The question of air conditioning in prisons has become an issue. CNN reports that advocates are asking a federal judge to order all juveniles immediately transferred out of Angola and into children’s facilities. “They’re in excessive Louisiana heat for days on end with no relief,” said Nancy Rosenbloom, senior litigation adviser of the ACLU National Prison Project, who told The Guardian the water in their cells was not drinkable. “The kids are telling us they have to hold out a cup through the bars to ask for water.”
TNR did find one Louisiana Republican, Representative Julia Letlow, who agreed that her state’s prisons should be air conditioned. “Gosh, well, a heat wave is hot, so yeah,” Letlow replied. Bayou State Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who once treated patients in Angola, suggested cooling down the prisoners by “spraying water” from a “garden hose or lawn sprinkler” to lower the temperature. “I got nothing for you on that,” said John Kennedy, the other Louisiana senator, when asked if the state’s prisons should be air conditioned.
“Sure it’s very, very hot in Texas,” said Ted Cruz, the junior senator from the Lone Star State where 100,000 inmates are without air conditioning, according to a report by Texas Public Radio. Like Scalise, Cruz wouldn’t hear of attributing the heat to climate change. “There are lots of people who have political agendas, and whatever happens with the weather they attribute to climate change,” lamented Cruz. “That’s not science, it’s ideology.”