LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

By: Sheridan Wall, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: May 1, 2019

BATON ROUGE — Lawmakers are looking for ways to train more information-technology experts and bolster the state’s cyber defenses.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat running for re-election, has promoted the state’s need to build an IT and cybersecurity infrastructure, and the House Appropriations Committee considered bills this week to help achieve this goal.

The committee advanced a proposal by Rep. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, to create the Louisiana Cybersecurity Talent Initiative Fund. If approved by the full Legislature, it would appropriate more money for degree and certificate programs related to cybersecurity and information technology.

“Cybersecurity is the new frontier,” Abraham said. “For once, can Louisiana be on the cutting edge of something new?”

Read more in The Advertiser.

By: James Smith, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 30, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A Louisiana House committee approved a bill that would enact the Allen Toussaint Legacy Act, outlawing the use of a deceased individual’s name, image and likeness without the consent of the individual’s family or representative.

House Bill 377, named after a famous New Orleans musician, seeks to prevent the exploitation of Louisiana’s cultural assets and ensure the protection of performers’ identities.

An unlicensed merchandiser selling “koozies” – fabric or foam sleeves used to keep beverages chilled – featuring Toussaint’s image at the 2016 Jazz Fest, months after the singer’s death, inspired Tim Kappel, a music business attorney and Loyola professor, to push for the bill.

Currently, Louisiana does not protect the publicity rights of a deceased individual, so Toussaint’s family did not receive any benefit from the merchandiser.

This measure, which has been debated since 2017, seeks to change that.

“It struck me as odd that there would be people out there merchandizing his name, image and likeness without the consent of the family, which I assumed had not been granted,” Kappel said

Read more in The Advocate.

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 30, 2019

BATON ROUGE–A new effort to abolish the state’s death penalty advanced Tuesday with a 4-2 Senate committee vote on a bill proposed by Republican State Sen. Dan Claitor.

Louisiana is one of 31 states that permits capital punishment. Similar efforts to ban the death penalty have failed in recent years as they went through the legislative process.

Under this year’s bill, voters would decide whether to change Louisiana’s constitution to make it illegal to execute criminals for any offense committed on or after January 1, 2021. Judiciary Committee C also passed an amendment that would include the bill on the 2020 presidential ballot for voters to decide.

At the hearing, Morrell stressed that there have been numerous death row inmates who were later found to be innocent and that the states’ resources to convict someone are infinite but often unjust.

“In order for the death penalty to even be considered as a functional outreach of what government should do, you have to start from the position that you believe the government is infallible,” Morrell said. “If you do not hold that government gets it right every single time, then death should not be on the table.”

Read more in KALB.

By: Trey Couvillion, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 23, 2019

BATON ROUGE–Popular ridesharing apps Uber and Lyft might soon pick up passengers in all corners of the state, as legislators advanced a bill Tuesday that would expand the services statewide.

The proposed legislation, authored by Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma, would expand services of Uber, the industry’s leader, and Lyft, the second-largest rideshare app beyond some of the state’s biggest cities.

The Department of Transportation and Development would have authority to regulate the industry on a statewide level while not disturbing the rules set by some cities.

The House Transportation Committee debated the bill for more than an hour, with lawmakers stressing the importance of consistent vetting processes and arguing about whether DOTD reviews of drivers’ records should make them public.

Read more in KALB.

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

Published: Apr. 23, 2019

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana lawmakers signaled support for legislation that would exempt diapers and feminine hygiene products, including tampons, from state sales tax.

The so-called “tampon tax” or “diaper bill” is back on the radar. The bills were filed by Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, who received a lot of pushback in 2017 when he introduced similar proposals.

Both bills — one to exempt the products from state tax and the other to give local government the option to exempt them from local taxes — are co-sponsored by Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans.

Low-income families and poor people often struggle to afford health and wellness products, which are currently taxed at the regular rate.

“There are moms that can’t afford diapers,” Morrell said. “They have to go basically to a food bank for diapers to provide diapers for their children. Diapers are expensive, and if you’re paying 30 to 40 bucks for a large pack of diapers, you’re paying $3 to $4 of tax on top of that. For some of these low-income families that makes or breaks the bank.”

Read more in The Advertiser.

Published: May 16, 2019

By: Lauren Heffker, LSU Manship School News Service

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.”

Read more in The Advocate.

Published: May 16, 2019

By: Hunter Lovell, LSU Manship School News Service

A state Senate committee gave the green light to create Team Gleason Foundation license plates to help former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason raise money to fight the neuromuscular disease ALS.

The Senate Committee on Transportation advanced the bill on Thursday.

Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans, sponsored House Bill 318, which would require a $25 annual royalty fee that would be forwarded to the foundation.

The license plate would honor Gleason and help fund the foundation’s research, which seeks to “provide cutting-edge technology to people who are living with this horrible disease,” Leger said.

Gleason has been a vocal leader in the fight against ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, since his own diagnosis in 2011. He and his wife started the foundation to support those living with ALS.

Read more in The Advocate.

Published: May 15, 2019

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

BATON ROUGE- Legislation that would limit or ban abortion in Louisiana easily cleared House and Senate committees on Wednesday (May 15), echoing a surge of similar bills in Republican-controlled legislatures in the South.

The House Health and Welfare Committee advanced a controversial proposal to 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.’”

Published: May 15, 2019

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

State House and Senate committees advanced bills that would address the opioid crisis by creating new treatment facilities in Louisiana and allowing alternative treatment methods.

Rep. Paula Davis, R-Baton Rouge, sponsored House Bill 250 that would require residential treatment facilities to give patients with opioid-use disorders access to medication that would block the opioid effect.

Before advancing Davis’ bill, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee amended it to delay enforcement of the change until 2021. This would allow the treatment facilities more time to adjust.

Currently, the majority of residential treatment providers in the state do not offer any form of medication-assisted treatment to patients with opioid addictions.

The committee members appeared sympathetic to the cause of the bill.

“It’s not a character flaw,” said Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, referring to opioid users. “When someone starts talking about it as a character flaw, I’m just wondering what century they are from as far as catching up with medicine.”

Read more in The Advocate.

Published: Apr. 25, 2019

By: Trey Couvillion, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Popular ridesharing apps Uber and Lyft might soon pick up passengers in all corners of the state, as legislators advanced a bill Tuesday that would expand the services statewide.

The proposed legislation, authored by Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma, would expand services of Uber, the industry’s leader, and Lyft, the second-largest rideshare app beyond some of the state’s biggest cities.

The Department of Transportation and Development would have authority to regulate the industry on a statewide level while not disturbing the rules set by some cities.

The House Transportation Committee debated the bill for more than an hour, with lawmakers stressing the importance of consistent vetting processes and arguing about whether DOTD reviews of drivers’ records should make them public.

A similar bill, proposed by House Speaker Rep. Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, was struck down in the Senate last year. The current bill requires DOTD to review, but not obtain, a sample of records provided by the ride-hailing companies.

In February, a woman was reportedly sexually assaulted in Baton Rouge when she got into the vehicle of someone who was impersonating a rideshare service. In 2018, a fake rideshare driver demanded money from LSU’s students at knifepoint.

Read more in the Shreveport Times.