Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards last week presented olive branches to a Republican majority bent on sweeping legislation that would limit the ability to sue businesses in hopes of lowering auto insurance premiums and spurring economic development.
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne said the state budget would be the biggest issue facing the Louisiana Legislature that begins in one month on March 9.
In what’s becoming something of a tradition for Louisiana governors entering their second term, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards last week weighed in on how to govern LSU, basically backing a move to upend the system put in place by his predecesso…
I have a cousin, Anders, who runs a dairy with his iPhone.
Upon being sworn in Monday, John Bel Edwards will continue to be the stubborn blue stain on an otherwise ruby red political carpet that stretches 1,700 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, to El Paso, Texas.
Moments after his sweeping “tort reform” legislation was spiked by a state Senate committee back in May, Rep. Kirk Talbot smiled and predicted that his bill would become a centerpiece of the fall campaigns and of the upcoming legislative session.
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District Attorney Don Burkett, of Many, keeps a photo of Wesley Mercer near his desk and pulls it out whenever he’s frustrated.
Three weeks after winning a tight reelection, Gov. John Bel Edwards was in a playful mood as LSU prepared Thursday to head for Atlanta to contest the SEC championship — a position that five months ago most fans thought improbable.
Newly elected state Rep. Danny McCormick ran on many issues, but his main one is protecting his way of life.
Elections are over. The governor is a Democrat, and the Legislature is mostly Republican.
Never before has a president of the United States campaigned so hard for a Louisiana gubernatorial candidate.
Gov. John Bel Edwards and his team has spent much of the last week at forums in Lafayette, Alexandria and elsewhere talking about the good Medicaid brings a state as poor as Louisiana and how the policies backed by his Republican opponent would le…
Last week business leaders gathered in Baton Rouge to discuss how to improve Louisiana’s economic future.
The late great political commentator John Maginnis wrote that Louisiana voters like their scoundrels going back to the pirate Jean Lafitte.
Gubernatorial candidates danced around all sorts of issues during the campaign, but never spoke directly about persistent poverty — the key reason why the state scores so low on so many rankings.
The moment that best portrays this tepid 2019 gubernatorial campaign was when the three major candidates were asked during the recent Louisiana Public Broadcasting/Council for A Better Louisiana debate to explain how each planned to pay for laudab…
The brand-new $9 million system Louisiana taxpayers bought so that the 900 or so citizens of the northeast Louisiana town of St. Joseph could drink water without dangerous levels of lead and copper has developed another health issue that will be e…
With transcripts, contracts and secret reports arrayed around her, Kenner Republican Rep. Julie Stokes was drawing lines, writing out what she knows and what she doesn’t on two pads of paper.
In Louisiana, gun control is one of those issues, like abortion, on which the majority pretty much agrees regardless of party.
The first gubernatorial campaign I really remember was in 1979, and that was because I looked into the eyes of most of the nine candidates at St. Joseph Catholic Church’s festival in Chauvin.
A Louisiana state health department evaluator fell asleep during the sales pitch for one of the companies trying to land a state contract worth billions.
Mark Ballard: Will Louisiana's Constitution be rewritten? PAR says it will be 'major' election issue
Apart from eating boudin, avoiding specifics and having supporters describe opponents in the vilest terms, one of the enduring Louisiana campaign traditions is the pilgrimage to PAR, first to understand what in the world those constitutional amend…
Jim Engster of “Talk Louisiana” has been gathering the opinions of folks around town about the last 10 governors, and it was my turn last week to rank them.
After a few weeks of trying to link Gov. John Bel Edwards with supporting unchecked immigration, the Democratic governor’s Republican opponents also are blaming his “trial lawyer” ways for what they call Louisiana’s sluggish economy.
What with the Congressional censure that passed Tuesday and an impeachment resolution that failed Wednesday, voters overlooked how effectively President Donald Trump shifted the politics of his 2020 reelection campaign and unintentionally, the dis…
Before the storm dominated everyone’s thoughts, last week marked the beginning of a political season that will dominate public conversation for the next dozen weeks.
The governor’s election is somewhat of a snoozer, so far.
Nationally, if pundits and politicos are to be believed, the political “Year of the Woman,” has been fueled by dislike for President Donald Trump.
The Louisiana Legislature’s inability to address the high cost of auto insurance is sure to be a potent issue in this fall’s elections.
The iconic image of this class of legislators who finished their last session Thursday evening was how they finished their first: charging the podium in a scrum to pass $1 billion of temporary taxes that would expire and set up another crisis in 2018.
This session of the Louisiana Legislature will be remembered more for the carcasses left than the policies addressed.
What was called the "most important bill" of the session — one promoters said would lower Louisiana’s high auto insurance rates — fell apart after members of a Senate committee showed that the legislation was what opponents contended all along: an…
A few minutes after the Louisiana Senate on Monday overwhelmingly rejected allowing a statewide vote to abolish the death penalty, senators ran through their “sanctity of life” speeches again then approved one of the strictest bans on abortion.
After hearing a legion of local officials sharply criticize his proposed system for handling the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, in which the state forgives a corporation’s local property taxes, state Sen. Bodi White had enough.
Baton Rouge Republican Rep. Paula Davis looked at her colleagues collecting their belongings at the end of the day and noted that while last week was busy, no single issue has dominated the session.
If J.R.R. Tolkien was writing about this session of the Louisiana Legislature, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards would be cast either as hero Bilbao Baggins on a budgetary quest or the power-mad, super-spender Sauron, depending on who is telling th…
Gov. John Bel Edwards opened the 2019 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature with a kumbaya appeal for both sides to work together instead of falling into partisan bickering, which was the hallmark of most of his three years as governor.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, in absentia, took it on the chin when his Republican challengers gathered last week on the same stage for the first major forum in the gubernatorial campaign.
Almost from the minute last June when the Louisiana Legislature approved raising the state sales tax to 4.45 cents on every dollar spent — it would have been 4 cents — Louisiana Republicans talked about rolling back the increase long before the Ju…
A lot of Louisiana Legislators were surprised last year to learn that in their last-minute scuffle to fix the state budget, they had jettisoned sales tax holidays.
If the Louisiana Legislature has a Don Quixote, he is Baton Rouge Rep. Steve Carter.
Louisiana politicos have spent much time trying to root out the horde of profligates they say have fraudulently joined Medicaid. They’re going to have to find a new issue.
Fourth-graders in my kid’s school study slavery by running from classroom to classroom in a mock-up of the Underground Railroad, the series of secret trails and safe houses that helped spirit about 30,000 enslaved people from the South to freedom …
Shortly before Christmas the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Louisiana was one of nine states that lost population with 10,840 fewer people as of July 1 than the year before.
Those around the country trying to comprehend a federal lawsuit over a referee’s call, or rather lack thereof, need look no further than the business community’s reaction to the Baton Rouge school board not embracing a $2 million tax break for one…
House Speaker Taylor Barras was described last week “as the ultimate gentleman” in the announcement that he would be the Mardi Gras Grand Marshal in his New Iberia hometown.
Political Horizons: Gov. Edwards' quest for teacher pay raises turning into dangerous political game
Louisiana Senate President John Alario likened the standoff over how much money state government has available to spend to the deadlock over the border wall that has shut down the federal government.
A lot of fingers were pointed when a special state committee convened last week to decide whether to take over the Natchitoches Parish village of Clarence, which has such a staggering debt that policemen have been laid off and drinking water is ab…
A new year in the rest of the country means state legislatures are opening their sessions.
The “tort reform” idea being discussed so frequently by the Louisiana business community this Christmas season really started in mid-January 1995, about three days into George W. Bush’s tenure as Texas governor.
Louisiana House Speaker Taylor Barras is a piker when it comes to legislative obstruction — at least when compared to assemblies in the upper Midwest.