LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

Published: March 5, 2026

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

BATON ROUGE–The crawfish industry is facing a labor shortage due to federal immigration caps as the state enters the start of the harvesting season, Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain said in a House committee meeting on Tuesday.

Most of the seasonal workers employed by the state’s crawfish peeling and packing facilities are authorized to work temporarily in the U.S., and this year, many of them are being denied visas to work, leaving the packing facilities without a workforce and causing a few to close their doors for the season.

“My personal constituent had to close four other locations and only can operate one because he can’t get the workers that he normally has no problem getting,” Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Bossier, told Strain in the hearing.

Read more at Shreveport Times.

Published: March 4, 2026

By: Sheldon “Trey” Vice III, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple is working with a national panel of insurance commissioners to establish a targeted discount rate for homeowners who install a fortified roof.

The benchmarks will be minimum discounts on homeowner policies that insurance providers are required to meet unless they can provide evidence that offering those rates is financially impossible or would be harmful to the company.

In an earlier interview with the LSU Manship School News Service, Temple had said the department would ask companies to “begin the discounts between a 20% to 30% range.”

More recently, he said the department is still determining the discount target. He said initial studies would be completed by the end of this week.

“Based on those studies, we will then set the benchmarks,” he said.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: March 3, 2026

By: Gracie Thomas, Kylah Babin, AnnMarie Bedard and Dakota Laszlo, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–State Senate President Cameron Henry and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier both expressed concern Monday about a spate of bills that might give communities veto power over carbon capture projects in their areas.

The push for a local option follows growing concerns of residents, landowners and environmentalists in Louisiana about the possible health implications of having the carbon capture and storage projects nearby.

Carbon capture is the process of capturing carbon dioxide at emission sources, transporting it and then storing or burying it in a deep, underground location.

DeVillier, R-Eunice, said more than 20 bills have been filed in the House that he would consider “anti-carbon capture.” DeVillier said he wants to ensure that the new technology is handled safely but also in accordance with guidance from the Supreme Court, “that says states nor local governments should interfere with interstate commerce. I mean, that is exactly what local option is,” he said.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: February 25, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Secretary of State Nancy Landry said this week that $25 million more is needed to cover the $100 million cost of replacing Louisiana’s 35-year-old ballot machines.

The system would consist of new touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots and have climate-controlled facilities for storage. Additional expenses would maintain cybersecurity protections and allow for risk-limiting audits, which are considered the top standard for voter integrity.

“Louisiana voters have consistently indicated that they want a system that combines the speed of modern technology with the security of a voter-verifiable paper ballot, as required by state law,” Landry told the Senate Finance Committee on Monday.

The paper ballots will allow voters to verify their choices before casting.

Landry also told the committee that her agency’s investigators had identified 403 non-citizens who were registered to vote in Louisiana. Eighty-three of them had voted in at least one election, she said.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: February 24, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–In 2016, Louisiana faced a $2 billion budget gap, and lawmakers decided they could no longer afford to lock so many people up.

But in 2024, after a nationwide crime spike during the COVID pandemic, Gov. Jeff Landry reversed many of the changes, pushing through laws to keep offenders in jail longer, sending more juveniles to adult prisons and limiting the possibility of parole.

Now costs are rising again, fueled by an increase in the state’s prison population and the price of housing offenders in local facilities.

Landry has proposed a new state budget and penciled in an $82 million increase to cover local offender housing, administrative costs to oversee parole and probation and prisons, and housing for immigrant detainees.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: February 24, 2026

By: Gracie Thomas, Dakota Laszlo, and Kylah Babin, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Federal and state budgeting policies could force Louisiana into structural budget shortfalls approaching $300 million in fiscal 2027 and more than $1 billion by 2029, the director of a nonpartisan think tank, Invest in Louisiana, told the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday.

“These aren’t my numbers,” said Jan Moller, the group’s executive director and a former statehouse reporter for The Times-Picayune. He said the numbers come from the state Legislative Fiscal Office and the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee.

Moller said the shortfall predictions are based on what he called “simple math.”

“State revenues peaked in 2024 and are slowly going down, certainly on an inflation-adjusted basis,” Moller said. “And the projected costs of running state government are going up.”

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: February 18, 2026

By: Avery White, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Every time legislation is on the floor, there are always voices echoing through the chambers, firing off questions and pushing perspectives not in lockstep with the majority.

These days, the opposing voices in the sea of noise are usually Democrats, who total only 39 of the 137 members of the Louisiana Legislature. Making up just under 30% of the collective, they are almost always outvoted now.

Their numbers have dwindled since Louisiana began to shift in the early 2000s from a majority Democratic state to majority Republican. And so has their ability to be involved in compromises since Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards gave way to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in early 2024.

Yet, they keep fighting, whether it’s to stand up for their constituents on issues like education or health care or to lay the groundwork for legal challenges to some new laws.

“You’re fighting for the people that sent you there, and as long as they see you fighting, it’s important that we continue to tell their stories,” said Rep. Venessa LaFleur, D-Baton Rouge. “That we continue to fight for them, knowing what the outcome is. But that doesn’t lessen the fight that is within us.”

Read more at KATC.

Published: February 16, 2026

By: Kylah Babin, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — When people think of Jack McFarland, they think of the clean-cut, white-haired logger from Winnfield who knows the state budget inside and out as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. What many don’t know is that his career in politics came from something as simple as doing others’ laundry.

When McFarland worked behind the drive-thru window at his dry-cleaning business in Winnfield, Louisiana, he would strike up conversations with customers, including the mayor and sheriff.

“It puts you in the middle of all the politics,” McFarland said. “I met a lot of people.”

He would listen to the complaints the officials had about one another. Then, he would help negotiate solutions.

Read more at The Daily Advertiser.

Published: February 11, 2026

By: Courtney Bell, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Julie Emerson was only 27 when she became the youngest Republican woman elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. 

Over the last two years, she emerged as one of Gov. Jeff Landry’s floor leaders, helping to push through ambitious proposals to flatten personal income tax rates, expand state funding for private school tuition and redesign how Louisiana holds some of its elections. On Tuesday, Landry brought Emerson, now 37, into his administration as his new chief of staff.

How did Emerson, who also was the first woman to chair a finance committee in the Legislature, accomplish so much at such a young age?

Lawmakers say she thinks big and sweats the details. She likes to talk things over with other lawmakers to try to get them on the same page. And though deeply conservative, she has been willing to reach out to Democrats to discuss their concerns.

“Julie’s a legislator that has just a very unique ability to bring legislation that is transformative to our state and actually see it all the way through to become law,” House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said in a recent interview.

Read more at Biz.

Published: February 10, 2026

By: AnnMarie Bedard, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–After running into resistance from lawmakers last year, Gov. Jeff Landry is once again asking the Legislature to double the size of a program to let parents use state funding to send their children to private schools.

Landry sought $93.5 million last year for the LA Gator voucher program but received only $43.5 million. He is asking the Legislature to add $44.2 million to that amount in this spring’s session.

But key lawmakers, including State Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, remain skeptical about committing additional funds. And teachers’ unions oppose the plan out of fear that it will lead to cutbacks in public school funding around the state.

With the budget expected to be tight in the upcoming session, LA GATOR will serve as an important measure of Landry’s influence over the Legislature, where his fellow Republicans hold more than two-thirds of the seats.

Read more at KATC.