Sen. Dan Claitor has officially been a member of the upper chamber for less than week and he already has five bills introduced—the maximum of non-fiscal or non-local legislation allowed before the regular session convenes one week from today. Claitor, a Baton Rouge Republican, won a hotly contested race in Senate District 16 on April 4 and is now the newest member of the Louisiana Legislature.
During the election, Claitor promised to focus on LSU’s flagship university status and stabilizing the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. And that’s what his opening legislative salvo seeks to accomplish.
Claitor has Senate Bill 211, which would create the Louisiana Research Alliance Design Council to “invest in people and programs to move technology developed by the researchers from their labs into local companies.” His Senate Bill 213 creates the Academic Endowment Fund specifically for the LSU Board of Supervisors “to be used solely to provide endowments for academic chairs, professorships and programs.” Unused monies from the Insure Louisiana Incentive Program Fund, meant to lure companies here, would bankroll the proposed LSU fund.
Claitor sticks to an education theme with Senate Bill 223, which would give teachers the authority to remove students from a classroom if they’re being disruptive or misbehaving. Senate Bill 260 ensures East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court maintains juvenile jurisdiction in most cases and Senate Bill 212 allows registrars of voters to open their offices from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., rather than whatever hours are being kept by the clerk of court.—Jeremy Alford
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
