Regular legislative session scores, 2024

With everything dealt with, and a veto session cancelled, the Louisiana Legislature Log presents its 2024 Louisiana Legislature scorecard. Twenty bills were selected and weighed for computation. These were chosen from the watch list compiled throughout the session. For a bill’s vote to be selected, in one chamber there had to be more than one legislator not voting for the winning or losing side. In fact, with so much momentous legislation passing through the chambers this year, every selected bill – and several more could have qualified, but the sample selected here covers the wide range of topics – had at least a quarter of the chamber on the losing side except for one instance.

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. In the case of constitutional amendments, the governor’s score would be adjusted similarly, although none featured in this year’s scorecard.

Here are the bills on which the scorecard was computed:

HB 8 – prevents watering down of high school graduation standards

HB 121 – protects teachers from harassment over the use of students’ legal names

HB 122 – assures age-appropriate and unbiased instruction for students on matters of sexuality

HB 383 – prevents legal actions by lawbreakers against motorists acting reasonably

HB 391 – weakens laws against dope-smoking

HB 608 – prevents persons of a biological sex from being put into environments where they could harm those of the other sex

HB 611 – removes anti-competitive elements in insurance

HB 762 – removes the requirement that all seekers of high school diplomas take the ACT exam

HB 908 – prohibits discrimination in education based upon vaccination status

SB 101 – prevents electoral systems that discourage party-building

SB 194 – brings local firearms laws in concordance with state laws

SB 195 – implements work requirements for certain welfare recipients

SB 208 – prohibits governments from enforcing sanctuary policies for illegal aliens

SB 218 – increases absentee ballot security

SB 262 – prevents educators from discriminating against elementary and secondary education students by maintaining they are oppressor or oppressed by virtue of their race or national origin

SB 276 – strengthens protection of the unborn and prohibits victimizing women through coerced abortion and requires prescriptions for abortion-inducing drugs

SB 294 – clarifies higher education institution free expression law

SB 295 – streamlines the insurance rate change process

SB 313 – increases educational choice by creating education savings accounts

SB 357 – more realistically defines emergency powers law

SB 420 – increases election security at polling places

In all instances each is weighed as 5 points. In all instances but HB 391 and HB 762 the conservative/reform vote is in favor and the liberal/populist vote is against, where with HB 391 and HB 762 the conservative/reform vote is against and the liberal/populist vote is in favor.

These are the House scores for 2024: 

Billings	100	Republican
Carlson	100	Republican
Chenevert	100	Republican
Dewitt	100	Republican
Echols	100	Republican
McMakin	100	Republican
Riser	100	Republican
Wright	100	Republican
Amedee	95	Republican
Bacala	95	Republican
Dickerson	95	Republican
Egan	95	Republican
Galle'	95	Republican
Glorioso	95	Republican
Horton	95	Republican
Melerine	95	Republican
Muscarello	95	Republican
Myers	95	Republican
Owen, C	95	Republican
Romero	95	Republican
Schlegel	95	Republican
Thomas	95	Republican
Thompson	95	Republican
Ventrella	95	Republican
Villio	95	Republican
Wiley	95	Republican
Beaullieu	90	Republican
Berault	90	Republican
Borriaque	90	Republican
Boyer	90	Republican
Carver	90	Republican
Crews	90	Republican
Deshotel	90	Republican
Farnum	90	Republican
Gadberry	90	Republican
Illg	90	Republican
Johnson, M	90	Republican
McMahen	90	Republican
Schamerhorn	90	Republican
St. Blanc	90	Republican
Turner	90	Republican
Wilder	90	Republican
Wyble	90	Republican
Zeringue	90	Republican
Mack	89	Republican
Bagley	85	Republican
Carrier	85	Republican
DeVillier	85	Republican
Edmonston	85	Republican
Emerson	85	Republican
Fontenot	85	Republican
Hebert	85	Republican
Henry	85	Republican
Kerner	85	Republican
McCormick	85	Republican
Orgeron	85	Republican
Bayham	80	Republican
Braud	80	Republican
Butler	80	Republican
Coates	80	Republican
Firment	80	Republican
Freiberg	80	Republican
Geymann	80	Republican
Tarver	80	Republican
Bamburg	75	Republican
Cox	75	Republican
Davis	75	Republican
McFarland	75	Republican
Domangue	70	Republican
Landry, J	70	Republican
LaCombe	65	Republican
Stagni	65	Republican
Hilferty	55	Republican
Adams	35	Democrat
Johnson, T	35	Democrat
Bryant	30	Democrat
Brass	25	Democrat
Brown	25	Democrat
Carter, R	25	Democrat
Selders	25	Democrat
Fisher	20	Democrat
Jackson	20	Democrat
Taylor	20	Democrat
Marcelle	16	Democrat
Moore	16	Democrat
Boyd	15	Democrat
LaFleur	15	Democrat
Lyons	15	Democrat
Mena	15	Democrat
Miller, D	15	Democrat
Carpenter	10	Democrat
Hughes	10	Democrat
Jordan	10	Democrat
Lavardain	10	Democrat
Carter, W	5	Democrat
Chassion	5	Democrat
Freeman	5	Democrat
Green	5	Democrat
Knox	5	Democrat
Newell	5	Democrat
Willard	5	Democrat
Young	5	Democrat
Landry, M	0	Democrat
Phelps	0	Democrat
Walters	0	Democrat

Influencing somewhat more than usual it appeared for Republicans were absences during votes. This probably was due to two factors, one of which didn’t differentiate an absence from a vote against. On a few of the more controversial bills lower-scoring Republicans disproportionately didn’t vote, which may have been an attempt to duck voting against something that would have brought them adverse publicity in their districts. The other factor seemed to be having a supermajority and a governor of the same party. In the previous eight years, even with a supermajority for much of that, having a governor of the other party and much farther to the political left meant a show of strength was needed to signal to him the possibility of veto overrides, which could affect his bill signing (or not) and veto decisions, so all hands were encouraged to be on deck for each vote of major consequence. However, with a couple of exceptions the bottom ten GOP names perhaps aren’t surprising, given their past statements and voting behavior and/or the nature of their districts.

Regardless, there is a 20-point gap between the lowest-scoring Republican and highest-scoring Democrat, with perfect party sorting and all Republicans above 50 and all Democrats below. The averages – overall of 65.39 and GOP of 87.93 – were high but only fourth highest since the scorecard began in 2004, while the Democrats’ average of 13.96 was the lowest ever except for last year’s being marginally lower. That left the highest partisan gap on record (for the third year running).

As for the Senate: 

Edmonds	100	Republican
Miguez	100	Republican
Seabaugh	100	Republican
Cathey	95	Republican
Hodges	95	Republican
Mizell	95	Republican
Henry	95	Republican
Hensgens	95	Republican
Fesi	90	Republican
Kleinpeter	90	Republican
Miller, G	90	Republican
Pressly	90	Republican
Reese	90	Republican
Wheat	90	Republican
Cloud	89	Republican
Abraham	85	Republican
Allain	85	Republican
Bass	85	Republican
Connick	85	Republican
Coussan	85	Republican
Foil	85	Republican
McMath	85	Republican
Stine	85	Republican
Talbot	85	Republican
Womack	82	Republican
Morris	80	Republican
Owen, R	78	Republican
Lambert	75	Republican
Barrow	22	Democrat
Jackson-Andrews	10	Democrat
Jenkins	5	Democrat
Luneau	5	Democrat
Boudreaux	0	Democrat
Bouie	0	Democrat
Carter, G.	0	Democrat
Duplessis	0	Democrat
Fields	0	Democrat
Harris, J	0	Democrat
Price	0	Democrat

Here, the differences between the parties are the starkest in the scorecard’s history. Not only is there a 53-point difference between highest Democrat and lowest Republican in an even more extreme party sorting, but also, for the fourth year in a row, there is the highest partisan gap on record. The GOP’s average was even higher than its House counterparts’ at 88.72, but the Democrats’ at a miniscule 4.22 was considerably below their House comrades, leading to an astronomical partisan gap that (again, for the fourth year in a row) set a record, over 10 points lower than last year’s record. That resulted in a chamber average of 64.78.

Mainly because of plunging Democrat scores in both chambers over the past few years while Republican scores stayed in the 80-90 range in the House and 70-94 span in the Senate, the chamber averages are only fifth-highest on record, as is the combined score of 65.58 (with almost all of the higher scores coming in the past four years). The combined GOP score of 88.15 was second-highest behind 2022, while Democrats’ combined score of 11.64 easily was the lowest. The chamber gap, however, remained tight, the fourth-smallest ever.

Finally, for comparison’s sake, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry scored 95 in his first year, far above his predecessor’s last term average of 32.75 and 2023 score of 28.

This concludes this year’s scoring for the Log. Any potential special sessions with legislation of sufficient import to be scored will be rolled into next year’s scorecard.