Delta Grassroots Caucus Events

Credit Michael Hibblen/ KUAR News, Arkansas Public Radio; Former President Bill Clinton speaking to the Delta Grassroots Caucus on May 2, 2013, at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock

U. S. Senator John Boozman, Arkansas, at a Delta Grassroots Caucus meeting at the US Capitol

Brad Cole, Executive Director of the Municipal League of Illinois; previously a senior aide to former Republican US Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, earlier Mayor of Carbondale, Illinois, veteran Delta regional advocate, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

President Bill Clinton makes a comment to Delta Caucus Director Lee Powell at a meeting in Blytheville, Arkansas (in the northeast Arkansas Delta) on Nov. 2, 2014

The Delta Caucus would like to pay tribute to the late, great U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, a powerful force in the US Senate for decades and a champion for the Delta. Sen. Cochran passed away on May 30, 2019. He spoke to the Delta Caucus on many occasions over the years (he is pictured above speaking to a Caucus event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC) and his thoughtful, courteous and bipartisan leadership will be sorely missed.

Marcie Lawson, Executive Director, Sikeston, Missouri Regional Chamber and Area Economic Development Corporation, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Alan Gumbel, Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce, Memphis, Tennessee, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Mayor Shirley Washington of Pine Bluff, AR, speaking to the Delta Caucus at the Arkansas Capitol Rotunda in 2017.

Delta Queen Bill Passes US House by Voice Vote with no Opposition--Nov. 27, 2018

Posted on November 28, 2018 at 10:41 AM

“Delta Queen Supporters Win Historic Victory after 10-Year Struggle to Permit Historic Steamboat to Travel on Mississippi and its Tributaries”

Tuesday night the US House of Representatives passed by voice vote without opposition the Coast Guard Authorization Bill including language that will allow the Delta Queen to travel America’s rivers once again. This is the final Congressional vote on the legislation that the Delta Caucus and many other Delta Queen supporters have been supporting for 10 years now.

“The Delta Caucus would like to thank all of our grassroots supporters across the region for never giving up on the Delta Queen for so many years and through so many disappointments. We have won and it was worth all the hard work,” said Lee Powell, Delta Caucus director.

Passage of the bill means that the Delta Queen will return to its travels on the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio rivers. The boat has an exemplary safety record, there will be additional layers of safety precautions added by the ownership, the boat is a national historic icon that will educate many people across the country about the great legacy of steamboating, and it will generate tourist dollars in the many ports where it stops.

Cities where the boat will stop will include New Orleans and other Louisiana destinations, Helena, Pine Bluff, Little Rock, Memphis, Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Paducah, Kentucky, Cincinnati and many other cities along the Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.

With the voice vote passage in the House without opposition and the Senate’s earlier overwhelming passage by 94 to 6, President Trump is expected to sign the Coast Guard Authorization bill that included the provision allowing the Delta Queen to travel once again across America’s inland waterways.

Kudos to Cornel Martin, CEO of the Delta Queen company, and the many grassroots supporters from the Delta Caucus and other organizations who have fought so hard to keep the boat traveling on America’s inland waterways over the past 10 years, despite many trials and tribulations.

Cornel Martin will be doing a system of upgrades to the boat, including new boilers, generators, rebuilding the paddlewheel, adding more exit routes, and the bill requires 10% of the wooden or other parts of the boat to be replaced with non-combustible materials each year.

“Cornel Martin has gone above and beyond the call of duty in adding layer after layer of safety precautions to a boat that already had an excellent safety record,” Powell said.

This will create 150 jobs as well as generating tourist dollars in places where the boat will stop like Helena, Pine Bluff, Little Rock, Memphis and many other ports on the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio rivers.