Taranto:

A church is more than a building, and Faith Temple Ministries illustrates the point. This non-denominational congregation holds services in a large white tent behind the frame of its new structure, which is under construction. Two years ago Hurricane Katrina destroyed the old one.

Buras, a community of about 3,500, is in lower Plaquemines Parish, the southeastern corner of Louisiana. This is where Katrina first hit, and the hurricane's effects are very much in evidence on the 90-minute drive from New Orleans along the Mississippi River's west bank. Partly completed new buildings stand alongside wrecked ones. Trailers sit on the footprints of houses blown away two years ago.

Faith Temple Ministries is where Bobby Jindal, the second-term Republican congressman seeking to become Louisiana's governor, has decided to spend the evening of Aug. 29, the anniversary of Katrina's landfall. "We're here with a faith-based community that's done an amazing job, not only in rescue efforts but in rebuilding efforts," he tells me as we prepare to climb off the campaign bus.

Mr. Jindal, 36, is an affable policy wonk with a quick mind and a fascination with the details of governance. Before our interview, an aide emailed me a series of press releases announcing his 28-point anticrime agenda, his 31-point anticorruption agenda and his 25-point agenda to curb spending. As we chat on the campaign bus rolling through Plaquemines Parish, he is full of ideas.

He faults the state's bureaucratic culture for the slow pace of rebuilding since Katrina. Congress has allocated tens of billions of dollars, he says, but "a very small percentage" has reached struggling citizens and businesses. "The federal government's got its own complicated set of paperwork. But then after you finally navigate that, for the first time ever, the state created its own additional bureaucracy on top of that--they created it after Katrina--and so a lot of these projects, their funding's been approved . . . and that money's getting caught up in Baton Rouge." He vows to reduce this red tape and speed the rebuilding of hospitals, schools and other infrastructure. "I don't think there's been enough urgency. . . . There's not been a realization that the longer you wait, the less likely people are to come back."

Post-Katrina New Orleans has the nation's highest per capita murder rate. Although dealing with crime is mostly the responsibility of local officials, Mr. Jindal says "there are tools you can give them. . . . For example, crime labs aren't up and running in full force. . . . They were releasing prisoners because of paperwork issues, backlog issues. We need to give the prosecutors that need [it] additional time to make their charges. . . . We need to make sure there's more protection for witnesses. There was a huge problem with witnesses not coming forward. We've got a sentencing guideline that's a maximum five-year sentence for people who intimidate witnesses."

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There is much more about a very smart guy who can bring hope to a place that for all appearances is hopeless. He has ideas for fixing New Orleans and he state's bureaucracy. He also has something that has been hard to find in Louisiana politics, integrity and intellectual honesty.

The main problem he will have to avoid after being elected is the corrupting influence of the state's culture. It is a place that openly distorts the free market system to allow those with influence or those who purchase it to move to the head of the line in front of the guy with the best product or service at the best price. That is why you will find much better roads across the border in Mississippi, a much poorer state.

He will also need to be wary of cutting the paper work that has slowed reconstruction. It is there to control the theft of government money some of which has already occurred in the aftermath of Katrina when money was given out without proper accounting. Not all the thieves in Louisiana are in the government.