Regular legislative session through Apr. 11, 2026

HB 752 deserves mention because it was overhauled radically in committee. Basically, it wipes out almost all constitutional guardrails for legislative sessions, most of which in fact are good but it leaves no constitutional protection for things such as last-minute introduction and passage of bills. For that reason, it remains bad.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 4 with major amendment passed committee; HB 73 passed the House; HB 158 with minor amendment passed the House; HB 180 passed committee; HB 181 with major amendment passed committee; HB 191 passed the House; HB 192 passed committee; HB 294 with minor amendment passed the House; HB 431 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 780 passed the House; HB 782 with minor amendment passed the House; HB 883 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 1137 passed committee; SB 1 passed the Senate; SB 93 passed the Senate; SB 170 passed the Senate; SB 234 with major amendment passed the Senate; SB 312 with major amendment passed committee.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: HB 250 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 324 passed committee; HB 648 passed the House; HB 752 with major amendment passed committee.

Regular legislative session through Apr. 4, 2026

Bill filing is finished (and there were a lot) so unless there are substitute bills in the offing, what you see now is what you get.

THE GOOD: HB 1021 by Rep. Peter Egan would require repayment of TOPS awards if not completed in a timely fashion unless an associates degree is completed instead; HB 1033 by Rep. Tony Bacala updates what constitutes critical infrastructure; HB 1038 by Rep. Chad Boyer closes loopholes regrading deputy marshals; HB 1041 by Rep. Jay Galle’ would expand health freedom; HB 1121 by Rep. Lauren Ventrella would extend conscience freedoms for health care providers; HB 1137 by Rep. Raymond Crews would protect employees from arbitrary adverse employment actions; HB 1156 by Rep. Tony Bacala would implement safety measures for transport and storage of carbon dioxide; HB 1181 by Ventrella would update taxation powers of economic development districts; HB 1184 by Rep. Josh Carlson would prohibit public contracts for artificial intelligence products coming from foreign adversaries; HB 1217 by Rep. Mike Echols would increase pharmacy benefit manager transparency; SB 466 by Sen. Alan Seabaugh limits expropriation powers of foreign adversaries; SB 478 by Sen. Gerald Boudreaux would increase accountability reviewing of colleges; SB 479 by Sen. Jay Morris would increase accountability of public officials; SB 491 by Sen. Gregory Miller creates an option to reduce state official journal expenses; SB 493 by Sen. Mark Reese would make it easier and less expensive to obtain public records; SB 503 by Sen. Stewart Cathey would prevent children from accessing inappropriate apps.

THE BAD: HB 1022 by Rep. Steven Jackson would extend the use of school-based clinics; HB 1028 by Rep. Rodney Lyons would hamstring unnecessarily rate-setting discretion for Medicaid transportation services; HB 1065 by Rep. Wilford Carter goes too in allowing for parole consideration; HB 1073 by Rep. Terry Landry reduces the character-building necessary for convicts to earn outside employment after release; HB 1131 by Rep. Denise Marcelle would limit unnecessarily discretion for improving voting integrity; HB 1141 by Terry Landry would adduce state legitimacy to surrogate motherhood; HB 1148 by Rep. Sylvia Taylor would reduce needed oversight of judges; HB 1150 by Rep. Edmond Jordan would foist an unnecessary unfunded mandate onto schools; HB 1159 by Rep. Vincent Cox tries to carve out another speed camera exception; HB 1164 by Rep. Shaun Mena would foist an unfunded mandate on homeowners; HB 1194 by Terry Landry would use public dollars to subsidize the free market in grocery provision (similar bill: HB 1222); HB 1201 by Rep. John Illg would raise unnecessarily the pay of statewide officials; SB 433 by Boudreaux would add unnecessarily and costly weight loss coverage drugs to Medicaid coverage; SB 473 by Sen. Gary Crater would create an unneeded unfunded mandate for employers; SB 484 by Sen. Mark Abraham would bring too much chaos to certain higher education functions; SB 501 by Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews would foist an unnecessary unfunded mandate on colleges.

Regular legislative session through Mar. 28, 2026

 As the filing deadline approaches, there’s still a good volume of new bills.

THE GOOD: HB 997 by Rep. Kathy Edmonston could reduce official journal costs to taxpayers; HB 1002 by Rep. Josh Carlson would produce more realistic recovery cost information for liability; HB 1008 by Rep. Chuck Owen would increase whistleblower and free speech protections in higher education; SB 425 by Sen. Jay Morris would expand options to remove from office misbehaving public officers.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 51 passed committee; HB 99 was withdrawn; HB 199 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 363 passed committee; HB 393 passed committee; HB 427 passed the House; HB 489 passed the House; HB 534 passed the House; HB 780 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 782 with minor amendment passed committee; SB 1 with minor amendment passed committee; SB 52 passed committee; SB 82 passed committee; SB 93 passed committee; SB 123 with major amendment passed committee; SB 170 passed committee; SB 200 with minor amendment passed the Senate; SB 234 with minor amendment passed committee; SB 306 with minor amendment passed the Senate.

Regular legislative session through Mar. 21, 2026

Bill filing continues for a bit longer. HB 952 has been amended to improve it sufficiently to remove it from the list of bad bills.

THE BAD: SB 407 by Sen. Edward Price would not improve on the defective congressional map in place.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 316 passed committee; HB 393 passed committee; HB 400 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 446 passed committee; HB 489 with minor amendment passed committee; HB 534 with minor amendment passed committee; SB 27 passed committee; SB 207 with major amendment passed Senate committee; SB 310 with minor amendment passed committee.

Regular legislative session through Mar. 14, 2026

Bill filing will continue for a while yet, adding to the list of good and bad bills to what’s traditionally a slow first week for interesting bills:

THE GOOD: SB 402 by Sen. Beth Mizell would correct too overzealous of licensing regulations applied to church-affiliated schools; SB 405 by Sen. Kirk Talbot would increase choices regarding elder care.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: SB 306 passed committee.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: SB 164 passes committee.