Author: manshipxgr

Published: April 18, 2024

By: Piper Naudin LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — The House Education Committee unanimously moved forward with a bill that would allow higher education management boards to raise tuition for high-cost majors and establish mandatory fees for all programs.

The bill, by Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, would limit any increases to no more than 10 % of the previous year’s level.

“We are the only state in the nation that requires a two-thirds vote of our legislature for tuition approval,” he said. “We are one of only two states, along with Florida, whose legislature has some control over tuition.”

Read more at Daily Advertiser.

Published: April 17, 2024

By: Claire Sullivan, LSU Manship School News Service

Louisianans may soon lose access to great swaths of government records currently made available upon request under the state public records law.

A Senate panel voted 6-2 Wednesday to advance a bill — backed by Gov. Jeff Landry and sponsored by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek — that would gut public access to information at every level of government.

The proposal, Senate Bill 482, would bar access to “any records reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.”

Cloud said this would allow government employees to give opinions to decision makers “without fear of later being subject to public ridicule or criticism” and prevent unfinalized information from being disseminated.

“To put that information out prematurely would be disingenuous, misleading and potentially catastrophic in some cases,” Cloud said.

Read more at WRKF 83.9.

Published: April 11, 2024

By: Elizabeth White LSU Manship School News Service

Photo by: Courtesy Baton Rouge Police Department

By: Elizabeth White LSU Manship School News Service

Posted 4:25 PM, Apr 10, 2024

and last updated 8:12 AM, Apr 11, 2024

BATON ROUGE–Louisiana legislators continued Wednesday to advance conservative priorities, pushing forward bills to limit discussion of gender and sexuality in schools and to stop teachers from using a child’s preferred name or pronouns without parental consent if they differ from the child’s biological sex.

Lawmakers also advanced measures this week to limit bathroom use by biological gender and to provide state money for private school education. Other bills would authorize police officers to arrest migrants who are not in the country legally and prohibit protests outside of an individual’s home.

The House Education Committee voted 9-3 Wednesday to advance House Bill 122, which would prohibit teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. This would include teachers discussing their own sexual orientation and facilitating discussions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity during classroom instructional time.

Read more at KATC.

Published: April 5, 2024

By: Claire Sullivan and Piper Naudin LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—The House Education Committee voted 10-3 Thursday to advance a bill to require public schools to display the 10 Commandments.

House Bill 7l, by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, is attempting to navigate the traditional legal divide between church and state.

Under the bill, which next goes to the House floor, the commandments would need to be displayed in a format of at least 11-by-4 inches.

Read more at Concordia Sentinel.

Published: March 1, 2024

By: Jacob Mathews LSU Manship School News Service

Photo by: Courtesy John M. Schroder Louisiana State Treasurer

By: By Jacob Mathews LSU Manship School News Service

Posted 10:31 AM, Mar 01, 2024

and last updated 10:31 AM, Mar 01, 2024

BATON ROUGE–-As Louisiana undertakes a massive overhaul of criminal justice laws, one of the most controversial changes is putting more 17-year-olds on trial for crimes as adults. The move backpedals on a measure passed seven years ago that treated teens under 18 as juveniles in most cases.

Anti-crime lawmakers, following the lead of sheriffs, prosecutors, and a newly elected Republican governor, are responding to a spike in juvenile violent crime – simple robbery, battery, carjacking, terrorism, kidnapping, assault and even murder and rape. They and Gov. Jeff Landry say adult gangs have been recruiting teenagers 17 years old and younger to commit crimes for which penalties will be lighter than those for adults.

Opponents argue that juvenile crime rates had been coming down since the “Raise the Age” law was passed in 2016 before rising during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some question whether the new laws will have harmful side-effects given that prosecutors already had leeway to charge juveniles as adults for the worst crimes.

According to reports by the state’s Office of Juvenile Justice, the number of youths serving time had begun easing again last year.

Read more at KATC.