HB
141 by Rep. Kevin
Pearson would relax requirements for advertising retirement bills, which
are in addition to others, in the official journal. He pointed out to the House and Governmental
Affairs Committee that with today’s technology, there’s plenty of
opportunity for these to be known and there’s no apparent reason why they
should be treated specially. “It’s all about money,” he said, implying that the
official state journal, the Baton Rouge
Advocate, had the only real vested interest in retaining this law, and
questioned how it helped the large number of retirees who live outside of Baton
Rouge.
Rep. Gregory Miller
asked who paid for this additional cost; Pearson said the legislator pays for
it unless the retirement system agreed, and can do it out of a campaign
account, which he estimated was around $40 a notice. He said he thought it
appropriate that local bills be advertised in local official journals.
Rep. Johnny Berthelot
said the reason for advertising them was to discourage special retirement
exemptions from being slipped into law. Pearson said recent constitutional
changes would serve the same purpose, and didn’t think they really had much of
a discouraging effect. He also said very specific bills still came in
regardless.
Rep. Steven Pugh said cutting off newspapers without this revenue might threaten them, that local businesses should be promoted. Pearson did point out it would affect one paper, and didn’t think it was government’s job to subsidize newspapers, and creating economic development this way would mean all bills needed to meet the same requirement.
After dealing with a technical
amendment, Pearson determined it was a losing cause and decided to defer
voluntarily, which was done unanimously.
DID YOU KNOW?
HCR
15 by Rep. Ray
Garofalo would call for a constitutional convention to impose fiscal
restraints on the federal government, limit federal government power, and
provide for term limits for federal officials and Members of Congress. He said
there would be no “runaway” convention, saying the specificity of the
resolution would prevent that, and surely 13 states would veto something like
that. The resolution would limit amendments that any Louisiana delegation could
propose and deal with. He said there have been 31 uses of the governing part of
the Constitution for this, Art. V.
Opponent Sandy McDade of the conservative
Eagle Forum said Art. V was too vague to prevent a runaway convention and that
safeguards in the resolution won’t be good enough. A representative of the
liberal Louisiana Budget Project agreed, and said the putting restraints on
fiscal powers of the federal government as the resolution requested was unwise.
Garofalo disputed the last claim,
given the enormous addition of debt in the federal government in recent years.
He also argued precedent would provide the framework and that the
three-quarters ratification requirement would prevent any unwise changes being
made.
Rep. Mike Danahay,
objected, saying he was uncertain that such a thing could be reined in, and
moved to defer, and that was done without objection. Later, the similar HCR
6 by Rep. Nick
Lorusso also was deferred.
DID YOU KNOW?
HB
874 by Rep. Stuart
Bishop, after some minor amending, would require reports made by agencies
responsible for litigation in the previous year made to legislators at the beginning
of a session. Miller asked whether it placed limitations on agencies; Bishop
said it only addressed transparency. First Assistant Atty. General Trey
Phillips said his agency collected much of this already, but said if they had
to collect it on behalf of all agencies they needed to be the budget to do
that.
Without objection, the amended
bill was moved favorably unanimously.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I have a lot of Constitutional
scholars in my district; they call all the time.
You too?
Danahay,
during questioning of Garofalo with his reply.
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