Louisiana won’t be legalizing recreational marijuana, abolishing the death penalty, or changing the sales tax rate, with those bills among the many tossed to the dustbin as the legislative session reaches its final week.
Decisions remain about next year’s budget, whether to legalize hemp production and how to regulate fantasy sports betting. But more and more proposals are being added to the “dead bills” pile in the two-month, election-year session as Thursday’s end nears.
Louisiana’s governor and lieutenant governor won’t be elected jointly. Louisiana won’t become the latest state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The state won’t restrict new highway billboards. Louisiana’s gun laws won’t be strengthened or loosened. Hank Williams’ iconic “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” won’t become an official state song.
And the list of stalled or rejected bills has only lengthened once the House and Senate got a look at each other’s proposals. Senators shelved the House Republicans’ latest effort to give Louisiana’s legislative auditor access to income tax data to check Medicaid eligibility, in an ongoing fight since Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards expanded the Medicaid program.
Meanwhile, the House shot down repeated efforts to advance a Senate-backed measure that would legalize sports betting in Louisiana, loading it up with unpopular amendments to make it easier to jettison the proposal.
Read The Associated Press’s full analysis of where the Legislatures stands as it barrels toward Sine DieÂ
