In the best of times, it’s difficult for small nonprofits and grassroots organizations to make their voices heard in the Louisiana Legislature, especially when they’re up against powerful business interests and well-paid lobbyists.
In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, with a GOP-led Legislature that flaunts its disregard for the principles of representative democracy, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel writes in her new opinion piece, it has been virtually impossible.
Access to decision makers is a cornerstone on which our legislative system is built, Riegel writes. This year’s legislative session has made a mockery of that system.
Both restrictions limiting the number of people allowed into the state Capitol and the health concerns of those wary of spending hours in an aging high-rise with lawmakers too cool for face masks have kept away the legions that typically show up en masse with matching T-shirts or lapel stickers to fight for a cause.
Instead, those groups are watching committee hearings online, while their leaders submit testimony on pending bills via email. Sometimes that testimony is read into the record. Sometimes it’s not.
All of this might amount to only a minor travesty had the legislative leadership, when it decided in early May to resume the regular session while the state’s stay-at-home order was still in effect, handled only essential bills dealing with fiscal matters and the COVID-19 crisis.
Instead, lawmakers didn’t pass a budget for 2021 but did take up such nonessential matters as tort reform, coastal lawsuits, the establishment of a transition district for St. George and further loosening the state’s gun laws.
Read Riegel’s full column, in which she further describes power imbalances in Louisiana’s Legislature stemming from the pandemic and near supermajority in the state House. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com.
