Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature Weeks 4-5

[00:00:10] Welcome to the Pelican Brief, with your host David Tatman. Welcome to the Pelican Brief, I am your host David Tatman. Thank you so much for listening. So today we're going to talk about what happened during week 4 of the 2024 regular session of Louisiana Legislature

[00:00:42] and what to expect in week 5. The legislative bodies are working very quickly that during this session. House and Senate committees have been handling large agendas and both bodies are clearing their debate calendars on their floor.

[00:00:57] Many bills have crossed over to the opposite body and we expect Senate bills to be heard in house committee and house bills to be heard in Senate committee this week and week 5.

[00:01:09] The elephant in the room for everyone is the proposed constitutional convention that would be created by house bill 800 by representative Bobo Ye from New Iberia. As that bill currently stands, the constitutional convention would begin at 530 on Monday, May 20, 2024.

[00:01:31] There would be 171 delegates. We're required that there be a submission of a proposed constitutional amendment no later than July 15, May 20, 2024 and that proposal would be included on the fall elections ballot for consideration by a vote of the public.

[00:01:52] If you have not yet listened to our special edition of the Pelican Brief with Joe Mapes, check it out. We provide a great deal of conversation about the current proposal and a little history about the last constitution which was held in 1973 and 74.

[00:02:14] So let's talk a little bit about what happened last week in the legislative session and then we'll take a look ahead at what's going to happen next week. The major bills moving through the system relative to insurance and educational reform are moving through the process.

[00:02:34] The expects some of these bills to be the first to cross over to the non originating body for consideration. In fact, we know that there are house bills that are ready to be heard in the Senate committee.

[00:02:53] But in the house insurance committee, there are going to be Senate bills heard this week that will be debated to try to improve our insurance markets in Louisiana.

[00:03:06] So a few bills worth noting last week was the bill filing that the final bill filing deadline for bill. So as you may recall every legislator can file an unparalleled number of bills.

[00:03:22] After that pre filing deadline each bill, each legislator is a file allowed to file up to five bills in the session up until about three weeks after the session starts for us. That was an April 1 deadline.

[00:03:38] So we saw a lot of bills on April 2nd hit the system. One of those is Senate bill 403 by Senator Fessy that would grant the Louisiana governor the power to appoint the chairs of Louisiana as five higher education boards.

[00:03:54] So remember the governor already has appointments on all of those boards, but this would go a little further and allow him to appoint the chairs. Currently those chairs are appointed by the sitting members of those higher education boards.

[00:04:10] There is some speculation that this bill is being spurred by a powerful supporter of Governor Landry.

[00:04:16] Senator Fessy stated that the bill was brought by two him by an outside group, but did not name that group so that would be all speculation and we don't do as much of that here.

[00:04:28] So another bill of interest is Senate bill 237 by Senator Thomas Pressley out of Shreeport. It would eliminate consumable hemp in Louisiana.

[00:04:40] The legislation stems from concerns over those that believe that the hemp industry and the CBD industry has basically legalized THC, which as we know is the active ingredient in cannabis or marijuana in Louisiana.

[00:04:56] There are a number of hemp CBD products that have high concentrations of THC. Keep a close eye on this because the hemp industry is exploded across Louisiana.

[00:05:08] It is sold in most convenient stores and the number of hemp and CBD stores around the state. And there's been a lot of investment in hemp and CBD. This bill would effectively put those people out of business. So if there's going to be an interesting conversation as we move forward.

[00:05:26] Why don't you do know there are several other bills that seek to dial back and limit hemp and CBD products in terms of the THC that is included. Remember THC is the psychotropic compound that basically gets you high in those products, whether it be cannabis CBD hemp they're all in the same family. So it's something to watch and it'll be an interesting conversation.

[00:05:53] So here's one to you like protests, do you love to go down, you know, on a Saturday to your local protest and wave a sign, blow whistles, throw stuff on people. Do you like that?

[00:06:03] Well then you need to keep an eye on how to spill 173 by representative Brian Fattnoh from D. Buddo. This bill would create the crime of approaching a police officer who is lawfully engaged in law enforcement activities.

[00:06:18] The bill would expand the penalties for individuals who block public streets during protests or come within 25 feet of a police officer in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit picketing at private residences.

[00:06:34] So if you do that sort of stuff, you may not like this bill. A very similar bill passed the legislature last year. This one goes a little bit further but was vetoed by Governor John Bell Edwards.

[00:06:47] There is a bill that was filed late filed bill by Senate bill 482 by Senator Heather Cloud of Turkey Creek in Central Louisiana. This provides for the access to public records relative to the governors and his functions of his office. There are several bills on this subject matter, but this appears to be V-Bill.

[00:07:09] The press is having kittens over this. Read the articles in the press because they're about to die. You know, the world's going to end if there's bill passes. If you read the articles or watch the news channel, they're so partisan on this issues.

[00:07:25] They don't report it. They take a position and promote that position. This is not journalism. This is the problem that I have with the press. Tell the story you decide.

[00:07:36] I'm not sure if I like the bill or not, but I can tell you it doesn't work me up. I had no kittens or letters of puppies or anything on this.

[00:07:45] I can tell you that public records request are often used to bring transparency to processes and to make sure elected officials are not doing things that they're not supposed to do.

[00:08:00] I also a tool that has been weaponized and used to harass elected or pointed officials who want to what you want them to do.

[00:08:10] And the cost to taxpayers in Louisiana, it's millions of dollars at the state and local levels. I'm all four public access to information, but the truth is you can get most of that information online or just by talking to someone if you want it.

[00:08:26] It was used in weaponized in my time in the East Bad and Rouge Paris, school where we had to hire a full-time employee to deal with the massive number of public requests that were coming from a very few individuals that never amounted to anything.

[00:08:46] It was meant to harass us. Nothing ever came of any of those public records request, but we produced thousands and thousands of pages of documents and had to hire a full-time person to do it.

[00:09:01] In addition to others having attorneys to review it, to make sure that it didn't violate the law relative to the release of anything we weren't supposed to release. I believe there needs to be balance in that and I hope that this bill will create some of that balance.

[00:09:18] So let's look ahead to what we expect in week five. We think major bills impacting insurance in Louisiana will move through the committees of the opposing chambers, commissioners, commissioner temples, package design to make Louisiana more in line with other states and less and outlier are moving through the process.

[00:09:39] This is one of those issues again. I'm going to spank the press on this that they're using leftist propaganda to make this about big bad insurance companies when in fact it simply amends Louisiana's laws to be more like other states.

[00:09:54] We are hearing stories that the press will never report about families that are losing their homes because they can't afford insurance and why can't they afford insurance insurance premiums are too high and why are they too high?

[00:10:08] Well, in addition to the fact that we have been hammered by hurricanes over the past few years by tornadoes by hail storms.

[00:10:17] Our laws are different than other states were in outlier. Nationwide insurance rights in every state and the nation except Louisiana and their name is nationwide it's almost embarrassing.

[00:10:29] But others in our state are having to go without coverage or dramatically reduced coverage because they can't afford it and some homeowners are turning in their keys to the banks, to the mortgage lenders.

[00:10:46] If you don't believe that go down to placaments, go down to the Lufusian lower Jefferson Paris go down to the middle of a million Paris go down to

[00:10:56] You know, extreme southwest Louisiana like Cameron Paris and ask them what they're dealing with. Yeah, they're dealing with people who didn't treat them well in claims there's no doubt about that but now they can't keep their homes because they can't afford to take cost of insurance.

[00:11:13] So Tim Temple's doing a fabulous job as insurance commission. I'm very proud of the work he's doing. I'm very proud of of him allowing me and and others to be at the table to talk about some of the issues that are happening.

[00:11:28] The the press is just beating him like a dog but Tim standing strong he knows what needs to be done. He's been in the industry for a long time and look he's staking his reputation on it. He's saying these are the things that we need to do to stabilize the market.

[00:11:42] We're going to do him and he is not relented and so he is a gut see politician and I feel really good about what he's doing and about the impact it's going to have on my insurance premiums.

[00:11:57] My families insurance premiums my businesses insurance premium. So I'm excited about that and they're all going to be Senate bills that are a part of his package that are going to be heard in house insurance committee this week.

[00:12:11] So keep an eye out for that. That bill is quickly moving through the process. A major bill in the house commerce committee that we wanted to talk about will be debated this week.

[00:12:22] House bill 388 by representative big John Hill which provides for a live event ticketing would ensure that individuals who purchase tickets and Louisiana for live events would have control over their tickets.

[00:12:37] You say, well we already do no you don't you do not you do not own that ticket first it's not a ticket it's a licensing agreement and they can control what you do with that ticket so for example if they sell you that ticket on ticket master they can say that you can only resell the ticket on ticket master.

[00:12:57] What if you want to give it away what if you want to donate it to a church what if you want to give it to your brother and law would if what if you want to do something else what if you want to go on Facebook marketplace and sell it to help avoid all those fees and perhaps get a better price.

[00:13:13] In many circumstances you can't do that and most of that has to do with the live nation ticket master merger that should have never happened.

[00:13:23] Congress is looking deeply into this because the they they it is site there are such an 800 pound gorilla that they have complete control over that ticket market.

[00:13:36] And now they have control over the artists so this bill would simply say if you buy a ticket you own head in control that you can do what you want with it give it away you can donate it you can do what you want to it with it.

[00:13:49] And that's a big deal so expect a major effort to defeat this bill because there are people who stand to make millions and millions and millions of dollars.

[00:14:00] And we will likely do a special show on this legislation as it moves through the process there is a great show on this on the john Oliver show was done a couple years ago, but it still holds true.

[00:14:13] I'm going to post it in the show notes, but if you go in Google John Oliver and ticket master you need to listen to it. It's about a 30 minute segment again he gets off into some comedic things here, but you have to listen to it until the end.

[00:14:29] It tells some of the stories about concerts where when the tickets went on sale less than 10% of them were actually offered for sale many were held back and sold later when the market dictated a higher price.

[00:14:44] And many were given to or sold to at a preferred price credit card companies or fan clubs and I'm all for that because if I buy a credit card and I get a special deal it's fine.

[00:14:58] And if I join a fan club that's fine but you can't always do that and so this bill will give people more control over their tickets.

[00:15:09] I think when I buy a ticket I own it, but because of this issue coming up for several years in a row now I realize I don't. And that it's not a ticket it's a licensing agreement and so keep an eye out for it.

[00:15:23] I think this bill will go a long way toward helping Louisiana consumers and frankly Louisiana artists control their their shows and help Louisiana ticket holders control their tickets that's one thing I think everyone can agree on so.

[00:15:43] And so the major issue that you hear talked about is vaping right vapor products so many people smoked and they you know wanted to quit smoking so they started vaping if you will.

[00:15:55] And so the thing products have been a major issue in our state and there was bill that was passed last year and is now being litigated that would dramatically limit vapor products to those that are approved by the FDA or awaiting a final judgment on the FDA or involved in litigation with the FDA.

[00:16:18] And so in 1991 by representative Joe stagney of Kenner Louisiana would prevent the direct shipping of vapor products from. From foreign nations from those individuals who are not regulated or approved you have to keep in mind that.

[00:16:33] Right now in the market when you go into a convenience store or a vape shop you have no idea where there's products came from many of those products are made in China they might have fentanyl in them they may have some sort of synthetic nicotine that is not approved.

[00:16:47] In the United States we don't know what's in them we heard stories about people in vape shops mixing.

[00:16:55] Blueberry favored vapor vapor material with all kinds of things so just don't know which in the products most of the products that are approved or in final approval with the FDA.

[00:17:10] Which called closed systems so the closed system is that that you know what's in it when you vape it and so it's safer for people who vape whether or not you feel like vaping is safe.

[00:17:23] Or whether you feel like cigarette smoking is safer or whatever you think but this bill house bill 621 it is an important bill the bill passed last year.

[00:17:34] It was implemented there was a lawsuit and that lawsuit is in litigation right now so what this bill would do is basically address those issues that it's in litigation for re. In state the law this law actually goes a little bit favor.

[00:17:57] Farther because it would make it so that mail you could not get mail order vape products they would have to come through a process much like cigarettes do cigars or smogless tobacco so.

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[00:20:05] We are going to continue to cover the Louisiana legislature and all things will be on a politics and so until next time we are the pelican brief.