
Tryfon Boukouvidis, Paul Braun and Drew White
At the outset of the third special legislative session this year, Gov. John Bel Edwards chided a group of House Republicans Monday for having blocked efforts to raise revenue to avoid budget cuts and said this was the “last chance” to solve the problem.
“Over the past several months, partisan politics have infested this building in a way we have never seen before,” Edwards said in an address to the Legislature. He added that “the constant mix of partisan angling” was “simply inexcusable.”
Edwards, a Democrat, also took a shot at national conservative groups that have tried to rally Republicans to stop the Legislature from extending any portion of an extra penny of sales tax that expires on July 1.
He said he hoped more lawmakers would “turn a deaf ear to the out-of-state special interest groups who threaten to influence our discourse.”
Read the story in The Donaldsonville Chief.