Louisiana Legislature convenes to enact conservative goals | Louisiana Politics

Gov. Jeff Landry and Republicans who control the Legislature will continue to put their stamp on government in Louisiana by enacting conservative priorities that have long eluded them when lawmakers convene Monday for their three-month regular session.

Landry and the Republican legislators are coming off two special sessions where they steamrolled Democrats and overturned bipartisan anti-crime policies adopted while John Bel Edwards was governor.

Now Landry and Republicans will turn their attention to dramatically increasing the number of children who can attend private schools with taxpayer dollars, and to ensuring Louisiana remains strictly opposed to abortion and to extending certain rights to LGBTQ+ youth.

Landry also wants legislators to call a special convention this summer to rewrite Louisiana’s constitution for the first time in 50 years. If all goes according to plan, voters statewide will be asked to approve the new constitution in November.

Lawmakers must separately decide whether to back Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple’s bid to reduce government regulations on property insurance companies to lure more of them to the state. 

“There’s a pent-up demand for an aggressive and bold conservative agenda,” said Bob Mann, a historian and LSU communications professor who opposes much of that agenda.

Mann noted that Edwards, a Democrat, blocked most conservative initiatives over the past eight years and that Edwards’ Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, foundered during the latter part of his tenure as his ambition to become president caused him to clash with members of his own party.

But with new GOP supermajorities in the state House and Senate and the governor’s mansion held by Landry, a hardline culture warrior and blood-red conservative, Republicans see a chance to jolt Louisiana’s policies and government agencies to the political right.

Tensions among House and Senate leaders, conservative lawmakers and Edwards once snarled legislative debates. Now both chambers have leaders hand-picked by Landry who appear to have members’ support, although the Senate under its president, Sen. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, bucked Landry on several measures during both special sessions.

“I think it’s the greatest opportunity Louisiana’s had in 100 years, and I don’t think we should be shy,” said Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, one of the Legislature’s most conservative members. “John Bel and his people weren’t shy about forcing some things down our throats just because they could. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, and I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t try to undo every single thing that was done over the past eight years.”

Republicans will still face challenges. Edwards and legislators had plenty of money to spend during his second term, but projections show the state facing a deficit next year, especially after passage of the anti-crime legislation during the just-completed special session.

School choice

After getting tough on crime, Landry is now looking to shake up schools.

At the top of Landry’s to-do list is helping more families afford private school. He and lawmakers plan to do that by joining the growing roster of red states that offer education savings accounts, or ESAs, which give parents the tax dollars allocated to their children’s schooling.

Unlike Louisiana’s voucher programs, which cover private school tuition for eligible students, ESAs let parents decide how to spend their public stipend. Beyond tuition, they can also use the money for tutoring, textbooks, special education services, and homeschooling materials.

“We want you to have more of an ability to choose how your child is educated, where they’re educated, with the tax dollars that you’re giving us,” said state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, who will carry the ESA bill. She said she plans to introduce the bill, whose details are still being finalized, in the coming days.

By far the biggest open question is how much the move will cost. While the state’s voucher programs are limited to certain students, such as those who attend low-performing public schools, Landry and lawmakers want to eventually open ESAs to all families. Other states that moved to universal eligibility have seen their costs explode. In the first year that Arizona opened ESAs to everyone, participation soared from about 12,000 students to nearly 62,000 — and the cost more than tripled to $587.5 million.

Even as they weigh how much state money to give parents for private school, Louisiana lawmakers also must decide how much to pay public school teachers. The state board of education has asked the Legislature to give teachers $2,000 stipends in lieu of raises, which could cost nearly $200 million.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers also want to ramp up intensive tutoring for students who are behind. Others want to allow parents to opt their children out of vaccines required to attend public school. And still others want Louisiana to enact what critics call a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which restricts classroom discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity. Yet another bill would require parents’ permission for students to change the names or pronouns they use in school. (Those bills are Senate Bill 288 and House Bills 47, 122 and 121, respectively.)

Many of the bills align with Landry’s promise to give parents more control over their children’s education — a vow he repeated Thursday at an event hosted by the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, where he previewed his legislative agenda.

“We are going to make sure,” he said, “that parents are the most important voice in our child’s education.”

Insurance changes

Lawmakers will again try to steady Louisiana’s tumultuous property insurance market, which has become a top issue for voters after a confluence of factors caused rates to spiral out of control and insurers to go belly up. 

Temple, a Republican and former insurance executive who took office in January, is seeking to dramatically reshape the rules for insurance companies in a bid to make the state an easier place for companies to do business. 

Two bills he backs, House Bill 611 and Senate Bill 370, would weaken Louisiana’s longstanding “three-year rule,” which bans insurers from dropping homeowners who have been customers for at least three years. The rule, hailed by previous Republican Commissioner Jim Donelon as a consumer protection measure, has drawn the ire of the insurance industry, which argues it makes the state noncompetitive.

Other legislation would make sweeping changes to the way claims are handled, both by insurers and policyholders, by setting a series of deadlines and preventing homeowners from filing suit unless certain conditions are met. The two bills are House Bill 678 by state Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, and Senate Bill 323 by state Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge. Temple has swung his weight behind Firment’s bill.

Temple on Friday wrote he aims to make insurers pay claims more quickly while “reducing the number of lawsuits filed against insurers operating in good faith.” Insurers have long complained that lawsuits drive up business costs. 

Supporting this effort is the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, led by its new president, Will Green.

But those bills have already begun drawing opposition from plaintiffs’ attorneys who donated heavily to Landry’s campaign and consumer advocates who say the legislation would wind up hurting homeowners who are frequently taken advantage of by insurers. Temple will need to navigate tricky political waters to bring his proposals across the finish line, in a Legislature where even business-friendly Republicans can be skeptical of insurers. It’s also unclear if Landry supports the ideas, though his transition panel has backed some of them.  

Another bill, Senate Bill 295, would allow insurers to hike rates without getting prior approval from the department, another priority of Temple’s.

Landry is supportive, Temple said Thursday, of adding another $15 million to the fortified roof program, which has drawn widespread praise for delivering $10,000 grants to homeowners to put stronger roofs on their homes. Policyholders get a discount from insurers in exchange for doing so. 

More tough-on-crime bills

During February’s crime special session, the Legislature lengthened prison sentences and put more youth into the adult corrections system. Over the next few months, lawmakers will consider proposals that will move Louisiana—which already has the highest incarceration rate in the country—further in a tough-on-crime direction.

Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, who chairs the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee, has filed two bills, House Bill 203 and House Bill 210, that would send more juveniles to adult court by expanding the list of offenses that can be prosecuted in the adult system.

Villio said she proposed the legislation because “there are many crimes that include serious bodily injury committed by individuals under the age of 17 that are currently not transferable for adult prosecution.” HB 203 requires a constitutional amendment, meaning state voters would have to approve it.

Other proposals would impact adults charged with crimes. House Bill 128, by state Rep. Bryan Fontenot, R-Thibodaux, would increase the minimum sentence for felons convicted of illegal firearm possession from five to 10 years.

Meanwhile, Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, filed Senate Bill 371, which would allow the court to sentence people convicted of sex offenses against children under 13 to be castrated.

Senate Bill 276 by Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, would sentence people who try to feed women abortion-inducing drugs to up to 20 years in prison.

Budget concerns, other issues

Lawmakers must also approve a state spending plan. After several consecutive years where the state collected over a billion dollars in unexpected tax revenue, the Legislature will have $325 million in surplus dollars from the last budget cycle and $90 million from the current one to carve up. But the state is facing a projected deficit next year, especially if lawmakers allow a .45-cent sales tax to expire that generates about $500 million a year in revenue.

“As legislation is put forth this spring, any piece of legislation that increases expenditures that takes money from the (state’s coffers) is going to deepen and further exceed that hole that we already have,” said Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Winnfield, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

Steven Procopio, director of the nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council, a Baton Rouge-based good government group, said lawmakers should consider belt-tightening in the current session to prepare for the dip in revenue they could face next year.

Lawmakers can’t vote to increase revenue this spring — they can only do so in odd-year legislative sessions, which are dedicated to fiscal matters. They could still trim the fat by avoiding spending one-time cash on recurring costs and limiting agency budgets from growing too much.