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Staffers sprint back and forth across Memorial Hall seeking signatures as the clock ticks. Legislators storm the podium demanding a vote in the minutes before the legislative session adjourns.
There were handshakes and claps on the back all around when Democrats gathered in a celebratory mood in a State Capitol conference room in July.
The nation’s courts are slipping back into the “state rights” philosophy that had historically isolated minority communities and the poor from having their political needs heard and addressed, civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. told the …
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Jay Dardenne, who oversees the state Division of Administration, on Thursday accused House Speaker Clay Schexnayder of cutting his agency’s budget by $3.3 million because the division refused to pay Schexnayder’s stepsons for renovating his two ap…
In record time and with little pushback, the Louisiana Legislature approved and sent to the governor’s desk Thursday a $39 billion annual operating budget along with a variety of other fiscal bills that authorized spending and the movement of taxp…
A House-passed bill that would bar third graders with reading problems from moving to the fourth grade breezed through the Senate Education Committee on Thursday without objection.
When a pipe burst at the Pentagon Barracks in February 2021, the state agency that oversees the historic structure across from the State Capitol moved forward in normal fashion to fix the three damaged apartments.
An Ascension Parish judge rejected the self-defense claims of Ascension Parish Councilman Corey Orgeron and a former client on Wednesday over a fight in the councilman's law office last October, finding both men guilty of misdemeanor simple battery.
The state Senate unanimously approved Wednesday Louisiana’s nearly $39 billion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The Louisiana House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice Wednesday advanced two bills without objection that relate to juvenile justice.
Louisiana students won’t be required to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to attend school next year, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Wednesday, backtracking on a plan that faced steep opposition from Republican state lawmakers.
The Louisiana House on Tuesday backed a measure that would prohibit transgender girls from competing on K-12 and college sports teams that match their gender identity.
The Louisiana House Committee on Health and Welfare Tuesday advanced two anti-abortion bills in bipartisan votes.
The Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would raise the limit on the amount of money that individuals and political committees can contribute to candidates.
Legislation that would increase prison terms for felons convicted of four or more nonviolent offenses advanced Tuesday on a party-line vote setting up what soon could be final legislative approval in the state Senate.
A bill by the deposed chairman of the House Education Committee touted as a way to end the "indoctrination" of public school students on race and other issues was killed Tuesday by the committee.
Louisiana would prohibit discrimination based on "natural, protective or cultural" hairstyles, under legislation that advanced Monday out of the House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure.
After the Louisiana House killed his proposal last week to charge women who terminate their pregnancies with murder, state Rep. Danny McCormick on Monday opted to resign from a committee assignment, rather than present a watered-down version of a …
It’s tax day, when state income tax returns are due. That’s for this year.
A plan to gradually reduce a temporary state sales tax prior to it ending in mid-2025 was sidelined Monday by the Senate tax committee.
The Louisiana House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure advanced a bill Monday that would prohibit discrimination over vaccination or immunity status.
Senate President Page Cortez’s bill to install speed cameras and double fines on the 18-mile bridge over the Atchafalaya Basin cleared a House committee Monday and is now one step from a final vote by the Louisiana Legislature.
Gov. John Bel Edwards and teacher leaders Monday criticized the decision of the Legislature to limit pay raises for teachers to $1,500, not the $2,000 hike backed by Edwards and others.
Resolving one of the key issues of the legislative session, state Senate leaders Sunday endorsed spending $300 million for a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge and the House is expected to go along with the plan.
Gov. John Bel Edwards is a Democrat who likes to trumpet his willingness to work with Republicans.
After about an hour last week of reviewing U.S. Supreme Court decisions that stated the bill was unconstitutional, the Republican majority on the Louisiana House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice advanced the legislation for a fu…
Republicans in the House called timeout mid-afternoon Thursday as a showdown loomed over a controversial bill that divided Louisiana’s powerful anti-abortion forces.
In a late-session surprise, the Louisiana House has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would bar third graders with reading problems from moving to the fourth grade.
Legislators stripped the parts of a bill that could have sent women to prison for terminating a pregnancy or taking the wrong birth control, then set aside the anti-abortion measure without a vote.
For the second time in less than a week the Louisiana House rejected a bill that would ban spanking, paddling and other forms of corporal punishment in public schools.
Louisiana’s anti-abortion leaders worked behind the scenes on Wednesday to resolve an uncomfortable political tangle, just weeks before they expect to win the war they’ve been fighting for nearly 50 years – to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade deci…
Come August, most high schoolers in Louisiana will have to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or submit a written exemption to attend school, after an effort among lawmakers to reverse the rule by Gov. John Bel Edwards fell apart Wednesday.
Gov. John Bel Edwards noted Wednesday he has consistently supported anti-abortion legislation, but said he opposes a controversial bill that would authorization prosecuting women who terminate their pregnancies.
A state Senate-passed bill aimed at paving the way for cameras in the classrooms of Louisiana's most affected special education students neared final approval Wednesday when it was endorsed by the House Education Committee.
Kevin Reeves, who led Louisiana State Police at the time of the brutal beating and death of Ronald Greene in police custody and in that episode's troubled aftermath, may soon be held in contempt by the Louisiana House, which will consider hitting …
Flanked by dozens of local mayors, school board members and sheriffs who gathered on the steps of the State Capitol on a blistering Tuesday afternoon, state Sen. Rogers Pope stepped to a podium and exhorted his colleagues to vote with the army of …
The Louisiana House voted Tuesday to revive a proposal killed in committee that would ban public school teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms.
The state’s foremost anti-abortion organizations say they can’t support legislation that could lead to prosecuting women who terminate their pregnancies, at least as it is currently written.
For months, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has argued to just about anyone who will listen that the signature project in Louisiana’s ambitious plan to restore its coast -- a massive, novel sediment diversion aimed at rebuilding wetlands -- is a “fraud.”
A challenge to Louisiana's newly drawn congressional maps opened Monday in federal court, with a coalition of civil rights groups hoping judges will eventually do what legislators wouldn't: create a second majority-Black district.
Already flush with cash, lawmakers in Louisiana will have an extra $454 million to spend as they see fit in the upcoming budget year, after the state’s income forecasting panel met Monday.
A temporary state sales tax would disappear gradually rather than all at once in three years, under legislation approved by the House on Monday.
A bill to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles, which almost made it through the entire process last year, was defeated coming out of the gate on Monday.
Baton Rouge attorney Jordan Faircloth conceded the special election for a spot the 19th Judicial District Court bench on Monday, declining to ask a judge to review 146 rejected votes that were not counted during Thursday's recount.
When her property insurance company went insolvent in November, Rita Whittaker figured her path to recovery had reached a dead end.
Almost a decade had passed when Lake Charles Republican Rep. Brett Geymann recently approached the podium in the Louisiana House to add dense financialese on page 12 in the preamble of the state operating budget. The House agreed.
John Alario was known as “Representative,” “Mr. Speaker” and “Mr. President” during the 48 years he served in the Louisiana Legislature.
Both of Louisiana’s Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, reiterated their pro-Life bona fides following the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise always enjoys returning to the State Capitol, as he did on Thursday.
Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives looked good while practicing for the annual basketball game against the Senate played for charity and bragging rights.
President Joe Biden nominated former Opelousas senator Donald R. Cravins Jr. for Under Secretary for Minority Business Development at the U.S. Department of Commerce.