Author: manshipxgr

By Sam Karlin

Most Louisiana residents want lawmakers to use a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to solve the state’s recurring budget problems, according to The Louisiana Survey 2017 by LSU’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.

The survey, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, found a majority of the public supports raising taxes for specific areas, like education, health care and infrastructure, instead of cutting spending on those areas, but there was less support for specific changes to personal income and sales taxes.

Read the story in the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report

By Sarah Gamard

By Rose Velazquez

By Sarah Gamard

New Orleans’ smoking ban has driven Harrah’s customers away.

That was the argument on Tuesday (March 22) from Caesars Entertainment, the global casino enterprise that owns Harrah’s New Orleans Casino & Hotel. But Cynthia Hallett, president and CEO for Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, called those accusations “baseless.”

Read the story in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune

By Sarah Gamard

Representatives from the global casino enterprise Caesar’s Entertainment outlined for the Riverboat Economic Development and Gaming Task Force the negative impact of a local smoking ban on its No. 1 Louisiana enterprise, Harrah’s Casino & Hotel in downtown New Orleans.

The casino is one of the three in Louisiana owned by Caesar’s. The other two are in Bossier City.

Read the story in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune

By Sarah Gamard

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana law requires gaming riverboats to have a working paddlewheel, even though the boats do not traverse the waterways. The chairman of the legislatively created task force in charge of recommending rules for the state’s gaming industry called that requirement “ridiculous.”

Read the story in The Daily Advertiser

By Tryfon Boukouvidis

BATON ROUGE — Spouses of certain Louisiana law enforcement officers would receive better pension survivor benefits under a bill filed for the legislative session that starts April 10. It is sponsored by Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City, who also filed a bill to expand the reach of the Teachers’ Retirement System.

Read the story in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune

By William Taylor Potter

GONZALES — Representatives from the Governor’s Office and the Office of Community Development hinted to victims of the August floods that in April they may at last see federal disaster relief to compensate them for some or all of their losses, emphasizing that the delays stem from Washington not Baton Rouge.

Read the story in The Shreveport Times

By Sarah Gamard

BATON ROUGE — Statistics show that gambling addiction in Louisiana is affecting more people than ever, up more than 8 percent in the past eight years, but that it is off the radar.

Janet Miller, the executive director for the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling, told the Louisiana Gaming Control Board Thursday that she came before it to raise awareness for March Problem Gambling Awareness Month.

Read the story in The Shreveport Times

By Katie Gagliano

Proposed legislation prefiled for the 2017 Legislature by State Rep. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, aims to close a longstanding loophole in Louisiana’s domestic violence statutes by including same-sex couples.

House Bill 27 would alter the state’s civil and criminal statutes by opening harsher sentencing possibility for abusers in same-sex cohabiting relationships and by providing key public welfare assistance options to same-sex victims.

Read the story in bestofneworleans.com/Gambit