Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Bea Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

A series of bills could shift more power to the executive branch.

A world renowned rose garden in Shreveport celebrates 50 years.

I'll take you on a tour and a call to reorganize Louisiana economic development.

The state's top job creation agency.

I'll bring you the details.

And our next gen hero has a true servant's heart.

Ready?

Let's get started.

All right.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Cara Sincere, and I'm Karen LeBlanc.

Much more on those top stories in a moment on this edition of Louisiana, the state we're in.

But first, Louisiana officials are suing the U.S. Department of Education over new guidelines expanding title nine protections.

It's a naked attempt to strong arm our schools, our faculty, our staff, our administration and state government officials into molding children in the federal government's preferred image of how a child and how an adult should think, act and speak.

The title nine program was enacted in the 70s to protect people, mainly women, from discrimination based on gender.

The new rules now include LGBTQ plus and transgender students.

Attorney General Liz Merle and Governor Jeff Landry argue this could put young women and girls at risk, and could result in the state losing federal funding if schools don't comply.

Several other Republican led states have also filed similar lawsuits.

The Louisiana Forum for equality issued a response to the lawsuit, saying in part, quote, they must be reminded that these are not just policies they're attacking.

They're attacking human beings, our children who deserve love, respect and acceptance and quote.

But Louisiana's governor already has the authority to make appointments to more than 500 state boards and commissions.

But the current administration would like to expand that even further.

The legislature is currently considering a series of bills and amendments that would greatly increase the governor's authority.

But policy researchers warn that this may have unintended consequences.

The Republican dominated legislature advanced House Bill 800 to the House floor after weeks of rewrites and committee hearings.

The bill, heavily backed and supported by Governor Jeff Landry, would call for a constitutional convention to rewrite Louisiana's governing document.

If all goes according to plan, the convention will last two weeks and will conclude at the end of the legislative session in June.

But according to the Council of State Governments, Louisiana ranks among the longest of all state constitution, having 72,000 words in it in less than 50 years.

The legislature has proposed over 300 amendments, of which 210 have been incorporated into the 1974 Constitution.

The governor has been vocal about his push to reorganize the Constitution, but he hasn't specified what he wants to change when he first presented the idea.

He mentioned shifting amendments to state law, which would make it easier to change or remove.

Those great people need a legislature that is unshackled from micromanaging edicts inserted by special interests that held sway at random and obsolete moments in our time.

Let us clean up the Constitution and place matters in their appropriate statutory context.

While some lawmakers agree the Constitution needs a good tweak, there's some concern about the quick time frame.

Echoing those concerns is John Mohler, the executive director of Invest Louisiana, a nonprofit research institute focused on economic policy.

He thinks the time frame could motivate lawmakers to make changes that harm low income families.

Two weeks is barely enough to rename a post office, much less rewrite our constitution.

For the first time in 50 years.

It's really unbelievable, the fast track that they're trying to put this on.

When you consider the stakes and how important our Constitution is.

The latest version of the Constitution was ratified in 1974, but the entire process from researching, rewriting to selecting delegates before the vote took about three years.

The delegates would be handpicked by Governor Landry, and they would be the members of the legislature who would serve as delegates.

is irresponsible, and I think the public deserves more input into something this important.

Government appointments are another point of contention in this constitutional overhaul.

The legislature will soon review a slew of amendments, again backed by the governor, that greatly expand the power of Louisiana's executive branch.

I think what you're seeing at the Capitol is the governor who feels like, you know, I got elected with an agenda, with a mandate from the people.

I've got a lot of stuff that I want to do.

I need to do this quickly, and I'm looking for more authority in terms of appointments and changing some of the ways that we appoint things.

So I can enact my agenda.

Here's a list of some of the bills the legislature is considering.

House Bill 533 would increase the number of Louisiana Supreme Court judges, and allow the governor to appoint all justices, instead of electing them from different districts.

Senate Bill 462 would allow the governor to appoint chairs to almost any state board or commission, and Senate Bill 4.97 would allow the governor and the legislature to make direct appointments to the Board of Ethics.

I don't think it's unusual for people who are in politics to want to gain more power or more authority, because it's easier to get your job done.

But the way democracy works, too, is that sometimes we don't want it to be too easy to get your agenda done.

Barry Irwin, the president of Council for Better Louisiana, says making these amendments would allow any governor after this administration to hold just as much authority as Governor Landry, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on the popularity of the next candidate.

This wouldn't be the first time a Louisiana governor has sought to increase its power.

How many men ever went to barbecue?

We defeated the legislature.

He packed the courts.

He took over the state militia as its own police force.

He controlled all your local governments.

Local governments could not.

Our people.

They couldn't spend money without getting permission from Baton Rouge.

The famed notorious Huey P long greatly expanded his powers, some of which are still in place today.

Huey long had huge power, huge amount of appointments.

What we did in our constitutions in those years after that was kind of shrink.

Some of the governor's power, to some degree.

Some suggest that if the changes being sought in the legislature pass, Louisiana will be returning to the days of Huey Long, where the governor has too much power.

In a press conference, Governor Landry insisted that more authority is not his goal.

Anybody that says that, governor, you just trying to consume more power.

I am here to tell you all in front of the media.

That is completely nonsense.

In fact.

Some will argue you got plenty of power in and of itself if you leave the Constitution just like it is.

From hashtags to headlines, we have some serious news to talk about.

The campus protest across college campuses around the nation in protest of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And the Associated Press reported.

So far, there's been about 2000 arrests.

More student protesters planned.

Yeah.

And, you know, these protests, these efforts have spread to numerous campuses across the nation, including this week at Tulane University.

pro-Palestinian protesters built encampments.

Now, these protests did end in some arrests.

Seven students were also suspended.

Yeah, a lot of people are comparing this to the Vietnam War era protests across college campuses.

And I'm sure there is more to come with this story.

Yeah, and much more on the political front here in Louisiana.

Another congressional map has been tossed out after a lawsuit claims that the second Majority-Black district was discriminatory.

So Congressman Garret Graves, in a recent interview with me, predicted that this map would be tossed out.

And this is despite all the work in the Louisiana legislature and Governor Jeff Landry's endorsement of this map.

So, you know, it's stuck in limbo and no one knows if we'll get a map in time for the next round of elections in.

Mind you, this has been a very long process.

In fact, whenever Landry first got into office, his first order of business was making sure that we fix our congressional maps in accordance with the law.

It is certainly challenging, politically tricky.

So we will see where this story goes.

We'll continue to follow it closely.

Well, after years of delays, the Rolling Stones finally hit the stage Thursday night at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

And what a performance.

Oh my goodness.

Mick Jagger in New Orleans.

It has to be so exciting.

Yeah.

So some Louisiana greats, they called up on stage.

Irma Thomas sang her original song that.

Yeah, the Rolling Stones.

Yeah, they covered it.

Yeah.

So it ends up being kind of like, I don't know, kind of a tribute to her in a way.

Like a full circle moment.

Time on my side.

And another Louisiana artist took the stage rocking Duane Dixie, and he's a pretty full circle moment for him as well, because the Rolling Stones, his childhood idols.

So we missed it.

Of course, we were working, but, the Jazz Fest continues this weekend.

All right.

Well, Louisiana's job growth isn't booming.

And that is according to experts with the Committee of 100.

They say our state has seen a slump in economic development projects and a lack of clear planning.

The bipartisan group wants to restructure the state's economic development agency with the help of private oversight.

I spoke with CEO Adam Knapp for more about the plan.

So the Committee of 100 most recent report said, quote unquote, Louisiana's economic development needs a shot on the arm.

What are those findings based on?

Louisiana has grown the slowest in terms of number of new jobs compared to all of the southern states in the US.

That is alarming.

They actually spent some time to bring in some consultants that that have expertise in this work, and looking at how other states do the work of economic development, we've found that there's some pretty substantial changes that could be made, should be made to the functioning work of the department, the agency itself that runs economic benefit for Louisiana, which is called Louisiana Economic Development.

Can you give us some tangible examples of how Louisiana economic development can be better organized to be more efficient?

It's a great question.

So one is a lot of other states have a private sector board or governing authority that really makes sure that there is a long term strategic plan for the state.

we don't have that.

we have a standalone agency, and it operates on its own at the direction of the secretary and the governor.

So Louisiana has not had either a private sector led board, working with the leadership of the agency, or a strategic plan that's setting forth a direction.

We have tended to change our economic development strategy in Louisiana every time we elect a new governor.

And when that happens, you're constantly shifting strategy.

every 4 or 8 years.

Historically, Louisiana has been kind of a one trick pony.

We've been super dependent on oil and gas as economic drivers.

Obviously, there's a lot of discussion about diversification.

Committee of 100.

What do you see as the best route to diversify for economic growth?

The big thing we have to make sure is that we think about the distinct strengths of each part of the state, and that informs the long range strategy about how each region of the state might diversify its economy.

Perfect.

Case in point is we see examples in other states of data center projects going to those communities as AI and cloud computing have expanded.

We've seen very few data center companies setting up a, a location in Louisiana.

There are some, but not not many.

Not as many as we've seen in other states.

Those could be examples that we could go after more of those kinds of projects.

When we talk about economic development, we also have to address outmigration.

In particular, I'm talking about the younger generations who are leaving the state.

And quite frankly, and I've interviewed many of them.

And what I hear over and over again is Louisiana doesn't reflect the values and the lifestyle and the open mindedness that our generation embraces.

Yeah.

Is that a concern?

So it's a great question.

So we actually did a pretty exhaustive look over the last two previous monthly reports.

We did.

We actually did one fully on the topic of In-Migration and another one on the topic of outmigration to pull some data around, where people leave Louisiana to go to and where people who move to Louisiana are coming from.

And what I've been hearing in my visits around the state with executives is they want to see a workforce strategy for Louisiana that is both better at producing talent out of our education system.

but also thoughtful about how to recruit people and retain people in Louisiana.

And really, as you pointed out, the age range of that is that's most critical is this kind of 25 to 44 year old population where we've seen pretty stark outmigration across the state in that age range.

One of your policy stances on early childhood education, and right now, what's coming out of the current, legislature doesn't look very good for the funding of early childhood education.

Well, we would definitely support and encourage that the legislature reverse the cuts.

that were made on the House side, that that reduced early childhood education funding.

It's a difficult balance, right?

There's a lot of competing priorities when they go through the process of figuring out the budget for the year.

So we expect there's there's going to be a longer discussion about this as a as the appropriations bill moves through the process.

But it's been a priority of ours, and it's an important part of improving our overall education outcomes.

and there's clear science behind the importance of having, greater access to early childhood education.

Fortunately, in Louisiana, we have, nearly universal pre-K for access across the state.

So we've made incredible strides as a state, and we should collectively pat our state on the back for getting that done over the last, 20 years or so.

but we need to make sure that that continues as an expansion with the resources that were provided last year.

and that would be cut for this year.

They get that back in place so we can continue about 2000 kids across the state.

That would be kind of unfunded if that, if that cut isn't restored and we hope they will.

Adam.

Nat.

Final thoughts?

thank you for having me on here.

And and encourage anybody who's interested to learn more about us, or about our research reports on on the economy to go to our website.

c 100 la.org.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your insight and your expertise with Louisiana Speaks.

Tucked away in the outskirts of Shreveport is a world renowned spectacle.

It's the national headquarters of the American Red society, which cultivates rare blossoms from around the world.

I got a behind the scenes tour of the gardens for the Rose Center's 50th anniversary.

A walk through the gardens of the American Rose Center in Shreveport reveals that roses are red and pink, even purple or multicolored.

For 50 years, visitors have been stopping to smell the roses.

More than 7500 of them.

We've completely remodeled, renovated these gardens, and they've they've really established themselves, and they're just gorgeous.

As the national headquarters of the American Rose society.

This isn't your typical rose garden.

We have ramblers in our garden right now.

That is the only one of that variety in the country, and very few of that variety in the world.

Diane Summers is the president of the American Rose society.

She's in town to judge prize winning roses and celebrate the center's Golden anniversary.

We are the oldest single plant organization in the United States.

We're one of the largest still the American Rose society focused on education, about roses and enjoyment and preservation for roses.

The blooms in this garden are in competition.

Submitted by rose breeders.

The roses grow for two years without using pesticides or chemicals.

This is an international test garden, so breeders from around the world enter their roses to see how they will do in our Louisiana climate.

this is really sponsored by the World Federation of Rose societies.

So there are international test gardens around the world, and there's only two of them in the United States.

And we're very proud to be part of this effort.

Breeders are invited to, enter their roses.

There's no cost to a breeder to do that.

As part of its 50th anniversary festivities, the center also invited visitors to vote on their favorite balloon for the People's Choice Award.

This rose really caught my eye.

And I'll tell you why.

I love all of the tonal contrasts here, right?

It's almost like somebody's hand painted each one of these petals.

It's like a work of art.

It's beautiful behind the scenes.

The American Rose center serves as a research and testing ground.

We are an organization for education and preservation of the Rose.

We do a lot of educational programs.

We also have preservation programs where we are getting some extinct roses back into commerce.

We do, some rose testing here to, test roses that some breeders have sent.

We visit an on site nursery cultivating rare rambler roses, part of the American Rose society's preservation efforts.

300 different varieties of these climbing roses are growing on site.

Our goal is to make these ramblers far more visible and far more accessible to people.

We are partnering with public gardens.

We are partnering with nurseries that can grow them and sell them on a retail basis.

As we say, you can't.

To save a rose, you have to give it away.

We have to get these ramblers growing in all areas of the country so that they're not isolated in one area.

The gardens offer picture perfect backdrops for photos.

An onsite chapel for weddings and a visitor center for community events.

The city of Shreveport planted the seeds for all of it more than a half a century ago, courting the American Rose society to relocate its headquarters from Ohio.

The city planted roses in public places and put up billboards urging citizens to become rose society boosters.

Today, the American Rose center produces award winning roses as one of only 27 international Rose Trial Test gardens in the world.

Turns out the roses I picked.

True happiness is a People's Choice winner.

It actually won two awards and totally on trend.

The striped Rose look is a popular pick among gardens and rose growers.

A rose is a rose is a rose, says the 1913 poem by Gertrude Stein.

America's Rose garden offers a broader definition of blooms that go beyond the garden variety to show us the flowers, full spectrum of colors and fragrances.

This week's young hero is driven to help others in any way she can.

Like so many of our heroes, she's overcome major challenges.

But as use those hardships as inspiration and motivation, meet our next young hero.

Morgan Daigle.

Hello.

I wouldn't be where I am today without my support system.

My mom was my biggest, supporter.

17 year old Morgan Daigle credits her mother, Melissa, for her servant's heart.

Melissa was an active member of the Clifton community and an even bigger influence at Morgan School, Northwood High School.

She was amazing.

I like to use the phrase, altruistic personality.

It's basically you're devoted to the welfare of others and she just loved helping others.

She was a genuine person.

She never met a stranger.

Melissa's generous spirit was contagious, and Morgan would eventually follow suit.

If somebody called in needed help.

My mom was one of the first ones to go, and I think that's why Morgan is where she is, because she sees that their mom's actions forever impacted the way Morgan and her sister approached community service.

Her lessons were so strong, they lasted even after she passed in 2023.

Melissa was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2022 after an initial misdiagnoses.

The news was devastating for Morgan and her family.

It was a really hard experience, but my mother was such a strong person.

She experienced so much loss in her life, but just knowing her, you could never tell that she had been through as much as she had went through Caitlin Joe Freon, Morgan's teacher, kept a close eye on her as she processed her mother's death.

How did Morgan respond to that?

You know, how was she, like in class afterward?

Honestly, while everything was happening, there wasn't much of a change, which that just speaks to how Morgan is like.

She very rarely shows stress.

And I know with as many projects as she has going, she has to feel stress.

She has to build tension.

But like, she just has this motto, like, we're going to take it one day at a time and we're going to figure it out.

And in the end, it's all going to work out the way it's supposed to work out.

Morgan use projects to work through her grief as a member of Northwood High School's Youth Volunteer Corps.

She was already a leader in her community, but Morgan and the teacher saw her mother's passing as another opportunity for altruism.

We were just looking for, like, activities to do.

We were growing our programs.

And so I was like, Morgan, how do you feel if we do chemo bangs?

The two settled on the Chemo Bag Drive, a fundraiser to supply cancer patients with essentials while they undergo chemotherapy.

The idea the chemo bags came up.

I just thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

Just the sense of being able to give back in my mother's honor.

Morgan organized groups of students to donate more than 120 bags to the Cabrini Cancer Center, and that's just the surface of her community service.

In addition to her annual chemo bag drive, the high school junior promotes literacy to younger kids at her school.

We do different things where we read to little ones, and on my free time, when I have time, I'll go and read to different teachers class because we are a K through 12 school.

She's been class president for the past three years of high school, and she regularly volunteers at the Clifton Choctaw Tribe Community Center.

But of all of her accomplishments, her sister Chancey says she's the proudest of Morgan's resilience.

It's hard to find people that can relate with her.

Losing a parent at such a young age.

Our mom put our family together, and I'm just proud at how well Morgan is doing when it comes to that, that she is still seeing the rainbow on the other side of the storm.

Morgan hasn't decided what the future holds yet.

It's still a work in progress, but whatever she does, she hopes to continue her mother's legacy of community and service.

It is so inspiring to see how Morgan is carrying on the legacy of her mom, Melissa.

Yeah, and I can't wait to see the things she'll do in the future.

When speaking of Young Heroes, all of our honorees met here at LPB this week to kick off Young Heroes Day.

Here's a look at all the fun the young heroes and their families traveled around the state for Louisiana Young Heroes Day on Monday.

They were honored with a certificate of appreciation from East Baton Rouge mayor, President Sharon Weston Broome.

Then they got to tour the LPB studio to see where Ziggy's Arts Adventure and Louisiana State were in our produced.

The honorees also got a duffel bag full of surprises from program sponsors.

Next, the group got a behind the scenes tour of LSU football operations.

Then it was off to the governor's mansion for lunch.

They got to hear from the director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library and got official statements from Governor Landrieu's office.

Things wrapped up at the state capitol, where the young heroes were recognized in the House chamber.

Then took a trip to the observation deck.

You can catch all of the young hero stories and a 30 minute special recounting the remarkable journeys that will be Friday, June 14th at 8:00, right here on LPB.

Lcd's Louisiana Young Heroes program is presented this year with the generous support of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation, with additional support from Community Coffee, the U.S. Army Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion, Demko, McDonald's and Origin Hotel, Baton Rouge.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

You can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc.

And I'm Kara sincere.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.