Louisiana Legislature

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced on Wednesday that he vetoed a series of bills from this year’s legislative session, including one that would make it a misdemeanor crime to approach a police officer actively engaged on duty. Edwards also vetoed a bill he said was intended to undermine school vaccine requirements and one that looked to phase out the corporate franchise tax.

Louisiana lawmakers are regretting a last-minute $100 million reduction to health care in the new state budget, including some who helped negotiate and pass the budget on a chaotic final day of session. They are asking for the cut to be vetoed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has already said he will use every means at his disposal to eliminate or minimize the cut.

Louisiana lawmakers passed a final budget that includes a $2,000 teacher pay raise and $1,000 raise for support workers, but those raises are not recurring. Lawmakers also cut millions in health care and fell short of funding goal for early childhood education.

A Louisiana House committee advanced a resolution Monday to raise the state’s spending cap. A spending limit increase now seems more likely, though the total increases are less than the amounts proposed by the Senate.

A controversial bill that would have banned gender-affirming health care for youth in Louisiana died in a Senate Committee on Wednesday. The defeat marks a significant victory for Louisiana’s transgender community and goes against a growing trend among other Republican states to restrict youth access to gender-affirming care, which often includes hormone therapy and can include reassignment surgeries.

The Louisiana Legislature will convene a week from today for a seven-day special session on the state’s homeowner’s insurance crisis. Its overriding goal is to rein in policy premiums that have soared after back-to-back catastrophic hurricane seasons, but lawmakers say more needs to be done than what can happen within the narrow scope of the weeklong session.

Gov. John Bel Edwards signed sweeping legislation Tuesday that would criminalize abortion in Louisiana and ban the procedure in nearly all circumstances from the moment of implantation if Roe v. Wade is overturned. The legislation does not include exceptions for rape and incest.

With Saturday’s action, state lawmakers have ceded the responsibility of drawing the congressional districts the state will use for the next ten years to the courts.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he will allow legislation that would ban transgender girls from participating in school sports to become law without his signature, avoiding a potential veto override battle that the second-term Democrat expected to lose.

A controversial effort to arm some Louisiana teachers and administrators to combat school shooters failed in the final hours of this year’s legislative session.