• By GERARD SHIELDS
• Advocate Washington bureau
• Published: Feb 9, 2010 - Page: 1A

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WASHINGTON — Having a sister that serves as the chairwoman of the U.S. Senate disaster recovery subcommittee can’t be too bad for a guy who will soon become mayor of a city still reeling from a disastrous hurricane nearly five years ago.

The pairing of Democratic Lt. Gov. and now New Orleans mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu and his sister, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, is expected to create a hot line connection from New Orleans to Washington that officials say could significantly help the city’s hurricane recovery.

“They’ve been talking about it over the dinner table. They’ve lived it,” Walter Leger, a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said Monday of the recovery issues. “They’ll have the chance to see the solutions in a similar way.”

Sen. Landrieu on Monday listed shoring up city levees, enhancing the public school system, reducing crime and the recreation of the city’s medical community as the top of the list in city needs.

Though the Democrat said she has tried to work with all state and local officials, Landrieu acknowledged that working with her brother will be special.

“I was helpful as I could be to Mayor Nagin and other leaders of the community,” Landrieu said. “But clearly the relationship I have with Mitch will go beyond our personal relationship.”

Working as a team to cut through federal bureaucracy will be crucial, Landrieu said.

“It’s just organization, the help that makes it work on the ground,” Landrieu said Monday. “Mitch can articulate to Washington what’s going on.”

The ties will be particularly helpful in the arena of education, said Walter Isaacson, former vice chairman of the LRA and head of Washington’s Aspen Institute think tank.

“Mary has been a national leader on school reform,” Isaacson said Monday. “This will be a real team for school reform.”

Sen. Landrieu was not as visible in her brother’s campaign. Landrieu supported the Senate health-care bill, which is unpopular in Louisiana and whose opposition by voters in Massachusetts was credited in the victory of Republican Scott Brown.

Landrieu has been hammered for her support of the bill after she secured $300 million for Louisiana’s insurance program for the poor, Medicaid.

“The last thing you need is more controversy,” Ed Renwick, retired political scientist from Loyola University, said of Mitch Landrieu’s campaign.