Regular legislative session through Apr. 27, 2019

Finally, the Legislature gets in a full week of business (which for it is four days), so activity has picked up. Most intriguingly, one bill actually flipped in status, with amendments taking HB 521 from bad to good by eliminating the overall tax increase that could have resulted and diverting some existing tax revenues to New Orleans infrastructure.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 82 passed House committee; HB 372 with minor amendment passed the House; HB 404 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 413 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 425 passed the House; HB 484 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 521 with major amendment passed House committee; SB 201 with minor amendment passed Senate committee and passed the Senate.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: SB 136 passed Senate committee; SB 155 passed Senate committee.

Regular legislative session through Apr. 20, 2019

The Louisiana Legislature had another week light on business, this time because it adjourned the week early after inclement weather. Nonetheless, the window for introducing bills remained open.

THE GOOD: HB 588 by Rep. Stephanie Hilferty essentially redirects a percent of the hotel occupancy tax to New Orleans and cuts a tax on food and beverage sales; HB 594 by Rep. Mark Wright would flatten and simplify income taxes (similar bill: HB 608); HB 599 by Rep. Lance Harris would cut sales taxes.

THE BAD: HB 589 by Rep. Walt Leger would continue indefinitely superfluous taxes going to tourism activities; HB 601 by Rep. Larry Bagley largely subverts consumer savings from his HB 546; HB 610 by Rep. Blake Miguez would intensify the elevated amount of revenue sharing by the state by retaining a higher sales tax; SB 237 by Sen. Yvonne Colomb would create duplicative governmental units.

Regular legislative session through Apr. 13, 2019

Even more than typically, the Legislature didn’t work on many bills in its first week as it worked through parliamentary procedures.

THE GOOD: HB 584 by Rep. Dodie Horton would repeal 0.45 percent of the general sales tax.

SCORECARD:
Total number of bills, House: 584; total number of bills, Senate: 225.

Total number of good bills, House: 27; total number of good bills, Senate: 10.

Total number of bad bills, House: 25; total number of bad bills, Senate: 16.

Total House good bills heard in House committee: 0; total Senate good bills heard in Senate committee: 1.

Total House bad bills heard in House committee: 0; total Senate bad bills heard in Senate committee: 0.

Total House good bills passed by House committee: 0; total Senate good bills passed by Senate committee: 0.

Total House bad bills passed by House committee: 0; total Senate bad bills passed by Senate committee: 0.

Total House good bills approved by House: 0; total Senate good bills approved by Senate: 0.

Total House bad bills approved by House: 0; total Senate bad bills approved by Senate: 0.

Total House good bills heard in Senate committee: 0; total Senate good bills heard in House committee: 0.

Total House bad bills heard in Senate committee: 0; total Senate bad bills heard in House committee: 0.

Total House good bills approved by Senate committee: 0; total Senate good bills approved by House committee: 0.

Total House bad bills approved by Senate committee: 0; total Senate bad bills approved by House committee: 0.

Total House good bills approved by Senate: 0; total Senate good bills approved by House: 0.

Total House bad bills approved by Senate: 0; total Senate bad bills approved by House: 0.

Total House good bills going to governor: 0; total Senate good bills going to governor: 0.

Total House bad bills going to governor: 0; total Senate bad bills going to governor: 0.

Total House good bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 0; total Senate good bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 0.

Total House bad bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 0; total Senate bad bills signed by governor/filed with Secretary of State: 0.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly for the 2019 Regular session

Welcome to the 2019 edition of the Louisiana Legislature Log, which is somewhat scaled-down from the past due to circumstances beyond my control. As always, we start with the Good, Bad and Ugly bills, except this year without the ugly.

THE GOOD: HB 12 by Rep. Steve Carter would amend the Constitution to provide a local option for applying the homestead exemption (similar bills: HB 238, HB 439); HB 19 by Rep. Kevin Pearson would help pay down the state’s unfunded accrued liability; HB 28 by Rep. Barry Ivey would shore up the fiscal health of the state’s retirement systems; HB 31 by Rep. Philip Devillier would phase out the corporate franchise tax (similar bill: HB 523); HB 57 by Rep. Tanner Magee would amend the Constitution to centralize sales tax collection with the state; HB 72 by Rep. Tony Bacala would reduce government waste; HB 82 by Devillier would publicize costs associated with bond, debt and tax  elections; HB 136 by Rep. Steve Pylant would amend the Constitution to refigure the homestead exemption; HB 147 by Rep. Rick Edmonds would build in a margin of safety in budgeting; HB 195 by Devillier would make the capital outlay process more flexible and create more legislative input; HB 231 by Pearson would strengthen freedom to use waterways; HB 281 by Rep. Blake Miguez would strengthen Second Amendment safeguards; HB 372 by Rep. Kirk Talbot applies tort reform to vehicle insurance and provides the means to lower rates; HB 388 by Miguez would protect personal identifying information from public records dissemination; HB 404 by Rep. Clay Schexnayder would eliminate unneeded boards and commissions; HB 413 by Miguez would prevent discrimination by merchants of those in the firearms and ammunition business; HB 416 by Ivey would flatten individual income tax rates in a way unlikely to result in an overall tax increase (similar bill: HB 441); HB 425 by Rep. Katrina Jackson would amend to Constitution to ensure these exists no right to abortion or its funding; HB 453 by Miguez would regulate more precisely unionization of teachers; HB 484 by Rep. Raymond Crews would establish more reliable record-keeping by abortion providers; HB 503 by Edmonds would pare unnecessary occupational licensing burdens for ex-convicts; HB 546 by Rep. Larry Bagley would remove some vehicles from inspection requirements; SB 14 by Sen. Barrow Peacock would impose term limits on retirement systems trustees; SB 93 by Sen. Rick Ward would flatten corporate income tax rates in a way unlikely to result in an overall tax increase (similar bill: HB 451); SB 122 by Sen. Marty Chabert would eliminate the inventory tax; SB 135 by Sen. Conrad Appel would make the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board’s civil service system more manageable and flexible; SB 183 by Sen. Dan Claitor would bring more transparency to Tulane legislative Scholarships; SB 184 by Sen. John Milkovich would prohibit abortion in cases where a fetal heartbeat is detected; SB 201 by Sen. Beth Mizell would eliminate the unneeded state agency trying to flood Washington Parish; SB 204 by Sen. Karen Peterson would allow diversion of tax dollars from tourism-oriented agencies to general New Orleans purposes; SB 221 by Mizell would increase knowledge for women contemplating abortions.

THE BAD: HB 6 by Rep. Sam Jenkins would create unenforceable, intrusive, and dangerous traffic law; HB 46 by Rep. Joseph Bouie would corrupt the reapportionment process; HB 63 by Bouie would increase taxpayer costs in trying to solve a nonexistent problem (similar bill: HB 289); HB 96 by Pylant would create too much confusion and inefficiency in the state’s bureaucracy; HB 175 by Bouie would impose needless business costs based on imprecise technology; HB 178 by Jackson would amend the Constitution to lift unwisely the retirement age for judges; HB 202 by Rep. Gary Miller would try to reduce election costs in an inefficient manner; HB 215 by Rep. Terry Landry would eliminate capital punishment (similar bill: SB 112); HB 251 by Rep. Randal Gaines would injure the integrity of the election process (similar bill: SB 58); HB 293 by Rep. Ken Brass would permit more wasteful spending by constables; HB 302 by Bouie would impose needless bureaucracy, costs, and regulation on business; HB 310 by Rep. Wayne McMahen would weaken teacher quality; HB 338 by Rep. Pat Smith would redefine bullying policy in ways too restrictive and not restrictive enough; HB 358 by Rep. Ted James would make it too easy to hoot up for non-medical reasons (similar bills: HB 462, HB 509, HB 564); HB 420 by Rep. Walt Leger would increase rather than redistribute hotel taxes in New Orleans (similar bill: HB 521); HB 422 by Rep. Royce Duplessis would amend the Constitution to permit cities to reduce opportunities through a minimum wage increase; HB 435 by Terry Landry would amend the Constitution to set in motion a process to increase regularly legislative salaries; HB 470 by Rep. Cedric Glover would merge Louisiana State University in Shreveport into Louisiana Tech University; HB 472 by Glover would waste even more money on subsidizing film-making; HB 542 by Steve Carter would raise the gas tax at the pump; SB 4 by Sen. J.P. Morrell would amend the Constitution to create another needless sales tax exemption (similar bill: SB 5); SB 27 by Sen. Danny Martiny would trigger an unnecessary salary increase for judges; SB 63 by Sen. Yvonne Colomb would diminish retroactively self-governance determination; SB 79 by Sen. Troy Carter would amend the Constitution to erode selectively New Orleans’ tax base (similar bill: SB 80); SB 97 by Sen. Wesley Bishop would shield unnecessarily public records; SB 98 by Sen. Ed Price would relax too much expungement criteria; SB 128 by Milkovich would water down education standards; SB 136 by Morrell would restrict needlessly business personnel practices; SB 155 by Carter would amend the Constitution to cost jobs and productivity with a minimum wage increase; SB 174 by Sen. Ronnie Johns would make less flexible elderly affairs policy; SB 186 by Morrell would create a wasteful benefit paid for by business; SB 219 by Sen. Regina Barrow would needlessly exclude certain kinds of health care coverage.

Legislative regular session scores, 2018

And so it comes to this: revealing the 2018 Regular Session on the Louisiana Legislature voting scorecard. With all business disposed of, legislators and the governor receive grades (barring a miraculous veto override session). Eleven bills were selected and weighed for computation, all but two having been voted upon in both chambers. These were chosen from the watch list compiled throughout the session. For a bill’s vote(s) to be selected, in one chamber 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:

HB 54 – would make for more realistic recall provisions; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 88 – would create greater disincentive to commit benefits fraud; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 265 – would weaken incentives for felon reform; a conservative/reform vote is against (15 percent)

HB 321 – would increase government transparency; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 413 – would raise TOPS standards and create a transfer award; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 579 – would expand needlessly medical marijuana; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 823 – would remove an oversight opportunity from the medical marijuana program; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 891 – would prevent abortion providers from funneling indirectly public dollars to the practice; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

SB 364 – would strengthen free expression protections in higher education; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

SB 380 – would expand wastefully TOPS; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

SB 462 – would create incentives building more housing; a conservative/reform vote is for (15 percent)

The theme for the 2018 regular session seemed to be polarization, perhaps because of the stridency of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ insistence on funding larger government. Even as this blog doesn’t track the budget and tax measures can’t be considered during regular sessions in these even-numbered years, likely that conflict permeated to other issues.

One way this manifested was in the average legislator scores by party. Combining chambers, Republicans averaged over 79 while Democrats had a mean of under 37. Interestingly, only small inter-chamber differences emerged, with Republican senators fewer than three points lower than representatives, while Senate Democrats scored less than a point higher than their House co-partisans. Overall, this separated the chambers by a miniscule quarter-point.

However, the gap approaching 43 points isn’t a record, as 2012 saw a slightly wider margin. Still, the GOP average was the highest in history (going back to 2004), although Democrats have scored significantly lower three times, including last year.

Driving that Republican level was an unprecedented 12 representatives and five senators scoring 100 (none did last year). By contrast for Democrats, only state Sen. Yvonne Colomb scored zero – and that came from a single vote. On the other nine, she had an excused absence and didn’t vote. Among Democrats, only state Rep. Marcus Hunter scored in the single digits.

As another sign of polarization, of the House GOP only three Republicans scored below 50 while 43 Republicans scored higher than the highest-scoring Democrat, state Rep. Andy Anders. Only four other Democrats joined him scoring above 50. In two GOP cases, this could be explained by a number of missed votes. In the Senate, missed votes also explained the lowest scoring Republican, the only one below 50, state Sen. Ryan Gatti. Only three Democrats scored above 50, with the highest, state Sen. John Milkovich, outscored by 15 Republicans.

The House:

Bacala	100	Republican
Edmonds	100	Republican
Garafalo	100	Republican
Harris, L	100	Republican
Havard	100	Republican
Hazel	100	Republican
Hodges	100	Republican
Horton	100	Republican
Morris, Jim	100	Republican
Pugh	100	Republican
Pylant	100	Republican
Schexnayder	100	Republican
Amedee	95	Republican
Hilferty	95	Republican
Huval	95	Republican
Ivey	95	Republican
Stokes	95	Republican
DeVillier	90	Republican
Mack	90	Republican
Miguez	90	Republican
Muscarello	90	Republican
Seabaugh	90	Republican
Thomas	90	Republican
Davis	89	Republican
Crews	89	Republican
Bagley	85	Republican
Berthelot	85	Republican
Falconer	85	Republican
Magee	85	Republican
McFarland	85	Republican
Pearson	85	Republican
Stefanski	85	Republican
Wright	85	Republican
Barras	80	Republican
Brown, T	80	Independent
Carmody	80	Republican
Coussan	80	Republican
Henry	80	Republican
Landry, N	80	Republican
Simon	80	Republican
Morris, Jay	79	Republican
Emerson	75	Republican
Howard	75	Republican
Pope	75	Republican
Abraham	70	Republican
Anders	70	Democrat
Carter, S	70	Republican
Hoffman	70	Republican
Bishop, S	65	Republican
Chaney	65	Republican
Dwight	65	Republican
Foil	65	Republican
Guinn	65	Republican
Leopold	65	Republican
Miller, G	65	Republican
Talbot	65	Republican
Connick	60	Republican
Billiot	55	Democrat
Brown, C	55	Democrat
Reynolds	55	Democrat
White, M	55	Democrat
Zeringue	55	Republican
Danahay	50	Democrat
Gisclair	50	Democrat
Hill	50	Independent
Hollis	50	Republican
LeBas	50	Democrat
Norton	50	Democrat
Stagni	50	Republican
Marino	47	Independent
Richard	47	Independent
Carter, R	45	Democrat
Jones	45	Democrat
Thibaut	45	Democrat
Abramson	40	Democrat
Brass	40	Democrat
Carpenter	40	Democrat
Franklin	40	Democrat
Hall	40	Democrat
Harris, J	40	Democrat
Jackson	40	Democrat
Lyons	40	Democrat
Pierre	40	Democrat
Shadoin	35	Republican
Jenkins	35	Democrat
Armes	30	Democrat
Bouie	30	Democrat
Carter, G	30	Democrat
Cox	30	Democrat
Gaines	30	Democrat
Glover	30	Democrat
Hensgens	30	Republican
Johnson	30	Democrat
Jordan	30	Democrat
Landry, T	30	Democrat
Cromer	25	Republican
Duplessis	22	Democrat
Bagneris	20	Democrat
James	20	Democrat
Jefferson	20	Democrat
Leger	20	Democrat
Marcelle	20	Democrat
Miller, D	20	Democrat
Smith	10	Democrat
Hunter	5	Democrat

And the Senate:

Appel	100	Republican
Erdey	100	Republican
Hewitt	100	Republican
Peacock	100	Republican
Walsworth	100	Republican
Donahue	90	Republican
Lambert	89	Republican
Fannin	87	Republican
Long	85	Republican
Allain	80	Republican
Mizell	80	Republican
Claitor	75	Republican
Perry	75	Republican
Riser	75	Republican
Cortez	72	Republican
Alario	70	Republican
Milkovich	70	Democrat
White, B	70	Republican
Chabert	65	Republican
Johns	65	Republican
Mills	65	Republican
Smith, G	65	Democrat
Smith, J	65	Republican
Morrish	64	Republican
Martiny	60	Republican
Thompson	60	Democrat
Ward	55	Republican
Tarver	50	Democrat
Luneau	45	Democrat
Gatti	40	Republican
LaFleur	40	Democrat
Bishop, W	35	Democrat
Carter, T	30	Democrat
Morrell	30	Democrat
Price	30	Democrat
Barrow	25	Democrat
Boudreaux	22	Democrat
Peterson	20	Democrat
Colomb	0	Democrat

Finally, Edwards racked up a 44, which about fits his average of just under 47 for his three years. This makes him a bit less liberal/populist than the typical legislative Democrat, but much less conservative/reformist than the typical Republican legislator.

So, the Log bows out for another year.