The Louisiana Legislature Log presents (very belatedly, for reasons many readers can understand) its 2025 Louisiana Legislature scorecard. Twenty bills were selected and weighed for computation. These were chosen from the watch list compiled throughout the session, plus one that was similar to a watch list bill. 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.
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 64 – would bring more consistency to election administration.
HB 153 – would create more effective and realistic work requirement standards to receive unemployment benefits.
HB 289 – would extend liability protection to ammunition and distributors of firearms and ammunition.
HB 425 – would clamp down against coerced abortion.
HB 431 – would not allow tort recovery if the plaintiff is more than half responsible for damages.
HB 434 – would disallow initial amounts of recovery for uninsured drivers.
HB 450 – would require proof that injuries for which damages are awarded are sustained in the accident.
HB 459 – would tighten regulations on wind energy collection.
HB 554 – would signify on aliens’ driver licenses/identification cards that they are not citizens.
HB 575 – would expand to a more comprehensive and realistic presumption of liability for causing illegal abortions.
HB 693 – would continue to update campaign finance law.
SB 15 – would prohibit interference with immigration officials carrying out their duties.
SB 80 – would try too vaguely and overbroadly to define exit polling and restrict it.
SB 100 – would create tools to monitor state government expenses associated with non-citizens.
SB 101 – would expand concealed carry rights.
SB 179 – would apportion more fairly tax assessment revenues.
SB 245 – would tighten reporting requirement for nongovernmental organizations receiving state money.
In all instances except three each is weighed as 5 points. For HB 153, HB 575, and SB 101 these carry a weight of 10 point. In all instances but SB 80 the conservative/reform vote is in favor and the liberal/populist vote is against, where with SB 80 the conservative/reform vote is against and the liberal/populist vote is in favor.
These are the House scores:
|
Carlson |
100 |
Republican |
|
Chenevert |
100 |
Republican |
|
Coates |
100 |
Republican |
|
Domangue |
100 |
Republican |
|
Egan |
100 |
Republican |
|
Galle' |
100 |
Republican |
|
Horton |
100 |
Republican |
|
Landry,
J |
100 |
Republican |
|
McCormick |
100 |
Republican |
|
Melerine |
100 |
Republican |
|
Orgeron |
100 |
Republican |
|
Owen,
C |
100 |
Republican |
|
Schamerhorn |
100 |
Republican |
|
Wright |
100 |
Republican |
|
Amedee |
95 |
Republican |
|
Beaullieu |
95 |
Republican |
|
Berault |
95 |
Republican |
|
Borriaque |
95 |
Republican |
|
Boyer |
95 |
Republican |
|
Carrier |
95 |
Republican |
|
Carver |
95 |
Republican |
|
Dickerson |
95 |
Republican |
|
Echols |
95 |
Republican |
|
Edmonston |
95 |
Republican |
|
Emerson |
95 |
Republican |
|
Farnum |
95 |
Republican |
|
Firment |
95 |
Republican |
|
Gadberry |
95 |
Republican |
|
Hebert |
95 |
Republican |
|
Mack |
95 |
Republican |
|
McMahen |
95 |
Republican |
|
McMakin |
95 |
Republican |
|
Romero |
95 |
Republican |
|
Spell |
95 |
Republican |
|
St.
Blanc |
95 |
Republican |
|
Thomas |
95 |
Republican |
|
Turner |
95 |
Republican |
|
Ventrella |
95 |
Republican |
|
Wilder |
95 |
Republican |
|
Wiley |
95 |
Republican |
|
Wyble |
95 |
Republican |
|
Bamburg |
90 |
Republican |
|
Cox |
90 |
Republican |
|
Crews |
90 |
Republican |
|
Davis |
90 |
Republican |
|
Fontenot |
90 |
Republican |
|
Glorioso |
90 |
Republican |
|
Kerner |
90 |
Republican |
|
Muscarello |
90 |
Republican |
|
Villio |
90 |
Republican |
|
Schlegel |
89 |
Republican |
|
Bacala |
89 |
Republican |
|
Bagley |
85 |
Republican |
|
Bayham |
85 |
Republican |
|
Braud |
85 |
Republican |
|
Butler |
85 |
Republican |
|
Deshotel |
85 |
Republican |
|
Henry |
85 |
Republican |
|
Illg |
85 |
Republican |
|
Johnson,
M |
85 |
Republican |
|
LaCombe |
85 |
Republican |
|
Riser |
85 |
Republican |
|
Zeringue |
85 |
Republican |
|
Billings |
80 |
Republican |
|
Dewitt |
80 |
Republican |
|
Freiberg |
80 |
Republican |
|
McFarland |
80 |
Republican |
|
Tarver |
80 |
Republican |
|
Adams |
75 |
Democrat |
|
Geymann |
75 |
Republican |
|
Stagni |
75 |
Republican |
|
Thompson |
75 |
Republican |
|
Brown |
68 |
Democrat |
|
DeVillier |
65 |
Republican |
|
Brass |
60 |
Democrat |
|
Bryant |
55 |
Democrat |
|
Hilferty |
50 |
Republican |
|
Carter,
R |
47 |
Democrat |
|
Landry,
T |
47 |
Democrat |
|
Jackson |
45 |
Democrat |
|
Johnson,
T |
40 |
Democrat |
|
Fisher |
35 |
Democrat |
|
Moore |
25 |
Democrat |
|
Young |
25 |
Democrat |
|
Freeman |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Knox |
20 |
Democrat |
|
LaFleur |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Lavardain |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Miller,
D |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Chassion |
15 |
Democrat |
|
Hughes |
15 |
Democrat |
|
Boyd |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Green |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Jordan |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Marcelle |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Mena |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Taylor |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Carpenter |
6 |
Democrat |
|
Carter,
W |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Landry,
M |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Lyons |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Newell |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Phelps |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Walters |
5 |
Democrat |
|
Willard |
0 |
Democrat |
In contrast to last year, not only was there no 20-point gap between a perfectly sorted set of Republicans scoring well above Democrats, but that the perfect sort disappeared with the highest scoring Democrat, former independent Roy Daryl Adams who fended off a serious GOP challenge in 2023, going well above 50 (his 75 was 40 points higher than his 35 of last year, where he was tied with the highest among Democrats) and tied with three Republicans, but that he also had three other Democrats, including two black Democrats, go above 50, with 50 being the lowest scoring Republican, once again Stephanie Hilferty.
This relatively (at least compared to the last few years) robust mixing also took down the partisan gap from the record of about 74 last to over 67 this year. Even though House Republicans hit an all-time high average of 90.8, because the Democrat average jumped 10 points from its near all-time low of last year that narrowed a bit the gap. (Of note, Speaker Phillip DeVillier’s 65 was largely due to his missing votes without taking leave in the course of his duties, so that may have understated GOP numbers very slightly and therefore overstated the mixing.)
Nothing of that sort happened in the Senate:
|
Fesi |
100 |
Republican |
|
Seabaugh |
100 |
Republican |
|
Abraham |
95 |
Republican |
|
Cathey |
95 |
Republican |
|
Edmonds |
95 |
Republican |
|
Henry |
95 |
Republican |
|
Hodges |
95 |
Republican |
|
Kleinpeter
|
95 |
Republican |
|
Lambert |
95 |
Republican |
|
Miguez |
95 |
Republican |
|
Miller,
G |
95 |
Republican |
|
Mizell |
95 |
Republican |
|
Morris |
95 |
Republican |
|
Myers |
95 |
Republican |
|
Reese |
95 |
Republican |
|
Stine |
95 |
Republican |
|
Talbot |
95 |
Republican |
|
Wheat |
95 |
Republican |
|
Womack |
95 |
Republican |
|
McMath |
95 |
Republican |
|
Owen,
R |
95 |
Republican |
|
Allain |
90 |
Republican |
|
Connick |
90 |
Republican |
|
Foil |
90 |
Republican |
|
Pressly |
90 |
Republican |
|
Cloud |
85 |
Republican |
|
Hensgens |
85 |
Republican |
|
Bass |
84 |
Republican |
|
Selders |
40 |
Democrat |
|
Jackson-Andrews |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Jenkins |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Luneau |
20 |
Democrat |
|
Boudreaux |
15 |
Democrat |
|
Bouie |
15 |
Democrat |
|
Price |
15 |
Democrat |
|
Barrow |
10 |
Democrat |
|
Carter,
G. |
6 |
Democrat |
|
Harris |
6 |
Democrat |
|
Duplessis |
0 |
Democrat |
Again, perfect sorting occurred and, if not for newcomer Democrat Larry Selders, the gap from lowest Republican to highest Democrat would have been a cavernous 64. As it was, Republicans here hit their second-highest score ever of 93.52 but Democrats came up 11 points from their microscopic previous year average (an all-time low) to over 15, second-lowest ever. That allowed the partisan gap to dip from last year’s yawning chasm some six points to above 78.
Consolidating chambers, even as the overall average of the House edged close to the highest ever at just over 70, the Senate overall average did post its highest ever at over 71, thus barely reaching a combined overall average of 71.52 – the combined Republican average increased by over 3 points just missing an all-time high, but a combined Democrat average almost double last year’s at over 22 was enough to send the overall legislative average to its highest point ever, even as the partisan gap overall decreased over 7 points. As with last year, the chambers’ gap stayed below 1, but reversed with the Senate slightly more conservative/reform.
Finally, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry stayed pretty consistent, scoring 5 points lower this year at 90. As bill filing began last month for 2026, it won’t be long before this year’s version of the Log debuts with the good, bad, and ugly.
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