LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — The group of non-legislators given the responsibility of making Louisiana financially stable in the future Friday crafted recommendations for Gov. John Bel Edwards to include in his expected call for another special session that specifically will address the state’s looming budget deficit.

The Task Force on Structural Changes in the Budget and Tax Policy will not have a final report until September, but it drafted preliminary recommendations so the governor can focus the agenda of the special session that he indicates he may call on June 6.

Read the story in The Shreveport Times

By Justin DiCharia

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the nation with one in 26 residents under correctional control, and Jimmy LeBlanc, head of the state’s prison system, believes the looming $39 million shortage in much needed funding to local and state prisons won’t help change that statistic.

Read the story in The Town Talk

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana students may have one more thing to recite in their morning homerooms if House Bill 1035, which gets a full hearing before the House of Representatives next week, passes into law.

The chamber’s Education Committee voted 6-2 to approve a bill that requires fourth through sixth grade students to memorize and recite a 56-word passage from the Declaration of Independence.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, said she brought the bill because her daughter could not tell her what the Declaration, adopted on July 4, 1775, announcing to King George III the 13 colonies were breaking away from England, said even after studying it in school.

Read the story in The Eunice News

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — It was expected to be a simple vote on a bill to raise standards and crack down on human trafficking in strip clubs.

Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, who was handling Senate Bill 468 in the House, was wrapping up his arguments about the importance of preventing young women from being taken, exploited or sexually compromised.

Then the jokes started flying.

Read the story in The Advertiser

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — Higher education leaders are preparing to woo out-of-state students with lower tuition to help “subsidize” in-state students and their universities and better compete with peer schools.

House Bill 989, which passed the Senate Education Committee Wednesday without objection, would allow higher education boards to lower tuition and fees for out-of-state students in an “economics of scale” effort to boost enrollment. It moves to the full Senate for debate.

Current law requires tuition and fees for non-residents to be at least equal to the average of other southern schools.

Read the story in The Advertiser

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to remove the firearm requirement for a charge of aggravated assault of a police officer.  In a separate action, it also made attacks against police, firefighters and EMT personnel hate crimes.

House bill 582, by Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe, would allow a district attorney to charge someone with the more serious aggravated assault count if the officer was attacked with, for example, a knife or machete. The bill now goes to the governor.

Read the story in The Advertiser

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — The House Transportation Committee unanimously approved a bill to raise the fines and penalties on those adults who text and drive up to 286 percent for first offense.  For minors, the fine increases up to 150 percent.

Read the story in The Town Talk

By Jack Richards

BATON ROUGE — The House Transportation Committee put Louisiana closer to take off with REAL ID compliance Monday, approving Senate Bill 227 by Sen. Yvonne Colomb, D-Baton Rouge, on an 11-1 vote, and moves to the full House floor for debate later this week.

“If you do not have REAL ID you will not be able to fly,” Colomb said.

Read the story in The Daily World

By Samuel Carter Karlin

BATON ROUGE — A legislative proposal to create a transparency website for fiscal matters that would give the “average constituent” the tool to root out “inefficiencies” and “waste” in state government unanimously sailed through the House Appropriations Committee Monday.

Read the story in The News Star

By Justin DiCharia

BATON ROUGE – Following a move to transfer funding from the state’s TOPS college scholarship program to safety-net hospitals last Thursday, the LSU Medical School at Shreveport still will be $35.6 million in the red, the chancellor warned Sunday, forcing the school to make cuts to all the medical programs.

During a weekend Senate Finance Committee hearing, LSU Health Sciences Center Interim Chancellor G.E. Ghali testified the cuts to funding could potentially effect the school’s accreditation and residency programs.

Read the story in The Shreveport Times