Notes from the Legislature

Anti-Common Core
proposals debated
After nearly a year of high-profile public feuds over the Common Core education standards, the debate is scheduled to shift to a House Education Committee hearing.
That’s the first stop for bills that seek to pull the multistate standards adopted by more than 40 states from Louisiana’s public school classrooms.
Debate on the proposals is set for Wednesday.
Gov. Bobby Jindal supports the anti-Common Core effort, but the bills still are considered a long-shot for passage. Plus, lawmakers, state education leaders and the Jindal administration were trying to reach a compromise that could stop the divisive debate entirely.
Closed-door negotiations have gone on for weeks.
In prior years, lawmakers have refused to shelve Common Core. Superintendent of Education John White and the state education board support the standards.
Equal pay measure
goes to committee
Louisiana’s state senators chose anti-discrimination arguments over concerns about frivolous lawsuits Tuesday, narrowly backing an equal pay proposal in what has become an annual fight in the Legislature.
With a 21-16 vote, senators sent the measure by Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans, to the House for consideration. But it is expected to run into problems there. The House labor committee killed two similar equal pay bills last month.
Murray’s bill describes the state’s policy as “all employees shall be compensated equally for work that is the same in kind and quality,” with no distinction made because of a person’s gender. It outlines a course for legal action if a worker claims to be underpaid.
The provisions would only apply to any employer with 50 full-time equivalent workers or more. It allows for different wage rates to be paid based on seniority, merit, production quality, experience, education and training level.

Veto session mandate
goes down to defeat
Lawmakers narrowly refused a proposal Tuesday that would have required the Louisiana Legislature to come into a veto session when a governor rejects bills.
The House and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 4-3 against the proposal (House Bill 31) by Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard, an independent from Thibodaux.
Lawmakers have never held a veto session since the modern constitution was enacted more than 40 years ago. The Legislature can cancel the override session with a majority vote of either the House or Senate.
Richard’s bill would have taken away the ability for lawmakers to scrap the veto session.
“It’s time that we start taking back the legislative branch of government,” Richard said.
Committee Chairman Tim Burns said he was concerned the session would be mandatory, and he was the tiebreaker vote to kill the bill.
After losing on that measure, Richard voluntarily shelved a bill to remove the governor’s ability to line-item veto spending in the budget.

Lawmakers approve
distillery restaurants
Small batch distilleries that serve food along with liquor made in-house would be allowed across Louisiana under a bill that received wide support in the House on Tuesday.
The measure, sponsored by Bryan Adams, R-Gretna, passed on a 95-0 vote and now goes to the Senate for consideration.
Similar in concept to a brew pub, each micro-distiller would be allowed to make up to 12,000 gallons of liquor a year.
Booze could be served at the distillery or sold for private consumption elsewhere. In order to get a license, an applicant would have to get approval from the state fire marshal and could not owe back-taxes.

Anti-Common Core
proposals debated
The House Education Committee refused to add more restrictions to the state education board’s ability to create new charter schools. The panel voted 10-6 against a proposal (House Bill 21) by Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, that would have prohibited the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from starting a new charter school in a school district graded with an A or B that already had denied the charter school application.

Anti-union bill
stalls in House
Debate over a contentious anti-union bill was scrapped in the Louisiana House on Tuesday, amid strong pushback from police, firefighters and teachers — not to mention worries that there simply weren't enough votes for it to pass.
Though the future of the proposal is uncertain, several lawmakers predicted it wouldn't be brought back this legislative session, when the main concern is closing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall.
“From what I sensed on the floor, the votes were not there,” said Rep. Lance Harris, a Republican leader in the House who supports the bill.
A coalition of state and national business groups saw the bill as a chance to deliver a death blow to organized labor in Louisiana, a state that already has a right-to-work law. They organized a public relations campaign, marketing the bill as “paycheck protection”and insisted they weren't anti-union.
The measure appeared to be gaining momentum, but last week a video was leaked that made the business coalition's intent clear.
“When you cut off the unions' funding, they lose their stroke,”Lane Grigsby, who heads up a policy committee for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, told supporters in the video. “This is a fatal spear to the heart of the giant.”
From the Associated Press.