Author: manshipxgr

By: James A. Smith & Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 7, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A House committee approved a bill on Tuesday that would limit Louisiana’s sentencing law for repeat offenders only to violent crimes.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Randal Gaines, D-LaPlace, is part of an effort to expand the overhaul of Louisiana’s criminal justice system that began in 2017. It also would sharply reduce the number of people serving lengthy incarcerations.

The bill passed without objection in the House Committee of Administration of Criminal Justice.

Louisiana still has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates even though Gov. John Bel Edwards and Republican lawmakers agreed on a package of criminal justice reforms two years ago.

In June 2018, the state’s prison ratio was 712 per 100,000 residents, which was significantly higher than the national average of 415 per 100,000 residents in state and federal prisons, according to data from the Pew Charitable Trusts and U.S. Census Bureau.

Last November, voters eliminated Louisiana’s Jim Crow-era law that allowed people to be convicted of felonies even if only 10 of the 12 jurors voted to convict them.

“Longer sentences are not a factor in deterring crime,” said Rep. Gaines. “Longer sentences overburden our prisons and budgets.”

Read more in KALB.

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 6, 2019

BATON ROUGE – A bid to ban abortions after six weeks in Louisiana moved one step closer to being placed on the governor’s desk.

The Louisiana Senate signaled strong bipartisan support in a 31-5 vote in favor of the “fetal heartbeat” bill by Democratic Sen. John Milkovich of Shreveport.

The proposed legislation would ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat in the womb, usually at around six weeks. The bill now moves to the House.

Shortly before the Senate passed the bill, it overwhelmingly rejected a bill aimed at abolishing the death penalty.

This rejection followed an emotional hearing in a Senate judiciary committee last week that had supported an end to capital punishment.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, needed the approval of 26 senators to pass, but received support from only 13.

Proponents of the bill argued that the Louisiana Public Defender Board has spent $111 million on death penalty cases since 2008, and only one person has been executed since then.

Read more in Fox8 News.

By: Madeline Meyer and Sheridan Wall, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 7, 2019

BATON ROUGE — A state education board defied House leaders Tuesday and refused to back down from its proposal for $39 million in state aid to schools even though that could put a teacher pay raise in jeopardy.

The move sets up the biggest showdown of the legislative session. Gov. John Bel Edwards is backing the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education against House leaders who also support a teacher pay hike but do not want to give local school districts more money.

By law, the board sets the amount of state money to be provided to schools, and the Legislature can only vote that up or down. So if the board does not back down, any raise that the Legislature approves for teachers would be just a one-time stipend and not a permanent part of their paychecks.

Teachers, representatives from education advocacy groups and school superintendents all told the board Tuesday that they were willing to take that risk because the school districts have not had an increase in state aid in a decade.

Deborah Meaux, the president of the Louisiana Association of Educators, which lobbies for K-12 employees, said that BESE’s proposal “is the best plan that can make sure it is sustainable and we are not back here again next year asking for the same money.”

“We don’t want a one-and-done,” she said. “We want to make sure investment in education is ongoing,”

Read more in The Bossier Press-Tribune.

By: Lauren Heffker, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 6, 2019

A House committee voted on Monday to approve a bill that would give Louisiana’s legislative auditor access to taxpayer data to verify Medicaid eligibility.

The bill, part of a Republican effort to tighten management of the program, advanced 11-3 to the full House.

Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, sponsored the bill. A similar proposal died in committee last year.

This year’s bill would give the state auditor access to income tax data to help detect fraud in Medicaid enrollment. Similar legislation exists in 35 states.

At the heart of the partisan debate are arguments about citizens’ information privacy and state government oversight of social welfare programs.

Edwards, a Democrat, has stressed the importance of keeping the federally funded Medicaid Expansion program, which provides health insurance for low income residents.

Republicans and the legislative auditor have attacked the health department’s management of the program. The department recently kicked 30,000 people off the rolls, saying that some of them earned over $100,000 a year.

“We found thousands of people that make between $50,000 to $80,000,” Bacala said. “We’re not taking from the poor. We’re taking people off the rolls who have been stealing from the poor.”

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: Madeline Meyer, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 6, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The House Appropriations Committee on Monday advanced a $30 billion state operating budget that would include $1,200 raises for public school teachers and $600 raises for support staff.

That marked an increase from the $1,000 raises for K-12 teachers and $500 for support workers that Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has proposed. The higher raises would cost an additional $20 million.

But the committee, led by Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, rejected the governor’s proposal for a $39 million increase in funding for operating the schools.

That rejection came in a 17-3 vote shooting down amendments proposed by one of the governor’s floor leaders.

The committee also increased funding for higher education and fully funded the popular TOPS scholarships for college students.

The House is expected to vote on the budget on Thursday. Edwards also could make another push for more state aid to K-12 schools when the bill reaches the Senate.

Read more in KALB.

By: Madeline Meyer, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 2, 2019

BATON ROUGE — The Senate Education Committee voted 6-1 Thursday to approve the governor’s proposal to provide a $39 million boost in K-12 education funding.

The controversial bill is moving to the Senate floor with possible review by the Senate Finance Committee. It remains unclear if Republican House leaders will endorse the bill.

Gov. John Bel Edwards — whose re-election campaign has stressed support for education, including $1,000 teacher pay raises and $500 for support workers — praised the Senate committee’s vote.

Garry Jones, the president of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, spoke on behalf of the bill.

Barry Dusse, director of the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, said amendments to the governor’s overall state budget proposal would allow for the $39 million fund. Dusse said the money would come from the Department of Health and $15 million in savings from other agencies.

Teachers unions support the plans. But some teachers are concerned that the raises are not high enough.

“I have watched as the state has demanded more from our students and teachers in terms of testing, while contributing little in the way of additional resources to meet the rise in expectation,“ Belinda Davis, an LSU professor and the president of the public school advocacy group One Community, One School District, said in support of the bill.

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: Sheridan Wall, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 1, 2019

BATON ROUGE — Lawmakers are looking for ways to train more information-technology experts and bolster the state’s cyber defenses.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat running for re-election, has promoted the state’s need to build an IT and cybersecurity infrastructure, and the House Appropriations Committee considered bills this week to help achieve this goal.

The committee advanced a proposal by Rep. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, to create the Louisiana Cybersecurity Talent Initiative Fund. If approved by the full Legislature, it would appropriate more money for degree and certificate programs related to cybersecurity and information technology.

“Cybersecurity is the new frontier,” Abraham said. “For once, can Louisiana be on the cutting edge of something new?”

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: James Smith, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 30, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A Louisiana House committee approved a bill that would enact the Allen Toussaint Legacy Act, outlawing the use of a deceased individual’s name, image and likeness without the consent of the individual’s family or representative.

House Bill 377, named after a famous New Orleans musician, seeks to prevent the exploitation of Louisiana’s cultural assets and ensure the protection of performers’ identities.

An unlicensed merchandiser selling “koozies” – fabric or foam sleeves used to keep beverages chilled – featuring Toussaint’s image at the 2016 Jazz Fest, months after the singer’s death, inspired Tim Kappel, a music business attorney and Loyola professor, to push for the bill.

Currently, Louisiana does not protect the publicity rights of a deceased individual, so Toussaint’s family did not receive any benefit from the merchandiser.

This measure, which has been debated since 2017, seeks to change that.

“It struck me as odd that there would be people out there merchandizing his name, image and likeness without the consent of the family, which I assumed had not been granted,” Kappel said

Read more in The Advocate.

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 30, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A new effort to abolish the state’s death penalty advanced Tuesday with a 4-2 Senate committee vote on a bill proposed by Republican State Sen. Dan Claitor.

Louisiana is one of 31 states that permits capital punishment. Similar efforts to ban the death penalty have failed in recent years as they went through the legislative process.

Under this year’s bill, voters would decide whether to change Louisiana’s constitution to make it illegal to execute criminals for any offense committed on or after January 1, 2021. Judiciary Committee C also passed an amendment that would include the bill on the 2020 presidential ballot for voters to decide.

At the hearing, Morrell stressed that there have been numerous death row inmates who were later found to be innocent and that the states’ resources to convict someone are infinite but often unjust.

“In order for the death penalty to even be considered as a functional outreach of what government should do, you have to start from the position that you believe the government is infallible,” Morrell said. “If you do not hold that government gets it right every single time, then death should not be on the table.”

Read more in KALB.

By: Trey Couvillion, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 23, 2019

BATON ROUGE–Popular ridesharing apps Uber and Lyft might soon pick up passengers in all corners of the state, as legislators advanced a bill Tuesday that would expand the services statewide.

The proposed legislation, authored by Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma, would expand services of Uber, the industry’s leader, and Lyft, the second-largest rideshare app beyond some of the state’s biggest cities.

The Department of Transportation and Development would have authority to regulate the industry on a statewide level while not disturbing the rules set by some cities.

The House Transportation Committee debated the bill for more than an hour, with lawmakers stressing the importance of consistent vetting processes and arguing about whether DOTD reviews of drivers’ records should make them public.

Read more in KALB.