Toddler killed in flood waters
April 14, 2015Earline Arabie
April 15, 2015
The Bayou Region’s legislators – like all others in the state – are focusing heavily on Louisiana’s budget woes since their session began Monday.
But other topics – ranging from multi-modal transportation to abortion – are contained in bills filed by local representatives and senators.
Rep. Lenar Whitney, R-Houma, said her chief priority is balancing of the budget without raising taxes.
“Some tax credits may be reduced,” Whitney said. “Many [legislators] will try to reduce the size of government to make up the shortfall.”
Whitney’s bills include one that would outlaw abortions performed because parents did not like the gender of a fetus. Another would abolish the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center Commission, described as an administrative technicality.
State Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma, said his most important contribution to the session is his multi-modal transportation bill, because “it is the largest reorganization of transportation policy and focus in the past 20 years.”
Chabert’s bill would consolidate divisions in the office of multimodal commerce within the Department of Transportation and Development, makes the commissioner’s position governor-appointed, allows the office to become a member of the Louisiana Board of International Commerce and extends a deadline to offer the legislature their operational plan until February 2016.
A bill introduced by Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Napoleonville, would finally include the costs of tax exemptions and credits in the legislative revenue estimating conference. This means that the loss in revenue due to tax breaks would now be factored into the state budget.
Harrison said that tax exemptions are out of hand and that fixing the budget process could stop
frequent cuts to healthcare and education spending.
“To me, it is all about finding the money,” Harrison said. “Show me the money. And the money is there. I don’t think that we have to go into hitting people up for more and more and more taxes, as some like to take the easy route. So let’s correct the budget from the beginning.”
Harrison said that he’s requested a special legislative session to rewrite Louisiana budget law, but both Senate President John Alario, Jr., R-Westwego, and House Speaker Chuck Kleckly, R-Lake Charles, told him that could be tackled in regular session, but he does not believe that’s possible.
Rep. Gordon Dove is pushing an $880 million bill to fund the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s projects for the next year.
Projects include raising the levees between Larose and Golden Meadow, restoring the Barataria Bay Barrier Island System, and Restoring the beach at Port Fourchon which he said is the largest restoration project in Louisiana’s history. In Terrebonne Parish, restoration will start on the Caillou Lake Headlands and Whiskey Islands soon.
Dove said that he is excited for the projects, which would also be funded by BP disaster grants and some federal money.
Senator Troy Brown, D-Napoleonville, is proposing a bill creating a property insurance mediation program that offers an alternative to expensive law suits.
The bill “is designed to bring the parties together for a mediated claims settlement conference without any of the trappings or drawbacks of an adversarial process.”
Other bills Brown is proposing include one requiring that freight trains have two conductors, one requiring driving schools to have a physical location, and another requiring that public schools advertise the after-school online homework assistance program offered by State Library of Louisiana.
College freshmen would be required to be vaccinated against meningitis should a bill offered by Rep. Jerry Gisclair, D-Larose, pass.
Meningitis is a disease caused by the inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. The disease can progress rapidly, and the severity of illness and treatment differ depending on the type of meningitis.
“This bill near and dear to my heart and my family. We were directly affected by the death of a dear, dear friend at USL. He died of the virus. Working with this young man’s family to see this legislation pass.”
Gisclair said that hopefully this legislation would save young people’s lives.
Gisclair also introduced a bill placing time limits that investigators have to collecting findings from rape kits.
Sen. R.L. “Bret” Allain, R-Franklin, is proposing a law requiring that property owners and oil companies try to come to an agreement outside of court before resorting to litigation in cases of oil and chemical spills and their cleanup.
Another of Allain’s bills would lower the minimum amount of money that cleaning up orphaned oilfields must cost before the Department of Natural Resources must charge the companies that abandon them.
Allain also proposed clarifying a law that restricts property owners from stopping water flowing onto their land from adjacent property and also bars owners of higher property from making water flow onto their neighbor’s property.
Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard, I-Thibodaux, is proposing a number of bills that have moved through and even passed both houses of the legislature; one that was passed unanimously but was vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal that would reduce consulting contracts by ten-percent and deposit the savings into a Higher Education Financing Fund.
After the governor vetoes a bill, the legislature can meet for a veto session, where a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature would override the veto. But if the governor vetoes a bill after the end of the legislative session, a majority of legislators can vote a veto session unnecessary.
This time, along with past bills to reduce spending, Richard is proposing a bill that would require the legislature to meet in veto session 40 days after the end of the regular session to consider all bills vetoed by the governor.
“Most people do not know that we vote by ballot to decide if we want to go back to Baton Rouge,” Richard said. “You send it in if you don’t want to meet … That’s our duty. That’s our legislative branch of government speaking and we give it up. We refuse to do it.”
Multiple attempts to reach state Sen. Bret Alain and state Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard were unsuccessful as of press time.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal speaks at the National Rifle Association convention Friday in Nashville, Tenn. Jindal addressed local lawmakers Monday at the outset of the 2015 Regular Session.
State Rep. Joe Harrison wants a special session to take place to re-write Louisiana’s budget law.
