A proposal to add a new minority district to the Baton Rouge City Court is headed to the Senate floor after a legislative panel today rejected a competing proposal to add an at-large seat elected by voters citywide.
The action at today’s meeting of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee is the latest development in a long-standing legal dispute over the five-member court that covers incorporated Baton Rouge. A lawsuit over the City Court district lines is pending in federal court and the judge in the case has stated his preference for a legislative solution.
The measure moving to the Senate floor, HB 76 by Rep. Alfred Williams, D-Baton Rouge, would give the court three majority-black districts and two majority-white districts. The court currently has two majority black districts and three majority white districts.
The current districts were outlined by the Legislature in 1993, when the city population was still majority white, to ensure minority representation on the bench. Williams and supporters of his proposal argue that the makeup of the court districts should be changed to reflect the city’s population shift to majority black residents.
“It’s the fair thing to do based upon the makeup of the city of Baton Rouge,” Williams said.
Senators later voted 3-2 to kill HB 122 by Rep. Erich Ponti, R-Baton Rouge, that would leave the court with two majority black districts, two majority white districts and one district elected at-large by voters citywide.
Ponti, who abandoned his original proposal to make all five seats at-large, said a single at-large seat elected citywide would allow for the racial makeup of the court to change as the city population “shifts one way or the other.”
In an interview after the committee meeting, Williams acknowledged his bill faces an uncertain future on the Senate floor.
“It’s going to be a tough fight, but we’re going to have to reach out to the senators and get them to understand what this bill is all about,” he said.
— Louisiana schools would be barred from suspending or expelling pre-K and elementary school students for violating uniform policies under a bill approved by a Senate panel today. The bill originally aimed to make wider changes to school disciplinary policies.
SB 54 by Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, grew out of a study of school suspensions and expulsions conducted by state education officials last year at the behest of the Legislature. The original version of the bill would have prohibited all suspensions and expulsions for kindergarten through third grade, but Broome said she opted to simplify the legislation in the face of opposition from teachers and administrators.
“This is just a baby step against the backdrop of the big issue,” Broome said.
The bill, which applies to public schools and charter schools, now only bars suspensions and expulsions over uniform violations that are not tied to “willful disregard of school policies.”
Jennifer Coco, an attorney with the Southern Policy Law Center, said the advocacy group withdrew its support of the bill after it was watered down to only include suspensions for uniform infractions. Coco said 15,440 Louisiana students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade were suspended or expelled last year. Of those, only 10 were for uniform infractions. “We really think steps need to be taken to reduce that suspension rate,” she said.
With the House Education Committee approval today, the bill now heads to the House floor for more debate. The measure already has passed the Senate.
—Jeremy Harper
Jeremy Alford and Jeremy Harper will publish a daily update throughout the legislative session on Daily Report PM. He reports on Louisiana politics at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
