Though we are quickly approaching June 11, or sine die, the Latin phrase meaning “without day” that lawmakers use to indicate the end of a session, columnist Jeremy Alford says this is no time to relax.
“When we reach this point in a session, the Latin phrase muttered should be utrinque paratus, or ‘ready for anything,’” Alford writes in his latest column. “As time becomes an issue, and as spring gives way to summer, the snakes start showing up in Baton Rouge. Both literally and figuratively. The warm weather pushes serpents out into public view, and, believe it or not, a few have been known to make their way into the Capitol.”
Alford says the same goes for surprise amendments, which can slither their way through the panicked, final stretch of the session.
Take, for example, a House debate last Thursday on the state budget, Alford says, when one of the largest fee hikes seen this year was ushered through the Senate Transportation Committee with very little notice.
“Even reporters initially missed the amendment to HB 445 by Rep. Sherman Mack, R-Livingston, which was originally drafted to do nothing more than add safeguards to the way public license tag agents operate,” Alford writes.
Duane Cowart, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Public Tag Association, gave warning when the committee took up the instrument.
“This harmless bill is about to take on another life here,” he said.
“And he was right,” Alford writes. “Just a few minutes later the fees citizens and businesses pay to sell their cars or trucks and to obtain title and salvage certificates were more than tripled. Each fee is currently $18.50. Under the amendment added to Mack’s bill, the fee would jump to $68.50 each. That’s a $50 increase.”
Alford says more surprise amendments like this could easily emerge in the final weeks of the session as lawmakers continue to whittle away at the $1.6 budget shortfall for coming fiscal year.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
