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While the country’s major television networks broadcast images Thursday night of Americans violently breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 last year, Louisiana’s Republican members of Congress said their Democratic colleagues ought to instead be giving prime-time coverage to a litany of other problems facing the nation.

“Nancy Pelosi continues to politicize Jan. 6 while ignoring things like high gas prices, inflation that’s out of control, a border crisis,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, told reporters before the hearing Thursday, in comments echoed by other members of his party.

But Rep. Troy Carter, the only Democrat in Louisiana’s eight-member delegation, said the public needs to understand what happened on Jan. 6 last year, when a mob supporting then-President Donald Trump tried to block Congress’ certification of Joe Biden as president.

“They need to know who was complicit and when they knew it,” Carter said in an interview. “Listen, this was an attack on our democracy, on the people’s house. This should not be seen as a Democratic or Republican issue. They should be as concerned as anyone about the rogue vigilante mob that attacked the very core of our democracy.”

During the nearly two-hour proceeding, televised live on every major network but Fox, committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, called the assault on the Capitol “an attempted coup….It was an attempt to undermine the will of the people.”

The sharply partisan takes on Thursday night’s hearing were no surprise.

Republican congressional leaders – including Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Minority Leader, and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his counterpart in the Senate – harshly criticized Trump immediately after the Jan. 6 attack, which left five people dead and dozens of injured Capitol Police. McCarthy even said initially that he was going to ask Trump to resign.

But within a week, McCarthy and other Republicans changed their tune after seeing their constituents still standing solidly behind Trump.

Two who didn’t come back to the Trump fold were Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. The two are the only Republicans on the nine-member committee investigating what happened on Jan. 6.

Cheney said during the proceeding that Trump issued a tweet on Dec. 19 that called on his extremist followers to be in Washington on Jan. 6. She said Republicans colleagues defending Trump today “are defending the indefensible.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy is the only Republican member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation who voted to certify Biden’s electors. He also voted to convict Trump in February 2021 of having incited the insurrection, following Trump’s impeachment in the House.

Cassidy’s actions earned him the enmity of Trump supporters in Louisiana, an anger that seems not to have abated, as he mulls a possible run for governor next year.

His office did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Scalise, Sen. John Kennedy and Reps. Garret Graves, Clay Higgins and Mike Johnson all voted against certifying Biden’s electors in at least one state – something Trump was demanding in a last-ditch effort to stay in office, even though he lost the November 2020 presidential election. Graves, who represents Baton Rouge, did not respond to requests for comment.

At the time, Rep. Julia Letlow had yet to win her special election to represent northeast Louisiana. She did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

Carter also had yet to win his special election to represent a New Orleans-based district that stretches up the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge.

Kennedy told Fox News Thursday that the attention on the Jan. 6 hearing is misplaced.

“I think most Americans are very discouraged right now,” said Kennedy, who is being challenged by two Democrats, Luke Mixon and Gary Chambers Jr., this fall as he seeks re-election. “They’re worried about inflation and crime and inflation and the border and inflation and their kids’ education. I’m not saying that what happened on Jan. 6 was not repugnant. It was. If you look up the word ‘repugnant’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Jan. 6.”

Kennedy predicted the hearing would mimic a highly rated TV program.

“I’m sure they’re going to make it look like CSI Miami so that the ratings will be high,” he said.

The committee showed video of Trump supporters rampaging at the Capitol and attacking the police.

One officer testified Thursday night. Caroline Edwards described trying to block the attackers, being knocked to the ground and suffering a concussion.

Asked by Thompson of her indelible memory, she replied. “It was carnage. It was chaos. It was hours of hand-to-hand combat.” Edwards also called the Capitol “a war zone.”

Higgins, who represents Acadiana, said in a statement that Thursday night’s hearing was “another absurd act of political theater from Pelosi and the Democrats…. This sham hearing will not do anything to address the real problems facing our country… record-high inflation, unaffordable gas prices, and the disintegration of our southern border. We’re losing our country and Democrats are still stuck on their hatred for President Trump.”

Johnson, who represents northwest Louisiana, said in a statement that Democrats want to “change the narrative concerning the disastrous results of their 17 months of unilateral control of Washington. However, no amount of Hollywood-style production is going to distract the American people from the real issues that are causing them so much pain: record inflation, soaring gas prices, constant crime in our cities, uninhibited illegal immigration, and a crisis in every area of public policy touched by the Democrats.”

Carter countered that his Republican colleagues don’t want the Jan. 6 hearings because they fear Trump “and how his minions might retaliate.”

He added: “People died that day. Our democracy was defiled. The institution of our democracy was challenged in the worst possible way. It was violated. Republican, Democrat, Black or White, we should all be upset about it.”

(TNS) - Parts of Southern University's campus in Baton Rouge are slowly eroding into the Mississippi River, but state and federal leaders said Wednesday they have a plan to stop it.

The collapsing land has been an issue for years, but the university has recently raised as the ridge moves closer to some buildings. The student health center, for example, is not far away from a steep embankment.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat whose district includes the campus, announced Tuesday that the federal Emergency Watershed Protection Program will be sending Louisiana $35 million to repair the erosion and stop it from growing.

"This issue potentially has all the surrounding land drifting into the Mississippi River if something isn't done," Carter said.

The federal project will "give us the ability to stop, shore up, fix and secure this land for the school for generations to come," the congressman said.

Southern president-chancellor Ray Belton echoed Carter's sentiment, acknowledging that the project is required to ensure a future for the university.

"This project, in and of itself, and the identification of resources that mitigate the severity of the erosion that has taken place will stand out amongst all of those other efforts," Belton said. "It will ultimately enable us to define Southern University for another 142 years at the least and I can tell you we are grateful for this opportunity to mitigate the long-standing issues that we have along the banks of the Mississippi River."

Gov. John Bel Edwards said the project is expected to begin in fall 2024, and the construction process will take approximately two years.

Edwards said halting the erosion will help not just the Southern campus, but the whole Baton Rouge area.

"Much of north Baton Rouge's drainage comes right through this campus and that's a good thing because we want to be able to drain Baton Rouge," Edwards said. "But we've got to keep that under control."

While the health center is most obviously close to collapse, Edwards said Southern's ROTC building and law school are also at risk.

The state is still studying the best way to shore up the ground. But some potential options include a "rip-rap" wall of rocks, concrete barriers and turf embankments.

Corey Landry, projects manager for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, said the plan is still in the study phase, where officials are conducting hydraulic analyses, topographic surveys and coming up with a preliminary engineering plan.

"We got through planning and development first," he said. "Once we get through the preliminary engineering process, we go through final engineering and when that finishes we can open the project for construction."

This is not the first time that funds have been awarded to Southern for help in solving its erosion issue.

In 2017, Edwards announced a $10 million mitigation investment partnership between DOTD, Southern University and the city of Baton Rouge. Of that, $7.5 million came from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program dollars administered through FEMA.

More recently, in 2021, the capital outlay budget approved by state legislators issued $1 million for the planning and construction of Southern's Ravine, Bluff and Riverbank Stabilization Project.

But even with that money, Southern needed much more help mitigating erosion on its campus and received it through collaboration between congress, state representatives and university officials.

Carter said that the first, $7.6 million phase of the project funds comes directly from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Joe Biden in November 2021.

"Investing in infrastructure is obviously a top priority for all of us, but investment requires money and you've got to be able to find it," Edwards said. "It comes from different places and in different amounts, so it takes all of us working together to maximize the opportunities that we have."

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards on Tuesday called a special session for the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw new congressional boundaries after a federal judge struck down the map that won approval earlier this year.

The gathering would start at noon on June 15 and have to end by 6 p.m. on June 20th, according to the governor's proclamation.

Edwards' call came less than 24 hours after the Legislature ended its nearly three-month regular session Monday.

Chief Judge Shelly Dick of the U.S. Middle District of Louisiana ordered the Legislature to come up with a new map that contains a second majority-Black congressional district. The current one has one majority-Black district of the six in Louisiana.

Legislative leaders said Monday they are confident the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will put a hold on Dick's order.

Edwards and other Democrats praised the court ruling and said Black voters deserve a second congressional district because of clear population trends.

The current map was crafted by lawmakers during a special session in February.

Rep. John Stefanski, R-Crowley, who led map-making efforts in the House, said Tuesday judges on the 5th Circuit "may think differently" than Dick.

"But there are no guarantees," Stefanski noted.

He said he remains confident that, after the court proceedings play out, the congressional map approved in February will survive any challenges.

What happens if the 5th Circuit puts the brakes on Dick's ruling is unclear.

Stefanski said he is not aware of any provision in the state Constitution that allows for a special session call to be rescinded. He said lawmakers could convene and quickly adjourn if they concluded the gathering was unnecessary.

Shauna Sanford, a spokeswoman for Edwards, said "We’re confident in the judge’s ruling and look forward to the special session."

GOP leaders have long said the congressional map is fair and that crafting a second majority-Black district would disrupt communities and cause other problems.

But 2nd Congressional District U.S. Rep. Troy Carter Sr., who represents Louisiana's lone Black majority district, praised Monday's ruling. "The foundational principle of our democracy, the right to vote, must be protected at all costs and I'm glad that the courts agreed as they struck down these unfair, racially discriminatory maps," said Carter, a former state senator himself.

State Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, who played a major role in crafting the maps in the Senate, said Tuesday guidance from the court will drive how the special session proceeds.

"It really depends on what the 5th Circuit says," Hewitt said. "They could issue a stay and then there could be some guidance in terms of how they want to proceed."

Hewitt said during the legislative debate two maps offered as ensuring two Black majority congressional districts were so close statistically that there was no guarantee how they would perform.

When Edwards vetoed the map he said it did not reflect the fact that the Black population makes up nearly one in three residents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also complimented Dick's decision.

"The court was clear: Louisiana's census data shows that the state's growth over the past decade was due to growth in communities of color," ACLU of Louisiana Legal Director Nora Ahmed said in a statement. "For voters of color to be fully included in our democratic process, our maps have to fairly reflect our state's population."

Dick's ruling blocks Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin from holding elections until new boundaries include two minority-majority districts.

Those contests are set for November, with any runoffs scheduled for December.

The judge said the new map needs to comply with Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act by June 20, and that the court would step in and craft its own map if the Legislature fails to do so.

It never made much sense for the state of Louisiana to be suing its own citizens over Road Home grants, more than a decade after the chaotic hurricane recovery program wound down.

But the state was doing so aggressively, filing against 3,500 families who received $30,000 grants in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita under a program designed to encourage residents to raise their homes as a hedge against future flooding. That meant one-ninth of the grant recipients were facing off against the might of their own state government over a grant program that was poorly administered and poorly understood — often by the people in charge of it.

So it was welcome news last week when the John Bel Edwards administration announced it was pausing the lawsuits.

The dispute goes back to the closing chapters of the three-year Road Home era, when the state was moving aggressively to spend the program's remaining money. Under the initiative, residents could receive $30,000 grants to elevate their homes. But it cost much more than that to do the work, perhaps three or four times more. Some homeowners managed to tap into other disaster relief programs and some put their own money into their home elevations. Others, however, discovered over time that their grants were inadequate for the task.

In some cases, the state Office of Community Development and its contractor, ICF Emergency Management Services, distributed grants without verifying that the recipients were eligible, according to testimony of a top state official. Many homeowners who received the grants said Road Home representatives told them they could use the money for other rebuilding projects.

Eventually, the mishaps of the Road Home program faded from memory except, apparently, at the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, which pressed the state — over the course of two presidential administrations — to recover money from property owners who did not elevate their homes.

About 32,000 homeowners received the grants, and attorneys commissioned by the state charged off into court, seeking to recover $103 million. So far, the state says it has recovered about 5% of that from 425 families.

Alice Sanders, who lives on Social Security in Baton Rouge, says one of the state-hired lawyers “badgered” her to agree to $200-a-month payments by suggesting she could lose her home.

“It’s a sin, what they have done against their own residents,” she said.

The state-hired law firm, Shows, Cali &Walsh, disputes Sanders’ description, and Pat Forbes, executive director of the state Office of Community Development, said he does not believe that attorneys representing the state were threatening to take peoples’ homes.

Edwards’ Commissioner of Administration, Jay Dardenne, said Monday that the state was pausing the legal actions and has agreed to settle a related lawsuit against ICF.

He said that if Washington approves of the agreement, the state would drop the homeowner lawsuits.

“I think we are inching very close to that happening,” Dardenne said. He said he and Edwards have spoken with HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge about accepting the deal.

Much of the legal action has centered on New Orleans, where most of Katrina’s flooding damage occurred.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat who represents the city, was also encouraged.

“Conversations are getting more frequent and focused in these past few weeks in the work to end the injustices of the Road Home program,” Carter said. “The state should not continue, and is not required to, keep exacting these punishing actions.”