Common threads of criticism surfaced throughout the first week of a special legislative session centered on Louisiana’s coronavirus response: Republicans don’t believe Gov. John Bel Edwards is explaining his decisions well or understanding the blowback that legislators feel back home.
GOP lawmakers talked of seeking data from the Democratic governor’s office and not receiving it. They described getting information about restrictions minutes before Edwards released it publicly, without a detailed explanation of why choices were made. And they said they don’t believe Edwards interacts with enough people outside of his secure bubble to grasp the full scale of people’s discontent with regulations he still has in place on sports events, bars and face coverings.
“Governors, they live a little bit removed from grocery stores and the soccer field,” Houma Rep. Tanner Magee, the House’s second-ranking Republican, said in one committee hearing. Magee said in an interview he wants to work with Edwards, but he said the governor’s office has done a poor job explaining to lawmakers what benchmarks he wants to accomplish to further loosen restrictions.
Edwards, who eased the rules again in September, said he’s been informing lawmakers about his decision-making since Louisiana’s first positive coronavirus test in March.
The governor suggested that his communication skills aren’t the problem, but that some lawmakers want to ignore the science and pretend life can be normal in the middle of a global pandemic.
In the special session, Republican lawmakers largely agree they want more of a say in Louisiana’s coronavirus response. But they diverge on what exactly they want to do about it, on which of Edwards’ restrictions are acceptable, what’s the appropriate balance of power and what’s constitutional.
Some lawmakers want to overturn every Edwards coronavirus order. Others want to give lawmakers more ability to jettison all or part of future orders—or extensions of existing COVID-19 restrictions—the governor wants to enact. Both of those concepts won support from the majority-Republican House.
The majority-GOP Senate supported a modest approach that would give lawmakers more oversight of emergency decisions, but no new authority to scrap a governor’s emergency orders.
Edwards has shown no interest in any of the proposals, saying: “It is not a good idea to try to manage an emergency by committee.” Edwards’ coronavirus restrictions expire Friday. Read the full analysis of the special session so far from the Associated Press.
