Regular Session of Louisiana Legislature Week 6

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Pelican Brief with your host, David Tatman.

[00:00:29] Welcome to The Pelican Brief. I am your host, David Tatman. Thank you for listening.

[00:00:35] So what's happening at the Louisiana State Capitol as we move through the 2024 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature?

[00:00:44] Well, legislative leaders continue to push the pace of the session.

[00:00:49] The legislative bodies are covering a lot of bills in a condensed timeframe during this legislative session.

[00:00:58] House and Senate committees have been handling large agendas, and both bodies are clearing their debate calendars on the floor.

[00:01:07] Many bills have crossed over to the opposite body, and there are Senate bills being heard in House committees and House bills being heard in Senate committees.

[00:01:19] This is pretty early on in the process for say week five of a regular session. So they're moving.

[00:01:26] The current pace is thought to be a precursor to the proposed constitutional convention that is being planned for at least as of now, late May through July.

[00:01:40] We mentioned as we talk about constitutional convention issues, HB 800 by Representative Beau Boye.

[00:01:50] That bill was filed last week at the Bill Filing deadline, and it calls for a constitutional convention beginning at 5.30 p.m. on Monday, May 20, 2024.

[00:02:01] As we mentioned before, the bill in its current form calls for 171 delegates and requires that there be a submission of a proposed constitution no later than July 15, 2024.

[00:02:16] That proposal would then be included on the fall elections ballot along with the President and Congress for a vote of the public.

[00:02:27] This is something that the governor and his supporters are pushing really hard for. In fact, he's already named his 27 appointees.

[00:02:37] So right now the way that it's laid out is all 105 House members would serve, all 39 senators would serve.

[00:02:46] And then in addition to those delegates, the governor would be able to appoint 27 additional delegates.

[00:02:55] There are a number of notable appointments. I won't name them all, but several former Supreme Court justices have been appointed.

[00:03:03] Three former legislators that are part of the governor's transition committee after he was elected on this subject matter.

[00:03:15] That's a former speaker of the House, Jim Tucker and former members of the Louisiana House of Representatives, Neil Abramson from New Orleans and Lulan Petrie of New Orleans.

[00:03:29] Other notable names are Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lapinto, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor President Sharon Weston-Broom and mega donors Lane Grigsby, Boise Ballinger and Roy O. Martin,

[00:03:44] as well as former Secretary of State Kyle Arjwan to name a few.

[00:03:50] Keep in mind that the last time Louisiana held a constitutional convention, the enabling legislation was passed in 1972 during the regular session.

[00:04:01] The convention was convened in January of 1973 and it all finished up in the fall of 74 with the voter approval of the Constitution that was put forward.

[00:04:16] So it took over two years last time. This effort appears to attempt to do what they did those many years ago in two months and then six months, two months of session.

[00:04:35] And then of course the vote of the people, a total of about six months. So we'll be watching it.

[00:04:40] So HB 800 will be debated in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee this week and will be voted on by the House and Governmental Affairs Committee next week.

[00:04:52] If the bill passes, it will move to the floor.

[00:04:56] We'll be talking about this a great deal in the days and weeks to come because this is definitely going to be a very high-profile issue.

[00:05:05] This is something that has been talked about since I've been lobbying for the last 34 years but has never come to fruition.

[00:05:13] And it looks like there's going to be a concerted effort to try to move this forward.

[00:05:18] There are some other bills that we thought we'd throw out there that are worth noting.

[00:05:22] House Bill 71 by Representative Doty Horton of Houghton would require that the 10 commandments be displayed in every classroom in Louisiana K through 12.

[00:05:34] And I always try to recommend that people don't pay much attention to the mainstream media because our local newspaper has already determined that the bill is clearly unconstitutional

[00:05:49] and they're expertly and highly trained legal opinion, which none of them seem to have a legal degree.

[00:05:55] But anyway, interesting that one of the groups that opposed this bill in committee was an organization called Freedom From Religion.

[00:06:08] And this organization, not freedom of religion, Freedom From Religion just goes to show you all these faux groups that show up in the sort of things that you have to deal with in this process.

[00:06:18] And that group has threatened to sue if this bill is eventually passed and signed by the governor.

[00:06:26] Another bill that we discussed last week passed both the House Commerce Committee overwhelmingly and the House floor overwhelmingly, really with little debate on the House floor.

[00:06:38] House Bill 388 by Representative Big John Ilg from Hauerhand, Louisiana.

[00:06:45] That's one of my homeboys. I'm from Hauerhand, which provides for live event ticketing would ensure that individuals who purchase tickets for live events in Louisiana would have control over their tickets.

[00:06:57] The Live Nation Ticketmaster merger that happened over a decade ago has created a monopolistic system that takes away the rights of consumers.

[00:07:07] This bill would simply say if you buy a ticket, you own and you control it.

[00:07:13] You can give it away. You can give it to your brother-in-law. You can donate it to charity. You can sell it on Facebook Marketplace if you want to avoid the fees.

[00:07:23] You can do whatever you want with it.

[00:07:26] Now, the opposition to this bill, which is Live Nation Ticketmaster, a couple of other of the affiliated ticket programs have hired an army of lobbyists to fight this bill.

[00:07:40] But this bill still easily passed the House Commerce Committee and House floor.

[00:07:46] It now goes to the Senate Commerce Committee for consideration.

[00:07:51] It is important to note that the Wall Street Journal published a report yesterday that indicates that the United States Department of Justice intends to sue Live Nation slash Ticketmaster for antitrust violations.

[00:08:07] The very things that this bill talks about.

[00:08:10] Live Nation acquired Ticketmaster what, 2010 I believe?

[00:08:15] There were a lot of people who thought it was a bad idea to get approved but it was approved.

[00:08:20] There have been plenty of congressional hearings and oversight of this.

[00:08:25] And this now the Department of Justice is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and affiliated companies in the coming weeks that would allege that the nation's biggest concert promoter has leveraged its dominance in a way that is undermined competition for ticketing of live events.

[00:08:49] We heard a statistic the other day that said include inflation in the price of increased price of live event tickets.

[00:08:58] And it's still 140% higher than it was before this merger took place.

[00:09:05] So that gives you a little bit of the indications about the fact that this is a market disruptor.

[00:09:11] So stay tuned. This will become a major issue that will be decided in Louisiana legislature for the Louisiana citizens.

[00:09:22] I believe a law like this has passed in six other states and of course at some point there's going to be some action at the federal level.

[00:09:30] Another issue that we discussed last week was a bill to rein in the flow of dangerous vapor products into Louisiana.

[00:09:39] You know vaping, not you know people used to smoke now some of them vape.

[00:09:44] It's just another way I guess to get your nicotine fix.

[00:09:48] There's a bill that was brought last year to do a bunch of things.

[00:09:54] One of them was to eliminate flavors.

[00:09:57] I'm sorry flavors.

[00:09:59] Another one was designed to rein in some of the foreign products.

[00:10:04] This has been a major issue in our state for a long time now.

[00:10:08] The bill that was passed last year is currently being litigated and that bill would have if it would be law would have dramatically limited those vapor products to those that were either approved by the state.

[00:10:23] They were either approved by at the federal food and drug administrator food and drug administration or awaiting final judgment on little gate litigation.

[00:10:34] House bill 621, which is the bill this year by Representative Joe Stagney from Kenner, Louisiana, also a fellow graduate of John Curtis, John Curtis boy past the House Judiciary Committee and past the house floor.

[00:10:50] It would prevent the direct shipping of vapor products from foreign nations and from those who are not currently approved or awaiting approval in some form or fashion from the FDA.

[00:11:04] So this bill is moving through the process it will next go to the Jude B committee and we'll see what happens so a couple of other things that are very prominent in the newspaper very prominent in the fake news and in the press.

[00:11:19] Are things that are going to attempt to try to bring down insurance rates.

[00:11:24] Major bills in impacting insurance in Louisiana will be debated in the committees of the opposing chambers so House bills in the Senate Senate bills in the house this week.

[00:11:36] Commissioner Tim temples package is designed to make Louisiana more in line with other states and less of an outlier moving forward and those bills are moving through the process this is one of those issues that the press is just using leftist propaganda to make this about big insurance companies when it is in fact.

[00:12:00] Simply to make Louisiana laws like most other states in the union you've heard me talk about it Louisiana is the only state where nationwide insurance doesn't right why because because they're bigger and bad or here it doesn't make any sense so we're hearing the stories you know from the other side about bad claims when claims aren't handled correctly people should be punished we have laws in place but we need to make sure that

[00:12:30] those laws are similar to what is done in other states and by the way other states that are similar to Louisiana in terms of their exposure to storm risks flooding hurricane states like Florida and so on and so forth.

[00:12:43] But there are some real stories that are going on in places like for million parish and LaFouche parish and Plackaman's parish where people really they're losing their houses because they can't afford to pay for the incredibly high homeowner's insurance rates.

[00:13:00] All of these bills again seek to make Louisiana less of an outlier still going to be an outlier but just not as bad so that we can begin to bring competition back into this state and competition will bring down prices as it always does in insurance and in so many other areas.

[00:13:20] So we're we're hopeful that a lot of these bills are going to pass.

[00:13:27] A great example of how twisted the press is is Senate bill and 13 this is a bill that would have prevented the these bad faith penalties from being assessed against the Louisiana citizens property and casualty insurance corporation they're called bad faith penalties they're actually using the

[00:13:50] call fair claims handling penalties but when you read the newspaper they've got to get their click through the news headline reads that Republicans show disagreement for this pro industry bill what's not a pro industry bill.

[00:14:06] The reality of it is the Louisiana property insurance and the Louisiana citizens property and casualty insurance corporation is not an insurance company per se they are owned by the people of Louisiana.

[00:14:21] In fact, it is only controlled by the state of Louisiana so when you do pay when when when someone sues them and there are penalties for claims handling.

[00:14:34] You know who pays for that you do the citizens of Louisiana pay that and if you don't believe me go to go pull out your insurance policy or go look it up.

[00:14:45] Your homeowners insurance policy or go look it up on your pull it out of your email and read the declarations page and you will see a citizens assessment that's to pay in part to the last time citizens with hit was hit with a 250 million.

[00:15:04] Dollar bad faith claims penalty so this is this is crazy that presses portraying it as big bad insurance companies the insurance companies don't pay for that we do.

[00:15:16] So don't believe what you read believe well just listen to us will tell you what is the truth and so check out that declarations page literally next year we finish paying for the 250 million dollar judgment.

[00:15:32] That was assessed against citizens from Hurricane Katrina.

[00:15:39] 25 years ago so you pay that assessment 2025 years later.

[00:15:45] No no insurance companies are paying this so look out for fake news also look out for some of these foe groups that are out there with names that are.

[00:15:58] You know made up grass roots astro turf organizations that are asking you to sign petitions be careful what you sign because the reality of it is many of those web sites and social media sites are incredibly misrepresenting what's actually going on.

[00:16:18] I'm going to say this I've said before I'll say it again Commissioner Tim Temple Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple has been working hard to bring down insurance rates by bringing competition to our marketplace.

[00:16:30] I believe that it will take some time because that's the way insurance works it has a tail on it but I believe this will do more than anything in my lifetime to help balance out our insurance markets and try to get insurance companies back here.

[00:16:47] I'm going to talk about a couple of other bills another bill of interest that you all may be interested in is House Bill 71 by Representative Doty Horton from Houghton Louisiana that's up in Northwest Louisiana.

[00:17:00] The bill would require that a copy of the 10 commandments be posted in every K through 12 school in Louisiana.

[00:17:08] The legislation has passed through the House Committee and is in on the House floor pending the Senate Committee hearing.

[00:17:16] And this is again I mentioned it a little bit earlier but it is definitely moved along but I wanted to mention it again because there's a lot of people who are really against this and I just wanted to point out because I know not everybody.

[00:17:30] Everybody may not know what the 10 commandments are and I'm not going to read all 10 but a couple of them just for good measure that we would post in the classroom is thou shalt not kill.

[00:17:41] Thou shall honor your father and your mother thou shall not commit adultery thou shall not steal thou shall not bear fault witness against your neighbor or lie and I shall not come it.

[00:17:58] I'm not saying the 10 commandments necessarily need to be there but boy those things would be nice posters in every classroom take out the religious connotation it's just a way to live your life correct.

[00:18:09] So I know that's some highly controversial stuff there but that's kind of the big things that are moving through the legislature I did want to on this show touch on some things that are going on that will impact our elections this fall.

[00:18:28] Currently the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a case in the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court entry board is considering the case that that is trying to throw out the most recent congressional maps that were passed that add a second majority minority district in Louisiana.

[00:18:55] The question at hand is whether the new maps were drawn based on race or where they drawn on other factors.

[00:19:03] The Voting Rights Act prohibits drawing maps based on race.

[00:19:08] If the new maps are approved then the current House District 6 which is currently being served by Congressman Garrett Graves would move from a Baton Rouge based district.

[00:19:24] To a district that they call it the seat belt because it goes across Louisiana from Baton Rouge up through Point Copee, St. Landry Parish, Rapids all the way up to Shreveport.

[00:19:36] If the new 6th District is upheld former congressman and current state Senator Cleo Fields would be the odds on favor to win that seat.

[00:19:46] Senator Fields has already raised nearly a million dollars.

[00:19:49] He's got an incredible machine, a political machine out there so he would be the odds on favor.

[00:19:55] But there are other potential candidates in that race.

[00:19:59] Activist Gary Chambers, former state Senator Albert Guillory from St. Landry Parish who is a Republican.

[00:20:06] He's an African American Republican.

[00:20:08] Public servant or another one would be public service commissioner Dante Lewis.

[00:20:13] A decision from the 5th, the trial for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal.

[00:20:18] I'm sorry for the 5th Circuit Court happened and was completed last week.

[00:20:23] The decision is expected sometime in the next couple of weeks.

[00:20:29] So that is our show for today just to kind of get you up to speed on what's happening in Louisiana.

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