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Louisiana Congressman Troy Carter says the president’s decision to put his $1 trillion infrastructure bill on hold and to relink the legislation to his $3.5 trillion social proposals is the correct strategy.

“The basic take away is that we’re closer than many think,” Carter said Friday about the two cornerstone bills of the Biden administration in the moments after leaving a Democratic Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill with President Joe Biden.

The U.S. House debated the bipartisan infrastructure bill late into Thursday night before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, decided to postpone the vote.

House Republican leaders, including Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, had lobbied against the infrastructure bill on which U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, had served as a key negotiator. The legislation also was opposed from the other side of the political spectrum as left-wing Democratic representatives feared losing leverage to moderates in drafting the social policy bill, which some say is becoming too expensive, if the infrastructure measure passed independently.

“The president said, ‘Rather than look at that number, let’s look at the programs and determine what is important to you,’” Carter recalled, adding that he needs both infrastructure and social policy programs.

The state’s only Democratic congressman, Carter's 2nd Congressional District starts in New Orleans East, then links just about every Black majority precinct along the Mississippi River into north Baton Rouge.

Noting that his constituents rely on the petro-chemical plants the line the river for jobs, they also suffer from high rates of cancer. Parts of the social policy legislation would help companies better comply with environmental regulations. But the district also needs a passenger rail link between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that can efficiently deliver tens of thousands of workers to the riverside manufacturers, many of which are accessible landside over narrow, winding roads.

"I'm a realist. I was a senator a long time. I know how legislation gets done,” said Biden, carrying a newspaper and a cup of coffee Saturday morning as he boarded Marine One for a short trip to his personal home in Delaware.

“There is no reason why both these bills couldn’t pass independently except that there are not the votes to do it that way,” Biden said, adding that he’s going to hit the road to educate voters on what are included the bills.

“The American people are relying on Congress to get both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better plan done,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Saturday. “These bold proposals will create millions of good-paying union jobs, make overdue investments in our nation’s infrastructure, lower the cost of childcare, eldercare and education, and take essential steps to address the climate crisis. He left the meeting yesterday with the firm belief that there was a shared commitment from across the Democratic Caucus to deliver for the American people.”

Let the record show that both Louisiana representatives who are part of the Republican congressional leadership voted against aid to help the state recover from a string of disasters.

And also against keeping the government open. Because what’s the point of having a functioning government anyway, if you’re not going to put it to work for the people you represent?

Last week’s headline for Louisiana communities struggling to recover from a crushing yearlong four-hurricane stretch is that Congress finally approved long-sought community development block grants to help rebuild. The aid, less than what’s needed but at least something, was tacked on to a last-ditch measure to avert a partial government shutdown.

But a part of the story — one that shouldn’t be swept under the rug once the ribbon cuttings commence — is that House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and Republican Conference Vice Chairman Mike Johnson, R-Benton, deserve no credit for bringing the money home. This even though both signed a delegation letter to the Biden White House arguing that “without substantial and robust emergency appropriations from Congress … Louisiana families will continue to languish as a result of these devastating storms.”

Apparently they’ve got other priorities besides those languishing Louisiana families.

Having other priorities is kind of a thing these days, particularly with a number of big partisan fights coming to a head at once. That Democrats are narrowly in charge of Congress and also hold the presidency, and that they’re more inclined to spend federal money even for red states, seems to complicate things for Louisiana’s mostly Republican members.

U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, voted for the bill, but only after having done little to expedite aid for areas in his district decimated by the Category 4 Hurricane Laura and a string of subsequent disasters.

So did U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who sometimes joins with Senate moderates to back important legislation by Democrats, and his Senate colleague John Kennedy, who rarely does. Both, though, opposed an earlier version of the aid attached to a Democratic bill to suspend the debt limit (Cassidy later explained in an online town hall with The Advocate and The Times-Picayune that they held out until they knew efforts to overcome a GOP filibuster would fail, which isn’t a very compelling reason). Also voting in favor were U.S. Reps. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, and Julia Letlow, R-Start, along with the delegation’s only Democrat, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans.

Before anyone gives all those Republicans credit for putting their constituents above party, consider what’s happening with the separate stalled $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes billions for roads, bridges, coastal restoration, storm defenses, and high-speed internet.

Cassidy helped write the bill and pass it through the Senate with votes to spare — although without Kennedy’s support — and he makes a strong case that its passage would be “tremendous” for Louisiana. And yet Scalise has been whipping fellow House Republicans to vote against it. So far, most are falling in line, including every member of Louisiana’s GOP delegation.

They make a disingenuous case that Louisiana wouldn’t be guaranteed its fair share, which Cassidy effectively answered during the town hall by pointing to numerous line items that are specifically geared toward areas prone to natural disasters. “Hello, that’s us,” he said at one point.

They also claim that President Joe Biden would somehow shortchange Louisiana in favor of his political allies, even though a CNBC analysis of the bill projects higher per person spending here than in quite a few blue states. Particularly disappointing is Letlow, who campaigned to bring broadband to her rural district but says she’ll vote no even though the bill dedicates $65 billion to the cause.

“When that is coming from a Democratic majority and an administration, from what I have witnessed in Washington, I just don’t trust it right now,” she told KNOE.

Of course, one way to make sure your priorities are included is to engage, as Cassidy did.

Instead, opponents are sitting back and watching Democrats fight among themselves over whether to pass the infrastructure bill without also approving a larger, more divisive social spending package, even as — or more likely because — their own near-blanket opposition gives progressive holdouts leverage against Democratic moderates.

I’m sure it’s a lot of fun for them to watch their political adversaries tear one another apart and endanger their own president’s agenda.

Maybe not so much fun for their constituents, who could really use all the improvements the bill promises.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans, Louisiana's only Democrat in Congress, believes a compromise to close the deal on infrastructure and social spending bills is within reach.

President Joe Biden met with House Democrats Friday afternoon in an attempt mend a fracture within his own party that threatens to derail both the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the more partisan $3.5 trillion social spending bill.

"We're on the cusp of doing somethng unprecedented for America," Carter said in an interview with USA Today Network after the meeting with the president. "I think the takeaway from the meeting is that we're closer than we think and that the president is very engaged and understands all angles of the discussion.

"We're close to a framework to get as much for the American people as possible."

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had scheduled a vote on the infrastructure bill on Thursday, but the party's most liberal members threatened to derail it without a commitment that the Senate will pass the $3.5 trillion bill to provide free community college, universal pre-K and other increases in safety net entitlements.

Biden resisted imposing any deadlines on votes when he emerged from Friday's meeting with Democrats.

"We're going to get it done," Biden told reporters. "It doesn't matter if it's in six minutes, six days or six weeks."

Democrats hold such slim majority margins in the Senate and House that they can't afford any defections. Republicans in the House are unified against both bills.

The infrastructure bill, which would direct an additional $6 billion to Louisiana for roads and bridges in the first five years of its rollout, won bipartisan support in the Senate. Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy was one of its authors and champions.

But moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have said they can't vote for the social spending bill without a smaller price tag than $3.5 trillion. Manchin said this week he could support $1.5 trillion.

Carter isn't among the House Democrats who are insisting that the $3.5 trillion bill pass before he would vote in favor of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

"I'm going to fight for the whole enchilada, but I'm not coming home empty-handed," Carter said.

Louisiana Democratic Congressman Troy Carter is sounding an optimistic note that a compromise is within reach on infrastructure and social spending bills Capitol Hill has been wrangling with. He talks about one of the projects in the 1.2-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that’s important to our state. About 6-billion-dollars is earmarked in the infrastructure bill for projects that include a passenger rail line running from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and beyond.  He says, “brick and mortar are obviously important to advance us.”

Carter says the 3.5-trillion-dollar social spending bill also being hashed out contains important issues to be addressed like housing and getting broadband internet service to the underserved and impoverished.  But, Carter is dismayed by the fact that the two bills totaling just under five trillion dollars have been separated out given the importance of both saying they are “convoluted with definitions.”

On the subject of expanding broadband that’s included in the social spending bill, he believes it’s an important matter to address. “We know in 2021 that having broadband is as much a necessity as having running water or electricity, yet many residents in Louisiana don’t have it,” according to the congressman.

On the heels of an in-depth investigation and damning report by several news agencies, the ACLU of Louisiana has called for a federal investigation into allegations of extreme abuse and unnecessary use of force against Black suspects by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.

On Sept. 24, non-profit, investigative-journalism organization ProPublica, through its Local Reporting Network and in conjunction with WRKF and WWNO, released a stinging article detailing the apparent racial bias within the JPSO and the overly aggressive nature of the sheriff’s department’s officers.

The report found that over the last eight years, 70 percent of the citizens who were shot at were Black, even though the overall population in the parish is only 27 percent Black. In addition, the investigation found that 12 of the 16 people who died after being shot at or detained by JPSO officers were Black men.

On Sept. 27, the ACLU of Louisiana then called on the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana to investigate and evaluate the data presented in the news organizations’ report. In addition to the request made to federal prosecutors regarding the news reports, the ACLU asked that the U.S. Attorney’s Office also examine the ACLU’s research as part of what social justice and police reform advocates hope will be a large, thorough study of the JPSO’s apparent racial bias and unnecessary force.

In Jefferson Parish, the ACLU says, a Black resident is 11 times more likely to be killed by police than a white resident, and since 2015, in 12 cases of males who have died during an arrest or pursuit involving JPSO deputies, all were Black or Latino, and three were minors.

Because of such stark numbers found by the ACLU, Nora Ahmed, legal director for the ACLU of Louisiana, said the results of the journalistic investigation weren’t surprising to her organization.

“This is exactly in line with our own findings,” Ahmed said. “We also came to these very same conclusions.”

She added that the ACLU’s call for federal authorities to intervene and investigate the circumstances in Jefferson Parish is backed by the unsettling statistics found in the various studies.

“We’re not making this request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office lightly,” Ahmed said.

For more than a year, the ACLU of Louisiana has sought out victims of police violence as part of a project called Justice Lab: Putting Racist Policing on Trial, which seeks to bring account ability, transparency and justice in policing across the state.

One of the ACLU’s most recent lawsuits, Decquir v. Bentel et al, represents the thrust of the LaACLU’s Justice Lab effort and offers an example of the type of alleged misconduct by JPSO officers.

The suit – which was filed Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Louisiana on behalf of plaintiff Xavimen Decquir – charges that several JPSO officers brutalized Decquir, a person of color who lives in Metairie and who has mental illnesses, while Decquir was handcuffed and laying on the floor of the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center.

According to the lawsuit, Decquir had been detained by deputies following an incident in his apartment during which a mental-health crisis by Decquir led his mother to call law enforcement for the protection of everyone involved at the scene in the apartment.

The lawsuit states that Decquir’s mother was given assurance that her son would be taken for psychiatric care, but deputies instead brought Xavimen to the JPCC and locked in a cell, where officers allegedly refused Decquir his legally mandated phone call, never told him upon what charges he was there, and told him to “shut up” when Decquir – was was still in health crisis and confused as to what happening – repeatedly asked for an explanation of his status.

The lawsuit charges that deputies removed Decquir and three officers – Jonathan Bentel, Robert Johnson and Hiep Nguyen, all of whom are listed as defendants in the lawsuit – brutally beat Decquir while other deputies watched and allowed the attack to continue.

The officers allegedly slammed the plaintiff’s lawsuit against a concrete wall multiple times, threw him to the floor and kicked and punched him savagely. The flurry of blows included at least two kicks to the face with steel-toed boots.

The lawsuit asserts that Decquir did not fight back in an away during the beating, which resulted in fractures of facial bones, a dislocated shoulder, bruised ribs and a concussion. The filing said Decquir required eight staples to close the wound to his head, and he continues to suffer from chronic headaches, loose teeth, blurred vision, memory loss and sharp pains in his spine. The suit added that the brutalization has compounded and worsened Decquir’s mental health issues, including self-mutilation, reclusiveness, deepening depression and suicidal ideation.

The lawsuit also names Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto, who, the suit said, bears responsibility for fostering an atmosphere that routinely allows such brutal misconduct on behalf of his deputies.

Another key part of the lawsuit details the JPSO’s long record of such incidents of alleged excessive force, especially and pointedly toward people of color. The suit cites the overt racism, callousness and disregard of the public by former Sheriff Harry Lee, the controversial, openly bigoted law-enforcement official who reigned over Jefferson Parish from 1980 until his death in 2007.

The legal action says that this tradition of injustice and racial prejudice was continued by Lee’s successor, Newell Normand, and further employed by Lopinto.

“Mr. Decquir is one of numerous individuals to endure racially motivated violence at the hands of JPSO, an organization with a disturbing anti-Black history,” the lawsuit charges. “Much of this violence can be attributed to the failed leadership of the current JPSO Sheriff, Defendant Lopinto.

“It is evident that, unless and until Defendants are held accountable for their racially motivated violence, they will continue to violate the rights of Black and Brown people.”

Ahmed said Lopinto is continuing the trend of racially motivated brutality in the JPSO from his two predecessors.

“He definitely looks up to them and places both Normand and Lee as role models,” she said.

The Xavimen lawsuit is part of the effort and encapsulates the troubling trends of brutality against people of color within the JPSO and law-enforcement agencies across the state, say ACLU representatives, who noted that through the Justice Lab the LaACLU has filed seven lawsuits against various police agencies in Jefferson Parish.

The ProPublica report and the ACLU’s litigation together, clearly reveal long-standing racist policies, practices, and customs that have etched deep wounds in communities of color, and which must be immediately addressed,” ACLU of Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms said in a prepared statement. “United States Attorneys have a constitutional and ethical responsibility to investigate police misconduct and disclose that evidence to the public. Our community members deserve a full investigation, complete transparency, and justice for the lives lost and harms perpetrated by the JPSO.”

Ahmed echoed Odoms’ words, telling The Louisiana Weekly that through it all, the JPSO has stubbornly refused to exhibit any sense of public transparency and accountability for its racist past and present, and that such a situation mirrors much of the rest of America.

“We look at all this data against the backdrop of racist policing in this country,” she said.

Spokespeople for the JPSO did not respond to multiple requests for comment by The Louisiana Weekly.

The racial motivations of allegedly overaggressive misconduct and behavior against people of color by law enforcement officers in Jefferson Parish has been followed closely by U.S. Rep Troy Carter of Louisiana, who told The Louisiana Weekly last week that the new reports by the ACLU and the news agencies are “quite disturbing.”

“Injustice anywhere cannot be tolerated,” Carter said. “I do not, and our society should not, condone any violence, misconduct or excessive use of force by those sworn to protect and serve. Our country must protect the civil rights of all its citizens.”

Carter added that he hopes the JPSO will finally come to terms with and publicly acknowledge its history of officer improprieties and undue aggression against people of color. He said he hopes that the JPSO “will use all resources available to thoroughly and transparently seek out the truth, wherever it may lead.”

He said legislation is needed to guarantee that type of transparency on the part of law enforcement, including requiring all policing agencies institute comprehensive community-relations training, body cameras, and recording and documentation of all incidents that may occur between police and citizens. He said such recordings “can help all parties involved get to the bottom of what really occurred and incentivize police practice reforms.”

He pointed to the federal George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as an example of legislation that takes significant steps toward standardizing policies, collecting data, and increasing accountability.

However, Carter lamented, even such legislation reining in police violence and abuse against minorities will only address one level of a bigger picture of racism that has built up over decades and longer.

“While I believe that these measures will help decrease violence, disparities in policing against people of color are representative of a deeper, more systematic issue that will take structural and internal transformation to overcome,” he said. “These issues are not unique to Jefferson Parish, and the continued disparities in policing throughout the country demonstrate how It will take a collective effort to create meaningful change on a national scale.”

Carter said a level of mistrust between the Black community and law-enforcement officials, both locally and nationally, continues to fester. Against the backdrop of nationwide movements for racial justice and police reform over the last several years, the alleged misdeeds of JPSO officers only exacerbate the situation, something Carter himself often feels.

“It is a real issue across the United States that people of color, especially Black people, too often feel anxious when interacting with police,” he said. “Sadly, I’ve felt this way myself.

“We have a long way to go in building back trust, and rightfully so. While the majority of good officers outweigh the bad, the long and important journey toward a Louisiana where everyone feels safe in their communities must continue.”

NEW ORLEANS — The temporary spending bill that lawmakers in Washington recently passed included $28.6 billion in emergency disaster relief and Louisanna will get a portion of that for its recovery. 

U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, Troy Carter, said that money is already in the bank and the resources are on their way to Louisiana. 

"We've got some $5 billion that's there to assist with the storms of 2020. Where Lake Charles was left with a significant amount of damage. So we're very fortunate that at least that portion of disaster recovery has moved through the system," said Carter. 

With a difficult recovery ahead Carter has continued to apply pressure to FEMA. 

"I've been on FEMA nearly every day, met with the administrator of FEMA Deanne Criswell and walked the streets, which she and President Biden. We've been on the one-yard line every day pushing them to do better. To make sure that we get quicker responses that we are able to override many of the rejections that people receive because they didn't check a box because they miss this," said Carter.

Carter says he knows that people are hurting and he wants to get them the help they need and he has concerns with the money from the federal government getting to the people that need it.

"We're hopeful that local government and state government will be able to streamline their processes to get that money out the door and into the hands of people who need it," said Carter.

In December Carter will have another chance to get more resources for Louisiana.  

"Once we've had a better chance of identifying what the true needs are. Much of the devastation hasn't completely been evaluated yet to determine what the final ticket will look like," said Carter.