LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

By: Tryfon Boukouvidis, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 20, 2019

BATON ROUGE — The House Appropriations Committee on Monday advanced a proposal on a 12-5 vote along partisan lines that would phase out the portion of the state sales tax that the Legislature extended last year after nearly five months of partisan dispute.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, would reduce the extra 0.45 of a cent of sales tax by one-tenth of a penny every year from 2020 to 2022 and repeal the rest in 2023.

Under this proposal, the state is projected to lose $392 million in revenues by 2024.

“This particular piece of legislation speaks to giving individuals and taxpayers some of the money back that we extract out of their pocket on a temporary basis,” Harris said.

Matthew Block, who represents the governor, expressed that Gov. John Bel Edwards–a Democrat seeking re-election this fall–does not support this proposal.

“This bill eliminates and tries to roll back a hard-fought but well-supported compromise in which not everybody got what they wanted,” Block asserted. Keeping the compromise in place, Block added, would put the state “on a sound fiscal footing for the first time in a long time.”

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: Lauren Heffker & Tryfon Boukouvidis, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 16, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The Louisiana House Transportation Committee advanced two bills on Monday that would permit drug testing in severe traffic accidents and waive penalties for uninsured drivers under special circumstances.

Sen. Ryan Gatti, R-Bossier City, sponsored Senate Bill 138 that would mandate either chemical, blood or urine testing in a traffic crash involving serious bodily injury or death. Gatti’s bill defines serious bodily injury as one that is “severe” or “incapacitating.”

Louisiana’s current law allows for post-accident drug testing only when a collision results in an on-site fatality. The proposed bill, however, would expand the existing law.

If the bill were to become law, it would be known as “Katie Bug’s Law,” named after 4-year-old Katie Grantham of Bossier Parish, who was killed in an auto accident in 2017. Though Katie’s mother, Morgan Grantham, suspected the driver who hit them was impaired by drugs, he was not tested by police since Katie did not die at the scene.

Katie suffered critical injuries to her spinal cord and was taken off life support after seven days in the hospital. The driver, who ran a red light north of Bossier City, served 10 days in prison. Without more sufficient evidence, such as a drug test, prosecutors could only charge him with a traffic violation, instead of negligent or vehicular homicide.

Read more in The Advocate.

By: Madeline Meyer & Lauren Heffker, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 16, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The House Labor Committee rejected bills on Thursday to let local authorities determine their own minimum wage rates and to implement equal pay measures for all women in Louisiana.

The panel voted 9-6 against the minimum wage bill.

Rep. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, who sponsored the bill, said the state should not keep cities “in a chokehold and prevent them from being able to do what they think is in their best interest.”

The committee voted 9-6 to reject the bill to require equal pay for all women, including part-time workers.

In 1997, Louisiana was one of the first states to adopt the federal minimum wage. At that time, the state passed a law that revoked local governments’ authority to set minimum wages. Duplessis’ bill would have repealed that decision.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who is up for re-election, has advocated raising the minimum wage across the state for the past three years. In April, the governor also endorsed a constitutional amendment that would ask voters to decide on a $9 minimum hourly rate.

Sixteen people spoke in favor of Duplessis’ bill. Almost 100 people attended the hearing to support the bill.

Read more in KALB.

By: Lauren Heffker, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 16, 2019

BATON ROUGE–In a move to address mental illness among firefighters and police officers, a House committee advanced a bill Thursday that would add post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, to the list of injuries eligible for public employee benefits.

The Senate had already approved the bill, and it now moves to the House floor.

“In the old days, we said ‘suck it up, buttercup,’ and ‘man up,’ and that became not really a good coping skill to teach people,” said Sen. Ryan Gatti, R-Bossier, who sponsored the bill.

Members of the House Labor Committee discussed the bill in an emotional hearing during which several public servants and employees spoke about their mental health problems.

“Our numbers are rising,” said Matt Kinney, who works for the Bossier City Fire Department. “Our firefighters and police officers are dying. They don’t have the support or the means that they need.”

Kinney pointed out the detrimental effects of not treating PTSD, including substance abuse and high divorce rates among firefighters.

Read more in The Advocate.

 

By: Lauren Heffker & Tryfon Boukouvidis, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 15, 2019

BATON ROUGE — Legislation that would limit or ban abortion in Louisiana easily cleared House and Senate committees on Wednesday, echoing a surge of similar bills in Republican-controlled legislatures in the South.

Pro-choice advocates protested the bills inside the state Capitol. The protests led to several arrests after demonstrators poured fake blood onto the marble floors in Memorial Hall.

The House Health and Welfare Committee advanced a controversial proposal that would outlaw the abortion of a fetus with a detectable heartbeat, which usually occurs around six weeks.

The “fetal heartbeat” bill, sponsored by Sen. John Milkovich, D-Shreveport, has received bipartisan support and was approved last week by the Senate. Gov. John Bel Edwards, a pro-life Democrat running for re-election, has publicly supported it.

In March, Edwards said he would be inclined to sign the bill into law.

“States across the nation are saying, ‘We are no longer going to devalue life,” Milkovich said. “We are going to acknowledge the sanctity of human life.’”

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: Sheridan Wall, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 14, 2019

BATON ROUGE–Special education classrooms in Louisiana public schools might be monitored by cameras under a bill advanced by the House Education Committee on Tuesday.

The bill, by Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, would allow parents of children in self-contained special education classrooms to request that a camera be installed to monitor class activity.

“Under no circumstance was this bill meant to be a criticism of schools or teachers or any kind of gotcha moment,” Wright said. He added that his proposal is meant to be a “dispute resolution tool first and foremost.”

If installed, a camera would remain throughout the duration of the school year. Parents could submit a request the next year if they wanted their child’s classroom to continue to be monitored. Schools would be required to store camera footage for a month.

Wright said the idea resulted from a recent lawsuit in his district involving poor classroom treatment of special needs children. The bill might need to be considered by other committees and also would require passage by the full House and Senate.

Kathleen Cannino from St. Tammany Parish, the mother of a child with a genetic disorder, said she supports more accountability. She added that the cameras could “save a lot of heartache for a lot of parents and children.”

Read more in KALB.

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 14, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The House advanced a bill Tuesday that would allow patients to inhale medical marijuana.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, passed in a 73-3 vote and now goes to the Senate.

James said the bill would not permit smoking. The medical cannabis would be breathed through a device similar to an asthma inhaler.

The sale of the raw plant form of marijuana is still prohibited in Louisiana.

James also included an amendment that would allow doctors who live outside the state to recommend therapeutic medical marijuana usage. Current law only authorizes licensed in-state physicians to approve marijuana treatments.

Patients must have “debilitating medical conditions” to legally use medical cannabis in the state. Those conditions include cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, intractable pain, and human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

It is still not clear when medical marijuana will be administered to patients in the state. Both chambers passed legislation in 2015 to allow the drug to be used by patients with debilitating conditions.

Read more in KALB.

By: Lauren Heffker, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 15, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A Louisiana Senate committee moved to advance a bill Tuesday (May 14) that would make 18 years old the youngest possible age for a person to get married in the state

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Yvonne Colomb, D-Baton Rouge, will now move to the Senate floor, where it is expected to be amended.

There is currently no legal minimum for marriage in Louisiana. Presently, 16 and 17-year-olds must have parental consent to be wed, and anyone under the age of 16 must also obtain permission from a juvenile court judge.

In neighboring states like Texas, the minimum age is 16 and requires a judge’s consent. In Mississippi, parental consent is required for men aged 17 and women aged 15 and above. In Arkansas, the minimum age for minors to marry is 17, with parental consent.

Senator Rick Ward III, R-Port Allen, said although made with good intent, the bill will not guarantee a solution.

“A lot of times we make an attempt to take corrective action to something, but as we all know, just because we put something in law that doesn’t necessarily mean that the bad actors follow that law,” Ward said.

Read more in Fox8 News.

By: Madeline Meyer, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 14, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The House Administration of Criminal Justice advanced controversial bills on Tuesday that would abolish the death penalty and lower sentences for first-time marijuana possession.

Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, who pushed for abolishing capital punishment in both 2017 and 2018, sponsored that bill. It passed 8-7, reviving a roposal that was rejected by the Senate last weekp.

“Death by the government is wrong, and that is why I bring this bill,” Landry, a former superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said.

Landry said he had had a change of heart about the death penalty over the years. He also disclosed that he would not seek re-election, emphasizing that his proposal was not politically motivated.

His bill is similar to one sponsored by Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, that was rejected on the Senate floor.

Louisiana is among 31 states that continue to implement the death penalty.

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: Tryfon Boukouvidis, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 13, 2019

BATON ROUGE–The House Ways and Means Committee on Monday advanced a proposal that would reduce and eventually repeal the portion of the state sales tax that the Legislature extended last year after months of partisan wrangling.

The bill, by Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, would gradually phase out the extra 0.45 of a cent of sales tax by 2023. It would reduce the tax by one-tenth of a penny every year from 2020 to 2022 and repeal the rest in 2023.

Under the proposal, the state would lose a total of $392 million in revenues by 2024.

“We might be extracting too much money out of the taxpayer’s pocket because we’re continually ending up with surpluses’’ Harris said,” and we continually raise taxes and fees over the last years.”

He said that a survey of his constituents indicated support for the measure.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is up for re-election this fall, said Friday that he opposed any measures to significantly rollback the extra revenue created by last year’s sales tax deal, which, he said, returned the state to financial stability.

Read more in KALB.