It is important to note that there are very few differences among Louisiana voters regardless of their political party, race, and gender in terms of how they see these issues. People who live of every region in the state and from every walk of life want our elected officials to address these issues in a meaningful way. A year has passed since the 1995 state elections, and people can now begin judging how well our newly-elected officials and legislators are performing on the key issues. It appears voters are not fully satisfied. In the citizens' view, our elected leaders and representatives only performed about average on some issues and below average on the others.
Real progress is yet to come.
Perhaps the most compelling indication of whether elected officials are meeting citizens' minimum expectations is to look at the gap between how important citizens say an issue is and how state politicians are performing on the same issue. A wide gap between importance and performance reveals where expectations are not being met. But, voters also believe that their elected leaders have fallen short in addressing the issues of managing state money, reforming education and reducing crime. The Gambling Issue Regulating and restricting gambling has the narrowest gap between importance and performance. This indicates that some progress is being made on citizens' expectations.