By Katie Gagliano
Rep. Valarie Hodges’ efforts to prevent the Louisiana Deferred Compensation Plan from investing in companies boycotting Israel were squelched in the House following more than an hour of heated debate when an amendment by Slidell Republican Kevin Pearson stripped mention of Israel and boycotting from the bill, all but gutting it.
Read the story in The Monroe News Star
By Caitie Burkes
The Louisiana Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would require all charter and nonpublic schoolteachers, counselors, principals and other administrators to undergo two hours of in-service training in suicide prevention.
Read the story in The Shreveport Times
By Katie Gagliano
A bill requiring public colleges and universities to offer pregnancy prevention information at freshman orientation easily passed through the Senate chamber.
Read the story in The Shreveport Times
By Katie Gagliano
The state’s domestic abuse laws will continue to exclude same-sex couples after a bill to extend the law’s protections failed in a 17-14 Senate vote. But the measure may not be dead.
Read the story in The Daily Advertiser
By Matt Houston
The state Senate Finance Committee, buttressed by warnings that any mandated increase in the state minimum wage could cost jobs, today killed a bill that would have raised the state’s minimum wage from the federal minimum of $7.25 to $8 in 2018, and to $8.50 in 2019. The vote was 7-3.
Read the story in bestofneworleans.com/Gambit
By Caitie Burkes
A proposed change to Louisiana law that would allow district attorneys to seek juvenile life without parole for first-degree murder, but not murder in the second-degree, passed the Louisiana House Tuesday, 82-3.
Read the story in The Daily Advertiser
By Caitie Burkes
With efficient swiftness, the Louisiana House Ways and Means Committee has amended the capital outlay plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. It’s contained in House Bill 2, arguably the current legislative session‘s second most important bill, after the operating budget in House Bill 1, because it authorizes spending on brick and mortar projects throughout the state.
Read the story in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
By Sarah Gamard
Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser says he will be forced to cut several areas under his responsibility next year — including cultural events, state parks and museums — because of Louisiana’s revenue shortfall.
Read the story in bestofneworleans.com/Gambit
By Katie Gagliano and Caitie Burkes
The Senate Finance Committee braced against testimony from executive agency heads Friday as the potential effects of reductions under House Bill 1, the House GOP’s answer to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ proposed budget, were again brought to light.
Read the story in The Daily Advertiser
By Caitie Burkes
No kids in Louisiana may be given — let alone shoot — a fully automatic gun, a state House committee has decided. House Bill 67, which made it to the full House for debate on a 7-6 committee vote Thursday (May 18), criminalizes “giving, selling, donating, providing, lending, delivering or otherwise transferring” a fully automatic gun to a child 12 or younger.
Read in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 