LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

Published: March 24, 2026

By: Kylah Babin, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Local journalists are making final preparations to perform this year’s Gridiron Show, a satirical performance poking fun at Louisiana politics, sports and news.

The show debuted in 1952 and remains Louisiana’s longest-running political satire show. This will be its 74th run filled with songs and skits.

This year, the show features a variety of memorable moments, from Lane Kiffin’s enormous contract to the mud-slinging U.S. Senate race.

“We got multiple skits on that,” said Louisiana Capital Correspondents Association President Charles Lussier, referring to the Senate race. “We’re doing a thing with Bill Cassidy and Julia Letlow and their sudden interaction. They got a song together.”

Read more at Daily Advertiser.

Published: March 23, 2026

By: Gracie Thomas and Kylah Babin, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – Department of Children and Family Services officials are working to improve Louisiana’s foster care system by advocating for a 50% increase in largely unchanged living-expense rates to help foster families cover basic necessities, DCFS Secretary Rebecca Harris said in a Senate committee meeting Monday.

The agency is hoping to increase the foster parent board rates, which have been adjusted for inflation only once in 19 years, to encourage families to foster. Currently, foster parents receive $19.47 per day, a total of about $600 per month. The goal is to raise that rate to $900 per month. 

“Increasing board rates helps solve an imbalance,” DCFS Undersecretary Christopher Bahm said during the Senate Appropriations Committee on March 16. “Competitive, sustainable foster care board rates help us retain foster families and signal that Louisiana values the families who open up their homes for our children in need.”

National board rates vary from state to state, ranging from $450 to $1,200 per month per child. 

Read more at WBRZ.

Published: March 23, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — Have you been stopped at a red light only to have a reckless driver swerve past you on the shoulder and run the light?

The Louisiana House advanced a bill Monday by Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, to stop such behavior. House Bill 487 would institute a $250 fine for drivers using the shoulder or a turning lane to zip past other cars stopped at red lights.

If the reckless driver caused others to be injured or killed, the fines would range up to $5,000. Additional consequences for death as a result of the violation would be imprisonment for no more than a year and the additional threat of a suspended license for 365 days.

“Bad drivers don’t always get into accidents, but they sure do cause a lot of them,” Bayham said in an interview. “That’s what my bill is about: public safety.”

Read more at KTBS.

Published: March 23, 2026

By: Courtney Bell, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana residents may see changes in calling the state health department or using its website if it turns to artificial intelligence to save money.

The department is examining how it can implement AI in the next few years to make residents’ experiences more efficient and reduce spending, Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein said at an AI symposium at LSU.

The first and largest deployment, should the department proceed with it, would be in its call centers. Running the two centers costs more than $40 million a year. Greenstein said using AI to answer calls could reduce costs by up to 25%.

That would save the state $10 million a year while still preserving an option to talk to a human employee.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: March 19, 2026

By: Gracie Thomas and Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Fatherhood Task Force on Wednesday proposed bipartisan recommendations to address challenges to fatherhood, including modifying the state’s child custody laws and instituting paid family medical leave for educators.

Bills have been filed in both the Senate and the House to modify child custody laws to emphasize the importance of shared legal and physical custody and establish paid family medical leave for teachers.

A future bill will seek to establish a standing Commission on Fatherhood Engagement, which would advance fatherhood legislative agendas.

The task force addressed fatherhood engagement in children’s and partner’s lives and the lack of overall support from the state.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: March 19, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – Rep. Bryan Fontenot, R-Thibodaux, proposed a bill on Wednesday making it a felony to possess, sell and distribute artificial intelligence-produced nudity of a minor.

The bill received unanimous support from the House Criminal Justice Committee, and it now advances to the House floor.

House Bill 119 introduces a new statute for the possession of artificial intelligence nudity and increases the penalty of distribution from a misdemeanor to a felony charge. The penalty would amount to five years in prison, with at least one year served without the possibility of parole or probation.

“Today’s bill is a new battle that we are on the forefront of: It is artificial intelligence,” Fontenot said.

The bill also received support from Kevin Cobb with the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association.

Read more at KATC.

Published: March 19, 2026

By: Veronica Camenzuli, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE— A bill to expand Louisiana’s high-dosage tutoring program advanced in a Senate committee Wednesday even as a broader debate is shaping up over state funding for K-12 education.

Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Mandeville, proposed spending an additional $15 million a year to provide intensive tutoring to a larger group of students. The program has been focused on K-5 students who had failed assessments in reading, and McMath’s bill would also provide the tutoring to K-8 students who fail assessments in reading, English, numeracy or math.

“We are simply expanding upon and improving a program that is leading the nation,” McMath said.

Louisiana led the nation in learning loss recovery in reading after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Harvard and Stanford universities’ Education Recovery Scorecard. McMath said that high-dosage tutoring, which takes place at least three times a week, was responsible for the improvement.

Read more at Shreveport Times.

Published: March 18, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry said a federal data program that verifies citizenship status uncovered the 403 noncitizens registered to vote in Louisiana out of a total voting pool of 2.96 million, with 83 having voted in at least one election since the 1980s.

The state used the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program for the first time this year after President Donald Trump’s administration removed system fees.

“If you keep your voter rolls clean, that’s the foundation of election integrity,” Landry said in an interview.

Landry’s findings have come as the U.S. Senate begins debate this week on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (or SAVE America Act), a Republican bill that would require proof of citizenship such as a birth certificates, real IDs or passports when registering to vote and picture IDs such as a driver’s license when casting a ballot.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: March 18, 2026

By: Kylah Babin, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Concerns about rising mental health issues have led the Louisiana Department of Health to seek to reallocate $6.5 million to expand its crisis response system.

The department wants to use the extra money to help fund a new statewide hub that supports the Louisiana Crisis Response System.

Health officials discussed the request during a House Appropriations Committee meeting this week.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 838,000 adults in Louisiana had a mental health condition as of March 2025. That is three times the size of Baton Rouge’s population. About 74,000 Louisiana teens experience a major depressive episode, and 49,000 teens in the state have serious thoughts of suicide.

But more than 3 million people in Louisiana live in communities without enough mental health professionals.

“And today, it’s quite spotty,” said Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Bruce D. Greenstein. “There are gaps in between modalities of care, and this is the beginning of using crisis to help be the overarching modality of care, so there are no open spots,” he said, referring to the hub.

Read more at The Advertiser.

Published: March 17, 2026

By: Sheridan White and AnnMarie Bedard, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—Demand has been so strong that a program to help residents obtain two-year associate degrees in hot fields exhausted its funding for the current fiscal year within the first six months, a state education official said Monday.

Kim Hunter Reed, Ph.D., the commissioner of higher education, said the Murphy J. Foster Promise Program has already served about 10,000 students since it launched four years ago.

“It is working, and it is important,” Reed told the Senate Finance Committee.

The program provides financial assistance for Louisiana residents between the ages of 25 and 55 who are pursuing certificates or associate degrees in high-demand fields such as healthcare, construction and information technology. Eligible students can receive up to $3,200 a year to cover their tuition and fees.

Read more at KATC.