LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

Published: May 19, 2026

By: Gracie Thomas and Avery White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — After 58% of voters rejected a constitutional amendment Saturday that would have given public school teachers a permanent pay raise, the chances of finding money for any types of raises have dimmed, lawmakers say.

Voters also shot down four other constitutional amendments proposed by Gov. Jeff Landry and the Legislature.

Constitutional Amendment No. 3 sought to fund a $2,250 teacher pay raise and a $1,125 support staff pay raise by dissolving three education trust funds, using that money to pay down the debt of the Teachers’ Retirement System. Those savings would have been allocated for the pay increase.

Teachers had hoped that the Legislature, which is in session through June 1, might find some money for a raise if the amendment failed. But given a recent drop in projected state tax revenues, lawmakers say voters probably had the final say on the matter.

“If the people of Louisiana vote not to give teachers a pay raise, then the Legislature can’t come behind them and say ‘Oh, then we’ll do it,’” Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said last week.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: May 14, 2026

By: Sheridan White, Kylah Babin, Avery White and Gracie Thomas, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – The Senate voted 27-10 along party lines Thursday to advance to the House a new voting map that favors Republican candidates in five of Louisiana’s six congressional districts.

After a contentious, 9 1/2-hour meeting in the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee that lasted throughout the night until early morning Wednesday, the Senate met for four hours Thursday and advanced the 5-1 map outlined in Senate Bill 121 by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe.

Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, and Sen. Larry Selders, D-Baton Rouge, were the lone senators who did not vote. Selders has been recuperating from health issues.

Morris said he created the new map based on party affiliation rather than race, which was the guiding principle highlighted by the Supreme Court in its decision in Callais v. Louisiana, which indicated race could not be used as the primary factor in drawing congressional maps.

“It’s perfectly fine for us to redraw maps based upon politics,” Morris said. “Since I am a Republican and believe in the policies that Republicans often advance, these maps are drawn to maximize Republican advantage for the incumbent Republicans that we have in Congress at the present time.”

Read more at KTBS.

Published: May 14, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth and Veronica Camenzuli, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – A 5-1 congressional redistricting map will go before the Senate floor on Thursday, but not without continued pushback from Black legislators and the public.

The new map maintains District 1, represented by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and District 4, held by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, but splits East Baton Rouge Parish into two congressional districts, causing uncertainty regarding the House seats of two Louisiana Democrats, Rep. Troy Carter and Rep. Cleo Fields.

The House and Senate agreed on Wednesday to set new election dates for the U.S. House seats for Nov. 3 under an open primary system. The new qualifying period for candidates would be from Aug. 5-7.

Gov. Jeff Landry must sign the bill for the dates and process to go into effect. The adjustment would be solely for this election cycle.

Under the new map, Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, and Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, two of the four Republican candidates in the race for District 5, would live outside the areas they seek to represent.

Read more at Livingston Parish News.

Published: May 13, 2026

By: Avery White, Gracie Thomas and Sheridan White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — At 4:25 a.m. Wednesday – following a marathon, overnight hearing – a Senate committee approved new Congressional maps for Louisiana, sending the bill to the full Senate.

A bill eliminating one of Louisiana’s two majority-Democratic districts advanced from a Senate committee on a 4-3 vote early Wednesday morning following more than nine hours of testimony, setting the stage for Republican voting majorities in five of the state’s six congressional districts. 

The vote, which came at 4:25 a.m. Wednesday, amid a packed hearing room filled with bleary-eyed participants, is the next step in a tense redistricting battle following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 29 declaring one of Louisiana’s two Democratic districts unconstitutional for racial gerrymandering. 

The 5-1 map created by Senate Bill 121, authored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, was one of two presented to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. The other bill, SB 407 by Sen. Edward Price, D-Gonzales, which failed on a 4-3 vote, would have maintained two Democratic-majority districts.

“We’re a democracy, and democracy rules,” Morris said, explaining why Republicans had the power under the Supreme Court ruling to establish the new districts. “The Greeks invented it, and that means majority rules. If the minority doesn’t like it, I understand they don’t like it.”

Read more at WWLTV.

Published: May 14, 2026

By: Avery White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — A bill to protect university faculty academic speech died in a Senate committee Tuesday.

The House bill authored by Rep. Chuck Owen, R-Rosepine, in its original form would have prohibited professors from receiving punishments for things said in the classroom or research topics. However, it was heavily watered down before advancing from the House floor.

The bill was kept in committee by Senate Judiciary A, on a 4-1 vote.

“I’m very frustrated,” Owen said.

As created, the bill provided protections and civil remedies for university staff who faced retributive action based on academic speech, allowing for punitive damages up to $500,000 and fines up to $100,000 against the university.

Read more at The News Star.

Published: May 12, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – A House resolution directing auditors to determine how much state and federal money has been spent on programs requiring Louisiana universities to increase the number of minority students survived after a tense debate in the House Appropriations Committee Monday.

Rep. Aimee Adatto Freeman and Rep. Alonzo Knox, two New Orleans Democrats, moved to involuntarily defer, or effectively kill, the resolution. But the committee voted 11-7 Monday to send the measure to the House Committee on Education for further discussion.

The resolution defines “underrepresented minorities” as all races other than white or Asian and includes students who are non-residents or whose race is either unknown or not reported.

If the full House were to pass the resolution, it would direct auditors at the Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversees higher education, and university systems to tally funds expended by from 2021 to 2026 for staffing, programming, technology and grants aimed at increasing minority enrollment.

Rep. Jack “Jay” William Gallé, Jr., R-Mandeville, on behalf of Rep. Josh Carlson, a Republican from Lafayette, who authored the bill, said the resolution was good practice.

Read more at KATC.

Published: May 11, 2026

By: Veronica Camenzuli, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – Republican Monroe state Sen. Jay Morris said someone left a voice mail threatening a mass shooting at his legislative office after he was accused by the Democratic Party of using a racial slur toward a Black party executive in a tense public hearing May 8.

Morris said he didn’t refer to Democratic Party executive director Dadrius Lanus as “boy” as the party accused, and a review of the audio and video from the hearing appears to back him up.

The May 8 hearing was to consider a bill from Morris to redraw Louisiana’s unconstitutional congressional map that will almost certainly reduce the state’s majority Black districts from two to one or zero.

Morris did turn to the audience that included Lanus during the May 8 hearing and say, “Y’all need to shut up.”

In a speech on the Senate floor May 11, Morris blamed the Democratic Party for advancing what he told USA Today Network is a lie.

Read more at Shreveport Times.

Published: May 11, 2026

By: Veronica Camenzuli, Gracie Thomas and Avery White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – After a tumultuous day-long hearing Friday, lawmakers will try to break through the tension this week and propose new maps for Louisiana’s six congressional districts.

A Senate panel is expected to resume debate Wednesday, and what it decides could largely carry through both chambers as the Legislature scrambles to draw new maps before the session ends June 1.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently declared that Louisiana’s current mix, with four Republican districts and two Black-majority ones, was unconstitutional. The ruling struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with six of the nine justices saying racial factors could no longer play a significant role in drawing the maps.

Noting that one-third of the state’s residents are Black, minority leaders testified in favor of keeping the two majority-Black districts, while dozens of their supporters in the hallways shouted “shut it down” as the Senate and Governmental Affairs committee also considered maps with 5-1 and 6-0 Republican advantages.

“Today, here in Louisiana we’re being tested, and the whole world is watching,” said U.S. Rep Troy Carter, a Democrat from New Orleans. “The question before us is not merely about lines on a map. The question before us is whether we will honor the principle that every citizen deserves equal protection of the law.”

Read more at KATC.

Published: May 8, 2026

By: Veronica Camenzuli, Gracie Thomas and Avery White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — A debate over choosing Louisiana’s new congressional district maps grew heated between state senators inside a Senate committee room and as a protest developed in the hallway outside Friday.

The meeting, which included comments from the public criticizing the idea of decreasing Louisiana’s Black majority districts, lasted over eight hours, and the committee had two recesses to ease rising tensions.

There were several overflow rooms for the crowd of people who came to speak in support and opposition of maps that would have two Black majority districts or eliminate one or all minority districts.

The crowd included dozens of people spilling out into the hallways listening in via a Bluetooth speaker brought by a member of the public.

The meeting of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee centered on whether Louisiana should have six solidly Republican districts, revert to one majority Black Democrat and five Republican districts like the previous congressional map, or keep two majority Black Democrat districts.

Read more at WWLTV.

Published: May 7, 2026

By: Sheridan White, Kylah Babin and Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – As Louisiana lawmakers draw new congressional maps, one concern is how the changes might affect the districts of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and dilute Republican support in other areas, legislators said.

Prodded by President Donald Trump, national Republican leaders have urged lawmakers in politically red states to create as many Republican districts as they can to try to maintain control of the U.S. House.

After the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana map with four Republican and two Democratic districts, the Republican-led state Legislature is facing pressure from some conservative groups to draw new maps that could represent a clean 6-0 Republican sweep.

But some lawmakers, lobbyists and political consultants say that creating six Republican districts could fan racial tensions and leave some districts with a small margin for error and the possibility of Democratic upsets in future elections.

Reverting to a 5-1 map similar to what Louisiana had two years ago, they say, might enable Republicans to create five districts that would be almost impossible for the Democrats to breach.

Read more at WBRZ.