Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Zigler Foundation and the Zigler 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 Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen LeBlanc.

And I'm Kara St. Cyr.

We join you today from the newly renovated LPB lobby.

Our refreshed look coincides with the new set for Louisiana, the state we're in.

That's right.

Our main studio is undergoing renovations, and we cannot wait to reveal our new look coming soon.

And now here's what's making headlines.

Governor elect Jeff Landry announced this week his new commissioner of administration.

Former House Speaker Taylor Barras will serve as the governor's chief budget architect.

The commissioner of administration is responsible for drafting the governor's budget, among other financial tasks associated with running state government.

Former House Fiscal Division director Patrick Goldsmith will serve as Barra's top deputy.

Early voting is underway now through November 11, leading up to the general election.

November 18th.

Voters will decide on three statewide runoff elections.

I invited the candidates to chat at LPB studios about their platforms and plans to work with Governor elect Jeff Landry's administration.

Here's what they had to say.

Here is a look at both political party tickets for the November 18th election on the Louisiana Democratic Party ticket for statewide offices in the runoff.

Lindsey Cheek for attorney general.

Gwen Collins Greenup for Secretary of State.

Dustin Granger for Treasurer.

The Louisiana Republican Party ticket.

Liz Murril for Attorney General.

Nancy Landry for Secretary of State.

And John Fleming for Treasurer.

The winners in each race will work with a conservative administration led by Governor elect Jeff Landry and a Republican dominated legislature.

Just because we have perhaps a very conservative or far right government does not mean that the world is burning down around us.

Lindsey Cheek is a practicing attorney campaigning on a pro rights platform.

Democracy is about us, a system of checks and balances and where disagreements occur that can actually be an opportunity to come together.

Republican candidate for Secretary of State Liz Merrill currently serves as Solicitor general.

Murril declined our interview request.

However, in previous public comments, she talked about her qualifications.

I have personally led over the DEA and assisted the DEA in over 200 cases in state and federal courts, criminal cases and that's through the post-conviction process in the race for state attorney general.

Crime has dominated the debate.

Topping the list of voter concerns, I don't agree that we don't have a significant role in enforcing crime in our state, where our investigators have statewide criminal jurisdiction to investigate crime.

All over the state.

We provide assistance to law enforcement upon request and upon initiation of our own investigations.

I know the concerns of people in Louisiana at the moment are, of course, crime.

The environment.

Insurance is a problem.

Voters also decide who will serve as the next state treasurer.

The office has an open seat left by outgoing state Treasurer John Schroeder, who ran unsuccessfully for governor.

Republican John Fleming and Democrat Dustin Granger are campaigning on very different platforms.

You said, quote, For the next four years, we will have a far right governor and a Republican majority in the state House and Senate.

I want to hear your thoughts about how you can work with this conservative administration.

Yeah, I think, first of all, I have a strong interest in bipartisanship, but I do believe we should have balance in government.

You know, if if a government moves a certain way, you know, in this case, I think it has been pretty extreme.

Right?

A lot of the moderate Republicans have been pushed out.

It's important to have another voice at the table, not just, yes, people.

I want to bring my economic development back around and work with a unified team that we now have in Louisiana, beginning with Jeff Landry, our incoming governor, and other members of the administration and the legislature, whom I've known and worked with for many years.

The state treasurer serves as Louisiana's main money manager and has three core areas of responsibility managing the state's investments, the Unclaimed property program and presiding over the Louisiana Bond Commission, which has oversight of large scale state and local government borrowing.

I think there is a misconception out there that the State Treasurer has a direct role in crafting the budget.

How do you envision working with the legislature to create a budget that is more stable?

Well, it does tie tie in with economic development because in order to have economic development, you need to lower the burden on businesses that want to get started in our state or move to our state.

Even though the Treasurer has no direct budgetary role.

He or she can certainly work with the legislature and the Governor to look at best practices.

I think the Treasurer should have a more active role in the Constitution.

The Louisiana Constitution, The Treasurer is the fiduciary for the people of the state.

The economic fiduciary, they the Treasurer doesn't answer to the Governor or the legislature.

They answer directly to the people.

Both candidates believe they have the experience and a responsible party to help foster economic prosperity in Louisiana, although they differ on whether trickle up or trickle down economics at the state and national level works.

I support supply side economics.

And what is that?

That is lowering taxes, lowering regulations and removing burdens from those investors and companies who want to build things and make things and create jobs.

Right now we have just too many giveaways with Itep, the industrial tax exemption program, or really our tax code is very regressive, meaning the the middle class and the poor bear the brunt of the taxes, especially with sales taxes.

I think the focus needs to be on lowering that.

In the race for secretary of state.

Voter turnout and voting machines were top topics.

Democrat Gwen Collins Greenup is running for the office a third time.

I really want to protect our right to vote.

This is the most important position when it comes to doing that because the Secretary of State is the overseer of all of our elections in the state of Louisiana.

Gwen Collins Greenup is an attorney, an accountant and a small business owner.

We actually plan to, first of all, strengthen our businesses.

A lot of candidates don't lead with that, but I do because we have a great commercial division.

Republican candidate for Secretary of State.

Nancy Landry serves as the first assistant secretary of State.

Landry did not respond to our request for an interview, but she has publicly pledged to, quote, lead the charge on reducing regulations on small businesses and to continue reducing red tape for business owners.

Gwen Collins Green Up outlines her pro-business agenda.

One of the things that I hear from not only business owners, but voters is that the website is very confusing.

I always tell them it's there.

It's just not probably organized in a way that's user friendly.

So I want to tackle that.

The next thing I want to tackle is business identity theft.

And as an attorney, I've had customers that have dealt with that.

And what that looks like is someone registering, changing your business information during your renewal of your annual registration and replacing it with theirs.

And then they become able to open up businesses in other areas to apply for things with business credit in your name and to open a bank account for both candidates.

Voter turnout is a key concern.

Our low voter turnout rates leave about 450,000 people making decisions for 4.6 million Louisianians.

That was so concerning to me that I was willing to give up my law practice to run for secretary of state.

Voter turnout for Louisiana's primary election was 36.3%.

Voter turnout predictions are even lower for the general election November 18th.

Given that the governor's race is decided.

Hear more of what these statewide candidates have to say by watching their full interviews on our LPB YouTube channel.

@LPBTV.

Like Karen said Election season isn't over just yet.

There are four constitutional amendments on the ballot this upcoming Election Day.

Barry Erwin with the Council for a Better Louisiana, helped explain the amendments and what they could mean for Louisiana.

In a Lightning Round interview, So let's start with the First Amendment.

So the First Amendment on the ballot focuses on the legislative veto override process.

So in Louisiana, we've got kind of a unique system when it comes to veto sessions.

In the Constitution, it's written that after the 40th day, it's the 40th day after adjournment, the lawmakers have to vote whether or not they want a veto override session or not.

And the unique aspect of it is that they have to vote no.

Otherwise it will automatically happen, which seems pretty unique in the situation.

But amendment number one is going to challenge that system.

How so?

Well, basically, we got ourselves into a bind last year that we never really foresaw.

We had a special session before the regular session, and it was dealing with congressional and other redistricting.

The governor vetoed some of the congressional maps, and the legislature had made it clear that they wanted to override that veto.

So that 40 day period that you mentioned would kick in automatically.

So that could have that veto session.

The problem was it happened during the regular session, which came just after.

We've never had a situation where you had to try and have a veto session during the regular session.

You can't really have two sessions at once.

So it put them in a bind.

What they ended up doing was voting to adjourn the regular session, have the veto session, and then come back and do the regular session.

The problem is there's a big legal question as to whether you can really do that.

The good thing is nobody challenged it.

But what this amendment would do is say, if you're going to be in another session when that 40 day period is up and you're going to have the veto session, you can do it in the session that you're in.

You don't have to worry about these competing sessions.

We're going to move on to.

Okay, number two.

So the Second Amendment is more fiscal in nature.

This one is going to be focusing on six different constitutional budgets that are set aside, but seem to have very little money in them.

Can you explain what this amendment would do and how that would change with these budgets?

Yeah, basically, we have a lot of funds in the Constitution, and by that I mean buckets where we put money a lot of times mostly it's dedicated to go into this fund or that fund or whatever.

Well, what we have with this amendment is there are six of these funds that were created a number of years ago to do all kinds of good things, but they don't have any money.

One of them has $600, but the rest have no money.

So they've been inactive for a long time.

So what this amendment does is basically say, we're going to repeal those out of the Constitution.

They're there, we're not using them.

There's really no purpose for them any more.

We're just going to take them out.

And then can you give me an example of one of the budgets that's there or one of the fund?

Excuse me.

Yeah, there's a couple one deals with the Atchafalaya Basin Conservation.

One goes to higher ed.

There's another one that deals with agricultural and seafood promotion.

These were all things were dollars were intended to go in there and then use them for those specific purposes.

Problem is, for the most part, they just never got the money.

Okay.

So they were just sitting and collecting dust over these over the community.

All right.

So moving on to the Third Amendment.

So this is about property tax break for first responders.

It would give people if they voted for it, if it passed it, give first responders a $25,000 break.

Can you explain a little bit more what this amendment would actually mean?

Yeah, for most homeowners, put it in this perspective.

Everybody has a homestead exemption, right?

It's $75,000.

What this would do if it passes would allow local governments, if they choose to, to create another property tax exemption on top of the homestead exemption for first responders.

So people like police, fire, EMT, that type of thing.

So that would basically say instead of just the $75,000 homestead exemption, you might have 25,000 more.

So up to 100,000.

Now, the local government first has to decide whether to do that.

So each, you know, parish would make that decision and it's up to that amount.

It doesn't have to be that amount.

So the bottom line would be is that different parishes could choose to provide this tax break for property taxes or they couldn't or they could do it at a different amount up to that 25,000.

But it's up to each parish governing authority to decide whether they want to do that.

All right.

So moving on to the last Amendment, which is probably the most complicated one.

So it's talking about budgets and we've got two major budgets whenever it comes to stabilization funds, which I think the name in and of itself is pretty self-explanatory.

You want to stabilize the budget.

So we've got the rainy day fund, which everyone understands, especially if you keep up with the legislature.

But can you explain the second fund?

Yeah, the rainy day fund people are pretty familiar with, and it's like a savings account that can basically only be used if are in a budget deficit situation.

You can use it to balance the budget or in certain kind of federally disaster, not declared disasters.

You can tap funds for that.

So that's what we have.

The second one was created about 2016, and it's actually got about $2 billion in it.

And it was intended to do some things to stabilize the budget.

But the bottom line is it was another savings account that had more flexibility than the rainy day fund.

So, for instance, the rainy day fund is basically limited to budget deficits.

This one said if we're in some other kind of emergency, which is not defined, but the legislature could you could tap those funds to meet the needs of that emergency.

What this amendment would do is really kind of change that whole part of it.

It would essentially create like two rainy day fund.

So the rainy day fund is mostly, you know, geared towards budget deficits.

This would be also geared towards budget deficits, not other kinds of emergencies.

So, for instance, if we're in a big budget deficit, you could tap the rainy day fund up to the amount that's allowable and then go into this other fund and tap it for that purpose, too.

But you couldn't use it for some other type of emergency that showed up.

And we've had some recently in terms of things that happened during COVID and from some other old hurricane related things.

So the way it is right now, there's more flexibility.

But the way that I think this amendment would take it would limit it to some very specific budget circumstances.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for going through all of these.

And explaining it for our viewers.

Oh, glad to do it.

Across Louisiana, thousands of unmarked or abandoned graves are at risk of being lost to history.

In 2008, the Louisiana legislature voted to establish the Louisiana Register of Historic Cemeteries to identify at risk gravesites.

Almost 15 years later, documentation efforts are underway to build a database of gravesites.

I visited one of the hundreds of cemeteries outliving its community.

That's part of a statewide effort to learn more about where the bodies are buried.

Down the gravel road in Pointe Coupee that runs along the railroad tracks lies a cemetery hidden in a sugar cane field.

Many of the headstones are so weathered, eroded by time that you can't read the names and the dates.

The false River Station cemetery holds buried bodies from a bygone community.

So, Henry, you are the self-anointed caretaker of the cemetery, right?

Yeah.

I'm one that knows a lot of family members have been buried here over the years, So I'm dealing with a lot of older people that's trying to care for the cemetery, and they're trying to.

But you got to realize, this is in the eighties.

Henry Watson comes out here weekly to clean and care for more than 200 headstones.

He and members of the nearby Whyalla United Methodist Church volunteer to protect and preserve the cemetery.

He worries that without a database, these graves and the history of this community will be forgotten.

Train brought a lot of families here.

People were looking for jobs and places to work.

And so you think about back in the day doing the logging community, because not far from here it was a logging town.

So they came here by train and they built up and lived and made a community, got here looking for work back in the day.

But as times change.

Houses gone.

Buildings gone.

And places are going slow.

But the cemetery is still here, you see.

So now they're trying to care and take care.

And a lot of activities and things happen to old cemeteries when nobody is here to care for it.

A 1954 topographic map shows the cemetery with houses and land plots.

The last houses from this sawmill town adjacent to the cemetery were inhabited in the 1970s.

Quite a number of military headstones here in the False River Cemetery.

Then we got folks that are were born in the 1850s or died in the 1920s.

This really is the record of this community that is no longer here.

Bryan Davis is the executive director for the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation, which received a grant from the National Park Service to develop a database of gravesites.

Documenting where the bodies are buried across the state.

We really need a state database to know where cemeteries are for for tourism, for people that are doing genealogy, that want to find out where their ancestors are buried for maintenance, for when you have a pipeline or a road coming through infrastructure that's coming through to know that there might be a historic cemetery in the area.

If you buy a piece of property, you may not know that there's a cemetery on that land.

So as many different uses.

Somebody took a like a nail or something and they wrote the person name in there.

You know, they served a purpose back then because everybody knew who died.

It was there.

But now you're talking three generations later.

It█s faded, all from the concrete.

Across Louisiana, thousands of cemeteries are at risk of disappearing.

In Leeville headstones and brick vaults are sinking into Bayou Lafourche and the marsh submerged by Hurricane Ida in Catahoula parish.

Military headstones of former slaves who served in the Union Army during the Civil War rest amid corn and soybean fields on the anchor plantation.

Cemetery is really are like archives.

And so preserving that record and that knowledge is really important.

You can tell a lot about communities from cemeteries.

I mean, it really is.

It's a there's a language with cemeteries from symbolism to the people, the dates.

You could tell how prosperous they were a lot of times or what their social interests were with some of the the clubs and the like the Masons, Prince Hall, Masonic lodges, things like that.

And I think that just having respect for that and that's really about what a lot of this program is about, is actually acknowledging and respecting the the burials of our ancestors without a database of gravesites.

Many may be unknowingly paved over by commercial and residential development or mistakenly unearthed by road work, dredging or construction.

A statewide database will function as both a public service and a cultural resource.

These will all be by public nomination as well.

So anything a cemetery that is 50 years old or older has significant architectural features or has associated with an important person, will be able to be listed in that that database.

Meanwhile, Henry keeps watch over his grandfather's gravesite, hoping the story of this community will live on with future generations.

Somebody's history and lives is here, and so you have a place to come back to at some point.

But if nobody knows, it could just wither away and things start happening.

Most of us were taught the story of World War Two through the lens of the Holocaust and the massive human loss felt across nations.

But often the small anecdotal stories of human perseverance and grit are left out of the larger picture.

The National World War Two Museum in New Orleans aims to fill those gaps with its newest exhibition, Liberation Pavilion.

The price of freedom is never cheap.

It cost the U.S. more than 400,000 citizens during World War Two.

But beneath that figure was an even bigger socio economic change that lingers with us today.

But rarely do we learn about it.

We really never had anything that that gives people the context of how World War Two changed the world that they're living in today.

We are so indebted to the World War two generation and most people know very little bit about it.

And so here at the museum, it's our mission to carry on their legacy when they're not able to be able to say it.

Peter Crane is the vice president of education and Access at the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans.

He spent the past six years of his career trying to capture the sacrifice of World War Two veterans.

Not just the sheer number of losses, but the trickle down effects that create a reality.

The team at the museum finally settled on a three story 33,000 square foot exhibition, Liberation Pavilion.

It's the latest and final permanent installation.

The Liberation Pavilion is a wonderful new addition to the museum.

Our mission at the World War Two Museum is to tell America's story of the war, why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today.

The Liberation Pavilion goes directly to that, what it means today, part of our mission.

And that was something that was lacking before.

You know, people it was art.

We have exhibits that talk to the rise of Nazism and fascism, the why we were fighting the war.

Right.

And I know that I don't want to give anything away too soon.

But is there, I guess, a sneak peek that you can give to some people about, you know, what this does mean, what World War Two means for us sitting here talking?

Well, in very practical terms, if you just pull out your cell phone and look at it, there are at least six different technologies in that that came directly out of World War Two, that if those technologies had not come along, you would not have your cell phone today.

And that's one very practical reason.

But really, the social world that we live in, America's role in the greater world, the technologies that surround us, everyday life, things all can trace back to World War Two.

And the museum starts that lesson with the first room, you enter the cost of victory.

People tend to think in terms of the cost of victory, really only in human cost and which obviously it is.

That's why at the center of this exhibit, we have the transfer case of an American soldier who's had his farm.

His family asked that he be returned to Ohio and this is the actual case that his coffin came home in.

This is a very interesting one in itself.

The story of Sam Cordova.

We worked with a group and the American Battle Monuments Commission who run all the American military cemeteries overseas, worked with us and this other group to identify a service member who had been unidentified and was under a Latin cross for an unknown soldier for almost 80 years and almost 80 years to the week after he had died and was buried, he was reinterred with a star of David headstone because he was a Jewish soldier.

The rest of the first floor takes you to the Holocaust.

A dimly lit room reminds you of Anne Frank's story and the world response to her words.

Then the story begins to transition.

According to Mike Bell, the executive director of the museum's Research Institute.

We'll have a film experience that takes those oral histories on the day of and talk about the day of liberation from the perspective of the American liberators and those who were liberated.

The next two floors forced you to confront the postwar years.

It's about rebuilding the country and how World War Two strengthened America's fight for civil rights.

The exhibition leaves you with the idea that democracy was and still is worth fighting for.

What do you want people to take away from this new exhibit?

So in the end, I want people to believe and understand that World War II is relevant.

But that related to that is that the success, the Allied victory can't be just taken for granted, but it becomes a responsibility to follow through on that for future generations.

What a great tribute to our veterans and I am really looking forward to checking that out.

I am a museum guy, so I.

So am I.

So my and that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB any time, wherever you are with our LPB PBS app and 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 X and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Kara St. Cyr, and I█m Karen LeBlanc.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Zigler Foundation and the Zigler 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 y