The Good, Bad, and Ugly -- 2014 Regular Session prefiled bills

Welcome to the 2014 edition of the Louisiana Legislature Log. As always, we begin the year with the prefiled good, bad, and ugly bills of which the first two categories fill the bulk of the tracking list for this regular session. Of note, in the 10 years the Log has reviewed prefiled bills, this by far is the most that were deemed relevant, and significantly more bad than good bills also were cited.

Legislative regular session rankings, 2013

And so the session is complete, save an unprecedented and would be miraculous veto override session being called. Thus, it’s time to compute the voting scorecard for the 2013 session. Twelve issues were selected and weighed for computation, all but two having been voted upon in both chambers. These were chosen mostly from the watch list compiled throughout the session, along with others of some importance. For a bill’s vote(s) to be selected, in both chambers there had to be more than one legislator not voting for the winning or losing side.

Being that passage of bills depends upon the seated membership of a body, not voting is counted as a negative vote. However, if a legislator had a leave of absence granted for that day, his absent votes weren’t counted for bills voted on that day and the score adjusted to take that into account.

Here are the bills with votes for final passage in every case on which the scorecard was computed, with the conservative/reform position and the weighing indicated:

Legislative regular session through Jun. 29. 2013

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: HB 653 was signed by the governor; SB 61 was vetoed by the governor.

FINAL SCORECARD:

Total number of bills, House: 729; total number of bills, Senate: 262.

Total number of good bills, House: 51; total number of good bills, Senate: 16.

Total number of bad bills, House: 49; total number of bad bills, Senate: 12.

Total House good bills heard in House committee: 39; total Senate good bills heard in Senate committee: 10.

Total House bad bills heard in House committee: 39; total Senate bad bills heard in Senate committee: 11.

Total House good bills passed by House committee: 15; total Senate good bills passed by Senate committee: 8.

Total House bad bills passed by House committee: 9; total Senate bad bills passed by Senate committee: 6.

Total House good bills approved by House: 10; total Senate good bills approved by Senate: 8.

Total House bad bills approved by House: 6; total Senate bad bills approved by Senate: 4.

Total House good bills heard in Senate committee: 10; total Senate good bills heard in House committee: 5.

Total House bad bills heard in Senate committee: 6; total Senate bad bills heard in House committee: 4.

Total House good bills approved by Senate committee: 8; total Senate good bills approved by House committee: 5.

Total House bad bills approved by Senate committee: 3; total Senate bad bills approved by House committee: 4.

Total House good bills approved by Senate: 8; total Senate good bills approved by House: 4.

Total House bad bills approved by Senate: 3; total Senate bad bills approved by House: 4.

Total House good bills going to governor: 7; total Senate good bills going to governor: 4.

Total House bad bills going to governor: 3; total Senate bad bills going to governor: 4.

Total House good bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 7; total Senate good bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 4.

Total House bad bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 4; total Senate bad bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 2.

Legislative regular session through Jun. 22, 2013

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 6 was signed by the governor; HB 8 was signed by the governor, HB 98 was signed by the governor; HB 525 was signed by the governor; HB 717 was signed by the governor; HB 725 was signed by the governor; SB 20 was signed by the governor; SB 31 was signed by the governor; SB 90 was signed by the governor.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: HB 174 was signed by the governor; HB 352 was signed by the governor; SB 63 was signed by the governor; SB 215 was signed by the governor.

SCORECARD:

Legislative regular session through Jun. 15, 2013

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 582 was signed by the governor;  SB 45 was signed by the governor.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD:  SB 33 was signed by the governor.

SCORECARD: