Nagin hopeful for upcoming New Orleans 2006 elections

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin visited Baton Rouge and Baker on Sunday in an effort to rally support and encourage voting for the upcoming mayoral elections in Orleans Parish on April 22.
“I’m going all around the state and all around the country to talk to people about voting. The election is April 22 and it’s a little complicated this time,” Nagin said. “It’s absentee voting, it’s early voting the 10th through the 15th and then actual voting on election day, so it’s lots of rules and hurdles you have to jump through. I just want to make sure everyone understands it.”
Because of the catastrophic events of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this year’s elections have been a controversial issue not only for the crescent city but for the United States as a whole being that a great number of New Orleans citizens have been spread out throughout the country and a rising fear among state officials that those displaced citizens would be unable to vote in the upcoming elections.
On Jan. 24 Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco signed Executive Order No. KBB-2006-2 postponing New Orleans elections until April 22 which were originally scheduled for Feb. 4, at the recommendation of Secretary of State Al Alter who cited the parish of Orleans as still being in a state of emergency.
After much debate among state officials and other parties, particularly those questioning the legality of altering the Orleans parish voting procedures without first receiving a pre-clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice as mandated by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Louisiana will allow displaced citizens to vote via absentee ballots and satellite locations around the state.
Nagin said despite difficulties and being unaware of the locations of many displaced citizens, mobilizing his electoral base has been coming along.
“It’s challenging from the stand point that FEMA knows where the people are, they have also released the list to the state but they haven’t released the information to anyone else, so we are running a public election with a private list,” Nagin said. “We have to get around to just about every city where we think people are and we’re just trying to educate them about voting.”
While on the campaign trail, Nagin’s first stop was Renaissance Village, a FEMA travel trailer group site in Baker, built in late September of 2005 to house New Orleans evacuees. There, Nagin went door-to-door garnering support from the site’s residents.
Among those who Nagin spoke to was 49-year-old Judy Barthelemy, a New Orleans evacuee and life long resident.
Barthelemy said she wasn’t certain what the results would be in the upcoming election but she would certainly be there to cast her vote.
“I don’t think New Orleans will ever be the way it was, but they can rebuild it,” she said. “And when they do, I’m going back, and I will be there to vote and be heard. Those hurricanes messed up everything for everybody and I don’t like it here, I’m ready to go back to where I was safe, I’m ready to go home.”
For people like Monica Faber, a senior secondary education major from New Roads, the issue of voting has become a personal battle.
“We live in a country that has been deemed as the largest economic power in the world and the most technologically driven country, a country that found a way for Iraqi American citizens who vote for their leader on American soil,” Faber said. “Therefore, I think our American people should have that right also. If we can make a way for them (Iraqi Americans) to do it, they should make a way for our people too. As a parent, the vote is important because what happens today will affect my children tomorrow and if this type of what I consider disenfranchisement is allowed to happen, then it’s going to happen to my children.”
Faber said she isn’t a New Orleans native but her motivation and involvement is centered around the basic to right to vote.
“It’s (voting) is a right, not a privilege,” Faber said. “If one group of people are not allowed the fair opportunity to exercise that right, it affects all people.”
Dr. William Arp, a Southern University professor of political science, said even though a recovery plan is already in place, the future of New Orleans will be determined by the April 22 elections and without a serious leader who has the support of the people, recovery efforts would be limited.
“I think what you are going to find is the recovery plan is already in place. The governor has talked about, even the congress has been talking about it and Sen. Landrieu has been talking about it,” Arp said. “The mayor has to be that entity that coordinates these recovery efforts. He has also to direct the distribution of these resources. Someone without the political experience will find that will handicap his efforts in that regard.”
Arp said Katrina has brought about a second chance for the city of New Orleans and he hopes whomever is elected mayor realizes this is a second chance for not only the people but the leadership as well.
Nagin, who faces over 20 candidates vying for the position of mayor of the crescent city, said with the city in such a fragile position, now is not the time for a change in leadership.
“New Orleans is at a very delicate stage right now,” Nagin said. “We are in the process of trying to rebuild and most of our residents are still scattered throughout the country. So, whoever as far as the leaders are over the next four years are going to basically dictate how the city looks, how the money is spent, which neighborhoods are rebuilt and which ones aren’t, so it’s real important that we have the right leadership moving the city forward.”