Bob Livingston is finally starting to get his due.
On Monday, the longtime former congressman was told that the University of New Orleans will name the East Campus of the UNO Research Park in his honor. Granted, I’m biased, because Livingston is my former boss; but just about anyone of good sense would say this recognition is richly deserved.
Livingston, who chaired the House Appropriations Committee from 1995 through 1998 and served on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee for 14 years, spent tremendous time and effort for eight years to consolidate the U.S. Navy’s nationwide information systems into two buildings, 100,000 square feet each, at UNO’s Research and Technology Park.
The direct funding for the project amounted to $220 million, and a UNO study shows the ongoing, operational economic impact to Louisiana has topped another $350 million. This wasn’t just some sort of local “pork” spending; instead, it met an urgent national need. (About which, more momentarily.)
This project was typical for Livingston, who (while cutting federal spending overall) arguably brought home more money to Louisiana than anyone in the state’s history. Even as he did, in almost every instance his modus operandi — as I saw personally in five years on his Capitol Hill staff — was not just to lard up spending bills with purely local projects. Instead, he would identify existing funding streams or demonstrably national needs and then match those streams or needs with Louisiana’s capabilities.
Quin Hillyer
If the federal government was building interstate highways, Livingston made sure sound barriers protected nearby neighborhoods from roadway noise. Because grant money already existed for urban transportation and historic preservation, Livingston directed it, with assiduous personal attention, to expand New Orleans’ streetcar lines. As flood protection already was a national priority, Livingston worked to use it not just against storm surge but to stem urban flooding in southeast Louisiana.
Avondale Shipyards, the Naval Air Station in Belle Chasse, The National WWII Museum, the Mandeville seawall, Formosan termite relief, the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge and the hurricane air reconnaissance flights from neighboring Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi: All owed much of their success, or even their very existence, to Livingston’s work. The same went for other Louisiana interests beyond his district, such as funding for Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City.
The Navy info-tech headquarters at UNO, though, stands out. To quote from the UNO resolution honoring Livingston, “Following the 1990-91 Desert Storm Gulf War, the Navy identified critical deficiencies in its ability to timely and effectively deploy active duty and reserve personnel due to hundreds of disjointed information systems and disconnected data bases.”
In other words, this was a major problem for national defense. Livingston, seeing this problem and already being a champion of the Naval Reserve headquarters in New Orleans, sprang into action. As there was an unambiguous national need and a local capability, Livingston matched them up. If the Navy needed to consolidate its info systems anyway, bygosh, that consolidation should occur in Louisiana.
Through Livingston’s work on the Appropriations Committee, so it was.
“The valuable work being done at the tech park at UNO would not even exist if not for Bob Livingston’s vision and tenacity,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who represents the same First Congressional District Livingston did.
In other states, all sorts of buildings and projects are named for members of Congress. In Alabama, there’s a running joke that universities may have trouble finding enough students to fill all the college buildings named after former Sen. Richard Shelby. Here in Louisiana, the name of the recently deceased Sen. Bennett Johnston already graces a waterway, a Southern University of Shreveport video-conferencing room and a Tulane University quadrangle, among other things.
To be sure, many of us are wary of naming too many things after politicians. It’s our taxpayer money, not their own, that they are distributing. I long have thought there should be a rule of thumb that no project secured with taxpayer funds should be named after a pol until at least ten years after the pol’s retirement. There shouldn’t be incentives for lawmakers to use tax dollars to feed their own egos.
Then again, once the politician is long out of power, if local committees want to surprise him (as was the case here) with an honor for exemplary public service — and when, indeed, the work being honored was admirable and noteworthy — then it’s great to see recognition come due.
Bob Livingston was a force for good government nationally, and a force for the good of Louisiana. The UNO campus shouldn’t be the last thing his name adorns.