Politics

Paul Maassen hosted Tuesday's Louisiana Considered.

The House voted 73-26 to approve Speaker Pro Tempore Tanner Magee’s HB 391, which would allow patients to receive up to 2.5 ounces of raw marijuana every two weeks.

Capitol Access Reporter Paul Braun reports on the status of prominent issues being discussed in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, including questions regarding the concealed carrying of firearms and the legalization of marijuana. Allison Plyer discusses the results of the 2020 census, focusing on population growth and potential miscalculations due to the relocation of residents of Lake Charles.

Rep. Richard Nelson, a first-term Republican from Mandeville, is the bill's unlikely sponsor. He testified that he has never smoked marijuana in his life and joked that his high school classmates would have voted him “least likely to legalize marijuana.”

Louisiana is one of only five states with no minimum wage of its own, so the state’s lowest earners’ wages are tied to the federal rate of $7.25 per hour.

While State Sens. Karen Carter Peterson and Troy Carter largely agreed with each other during Louisiana Considered’s 30-minute debate Friday, the two Democrats also offered differing views on a couple of key topics, including health care, the minimum wage and whether they’d support a boycott of Louisiana events if the state legislature passed restrictive voting measures.

Lawmakers have proposed bills that would prohibit transgender health care and sports participation.

As Louisiana lawmakers gaveled in the 2021 Legislative Session on Monday, Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards presented two vastly different agendas and two vastly different approaches to the state’s ongoing fight against COVID-19.

Two longtime Democratic politicians from New Orleans, State Sens. Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson, will square off in next month's runoff to fill...