Legislative special session through Mar. 5, 2016

HB 62 got back on the bad side of things by amending it into essentially permanent form. But the innocuous HB 2 by Rep. Chris Broadwater suddenly became good with the addition of an amendment that would sunset every tax credit at the end of fiscal year 2017.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 2 with major amendment passed Senate committee.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: HB 62 with major amendment passed Senate committee and the Senate, House rejected the amendments; HB 72 with minor amendment passed Senate committee and the Senate; HB 95 passed Senate committee.

Legislative special session through Feb. 27, 2016

A few more bills got into the queue, but also HB 62 transformed into a benign form by amending it to last only 18 months.

THE GOOD: HB 114 by Rep. Major Thibault would reduce sales taxes in exchange for eliminating exemptions; HB 125 by Thibault would eliminate major sales tax exemptions if the sales tax were lowered.

THE BAD: HB 117 by Rep. Barry Ivey would create another dedication.

THIS WEEK FOR THE GOOD: HB 44 passed House committee; HB 76 passed House committee; HB 78 passed House committee with no action; HB 79 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 80 passed House committee with no action; HB 100 with major amendment passed House committee and passed the House; HB 104 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 114 with minor amendment passed House committee; HB 125 passed House committee.

THIS WEEK FOR THE BAD: HB 5 passed House committee with no action; HB 58 was deferred involuntarily in House committee; HB 64 passed House committee unfavorably; HB 72 with minor amendment passed House committee and the House; HB 84 with major amendment passed House committee; HB 95 passed House committee unfavorably and passed the House; HB 96 passed House committee and failed to pass the House; HB 98 was deferred involuntarily; HB 117 passed House committee without action.

SCORECARD:

Total number of bills, House: 126; total number of bills, Senate: 23.

Total number of good bills, House: 19; total number of good bills, Senate: 1.

Total number of bad bills, House: 20; total number of bad bills, Senate: 1.

Total House good bills heard in House committee: 9; total Senate good bills heard in Senate committee: 0.

Total House bad bills heard in House committee: 9; total Senate bad bills heard in Senate committee: 0.

Total House good bills passed by House committee: 9; total Senate good bills passed by Senate committee: 0.

Total House bad bills passed by House committee: 7; total Senate bad bills passed by Senate committee: 0.

Total House good bills approved by House: 1; total Senate good bills approved by Senate: 0.

Total House bad bills approved by House: 2; 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.

Legislative special session through Feb. 20, 2016

The rules for special sessions as they are, legislators can introduce bills at any time. So the next couple of weeks will feature a rolling acquisition and progression of these, although none have made it out of their respective committees, if heard, yet.

THE GOOD: HB 37 by Rep. Tony Bacala would end quickly the wasteful solar installation tax credit; HB 44 by Rep. Chris Broadwater removes some statutory dedications (similar bills: HB 45; HB 63; HB 100); HB 50 by Rep. Neil Abramson would introduce a flat corporate tax, eventually eliminate the franchise tax, and end tax rebates (similar bills: HB 90, HB 103); HB 51 by Abramson would trade lower marginal income tax rates on individuals for excluding deductibility of federal taxes; HB 53 by Abramson would limit some sales tax exemptions and set up a framework to wean parishes from their ability to tax inventories (similar bills: HB 91, HB 92; SB 16); HB 75 by Rep. Julie Stokes would create a flat tax with higher exemption in exchange for limiting deductions (similar bills: HB 76, HB 78); HB 83 by Stokes would amend the Constitution to grant more flexibility in taxation levels; HB 102 by Broadwater would repeal the corporate income and franchise taxes.

THE BAD: HB 35 by Rep. Jay Morris would increase subsidization of higher parish taxes by state taxpayers; HB 41 by Stokes would escalate dramatically the tax burden on those already paying the vast majority of state income taxes (similar bills: HB 79, HB 80; HB 88; HB 95); HB 58 by Rep. Katrina Jackson raises taxes on certain corporations because it can; HB 62 by Jackson raises sales taxes permanently; HB 64 by Rep. Jack Montoucet would extend taxation on business utilities (similar bill: HB 94); HB 67 by Rep. Robbie Carter would create a ruinous new tax on petroleum transportation (similar bills: HB 68, HB 70); HB 72 by Rep. Rob Shadoin increases the telecommunications tax; HB 82 by Stokes would amend the Constitution to increase gas taxes (similar bill: HB 84); HB 96 by Rep. Dee Richard would lead to indiscriminate reduction of state contracts; HB 98 by Morris unnecessarily further restricts certain income tax credits; HB 104 by Stokes would increase sales taxes for several years and eliminate exemptions; SB 10 by Sen. Jack Donahue would throw out the baby with the bathwater concerning enterprise zone tax credit reform.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly -- 2016 prefiled 1st Extraordinary Session bills

The First Extraordinary Session of the 2016 Louisiana Legislature launches later today, without actually many bills prefiled. With a call almost exclusively focused on tax increases and a session set to last nearly a month, Republicans have signaled marginal interest with those and have plenty of time to come up with alternative such as legislation unlocking dedications and an appropriations bill cutting spending. Here’s what’s available so far:

THE GOOD: HB 4 by Rep. Tony Bacala would repeal the inefficient and wasteful Earned Income Tax Credit.

THE BAD: HB 3 by Rep. Frank Hoffman raises the cigarette tax but fails to dedicate it to offset Medicaid expenses related to smoking (similar bill: HB 14). HB 5 by Rep. Walt Leger would increase the inefficient and wasteful Earned Income Tax Credit; HB 8 by Rep. Chris Broadwater would eliminate deductibility of federal income taxes starting next year without marginal rate reductions.

Legislative regular session scores, 2015

And so the session is complete, save an unprecedented and miraculous veto override session being called. Thus, and appropriately on Independence Day, it’s time to compute the voting scorecard for the 2015 session. Twelve bills were selected and weighed for computation, all but two having been voted upon in both chambers. These were chosen mostly from the watch list compiled throughout the session, along with others of some importance. 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: