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02.09.2024
New Governor’s First Budget
- Budget and Fiscal Reforms
- Executive Branch
Gov. Jeff Landry’s first set of budget recommendations as governor prioritizes increased spendingon Louisiana’s prison system and an expansion of the State Police force while keeping spending largely flat on most other programs and services.
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01.23.2024
Mapping the Future: Redistricting Do-Over
- Legislature
- Redistricting
Gov. Jeff Landry launched his first special session in office with a lengthy to-do list. Lawmakers gave him the congressional map he preferred and a portion of the election system redesign he desired. The rest of the agenda ended up on the cutting room floor, with the ideas likely to reappear in future legislative sessions.
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01.12.2024
Partisan Primaries a Move Backward
- Elections
- Legislature
Louisiana’s first legislative session of the new administration and new term will include proposals to change the state’s primary election system from an open primary to a closed one, an issue never highlighted by candidates in the 2023 elections.
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01.11.2024
Court Redistricting Lacks Transparency
- Redistricting
- Supreme Court
As a majority of the Louisiana Supreme Court justices crafted a proposed map to redesign the court’s seven districts and include a second majority-minority seat, they forgot to include one highly important thing: Transparency.
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08.10.2023
Judicial Study Stonewalled
Louisiana lawmakers, with judicial backing, launched an important study last year to determine the workload of different courts, an effort aimed at ensuring tax dollars are appropriately spent and different judges aren’t saddled with higher caseloads than their peers.
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08.01.2023
Managing Medicaid Disenrollment
Louisiana has started removing tens of thousands of people from the state’s Medicaid program, morethan 50,000 so far, either because they no longer qualify for the taxpayer financed health insurance orat least haven’t proven they remain eligible.
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06.09.2023
2023 Legislative Session: Breaching the Cap
- Budget and Fiscal Reforms
- Legislature
Louisiana lawmakers wrapped up their work in a contentious regular session with a chaotic, last-minute flurry of votes on a budget plan that charted spending for the next year, divvied up $2.2 billion in short-term cash and completed the only must-do item for legislators.
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05.23.2023
Tax Collections Surge Higher
- Taxes and Government Spending
Budget bonanza grows, adding more money into legislative spending debate
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05.05.2023
Budget Clash
- Budget and Fiscal Reforms
House spends heavily to lower retirement debt, while removing education increases.
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05.03.2023
Going Virtual: Open Meetings Law Changes
- Open Meetings & Public Records
Louisiana Legislature considering bill to broaden online access to public meetings, but with guardrails to ensure citizen participation.