Though most of the Louisiana legislative session beginning April 13 will focus on cobbling together a tattered budget that begins with a $1.6 billion deficit, other issues will gain secondary traction. As The News-Star of Monroe reports, among those will be the fight to repeal Common Core and a proposed oil and gas processing tax. You might consider them skirmishes that break out from the budget battlefront.
State Rep. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles, believes Common Core “will be the most important issue we debate other than the state budget crisis.”
“The budget and Common Core will dominate the session,” says Geymann, leader of the Fiscal Hawks caucus. “I don’t think there’s enough energy for anything else.”
Geymann is among those who will file legislation aimed at wiping out Common Core, the controversial program the Legislature previously adopted to elevate the state’s primary and secondary public education system from near the bottom of the U.S. Geymann and others failed to derail Common Core last year, but he believes a groundswell is growing to separate Louisiana from the program.
“Our strategy will be similar to last year, but it’s a year later and there’s a move across more states to get out of Common Core,” he says.
Common Core opponents also have Gov. Bobby Jindal in their ranks. Ironically, it was Jindal who pushed Common Core through the Legislature before changing his mind.
But any legislation to repeal Common Core by Geymann or other members must find its way past two hostile education committee chairmen—Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, and Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie. Both will use their considerable power as chairmen to try to keep any legislation to repeal or neuter Common Core from leaving their committees.
And they’ll have the backing of most of Louisiana’s signature corporate names, including CenturyLink, the largest public company headquartered in the state, and good government groups like the Council for a Better Louisiana. Meanwhile, lawmakers are also expected to fiercely debate a proposed 4% oil and natural gas processing tax.
