‘The Light Switch,' Episode 7: A smatter of ethics
Political corruption has been our brand for a Long time – pun intended. There are few corners of the state that haven't been touched by greed, envy and every other sticky finger of those in power.
This sordid history serves as the backdrop for what would be a very significant rewriting of Louisiana's ethics laws, with Gov. Jeff Landry behind the pen.
In this episode of 'The Light Switch,' senior reporter Julie O'Donoghue walks us through just a few of the changes being proposed. They include increasing the limits on gifts for elected officials and government employees, ranging from the governor down to your local building inspector.
Read Julie's coverage of the ethics proposals lawmakers are considering:
Confidential complaints against elected officials, gov't workers might be eliminated
Lawmakers might lift limits on gifts to officials, gov't employees
As charges linger over Landry, Louisiana House votes to overhaul ethics investigations
Also weighing in on the ethics topic is Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council. The 75-year-old good government group doesn't take stands on legislation, but its leader says he's concerned about the possible changes in the works.
For our News from the States segment, we head to Indiana where there are changes in store for the naturalization ceremonies where new U.S. citizens take their citizenship oaths. Reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz with the Indiana Capital Chronicle explains how some traditions are being eliminated – and why.
Read Leslie's coverage of the naturalization changes.
Listen to Episode 7 of 'The Light Switch' on and
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Miami Herald
30-06-2025
- Miami Herald
HBCU Set to Receive Over $20 Million in Additional State Funding
Grambling State University, one of Louisiana's most storied public HBCUs, will receive more than $20 million in additional state funding. This follows a slate of budget approvals recently signed by Governor Jeff Landry. The new investment, passed by the Louisiana Legislature earlier this month, signals strong support for the university's future in academics and athletics. The funding package comes from multiple legislative acts tied to Louisiana's Fiscal Year 2025–2026 budget. It combines operational support with capital investments to modernize facilities, expand academic programs, and strengthen the campus infrastructure at the HBCU. "These appropriations represent more than fiscal support; they reflect trust in Grambling State's direction and future," said President Martin Lemelle, Jr. "This isn't just about improvement-it's about transformation guided by discipline, purpose, and an unwavering belief in what our university can achieve." The funding includes several key components: $1.5 million in operational funding from House Bill 1 to support academic and administrative operations.$6.7 million for renovating and expanding athletic facilities, plus $200,000 to repave College Avenue Road, funded by House Bill 460.$2.7 million from House Bill 2 for a new Criminal Justice and Ph.D. in Criminology academic facility, part of an overall $18.7 million project. An additional $9.9 million from the same bill will upgrade utilities, repair critical infrastructure, and modernize the campus.$2 million in projected gaming revenue from House Bill 639 to enhance athletic programs. This marks the most significant single state investment in Grambling State University in recent memory. Grambling leaders credit this achievement to focused advocacy efforts. University officials, alumni, and University of Louisiana System members worked closely with state lawmakers throughout the legislative session. Events like HBCU Day at the Capitol and University of Louisiana System Day proved vital in showcasing the university's needs. "We are especially thankful to the Senate, House leadership, and our alumni in the Legislature who continue advancing our priorities," Lemelle said. The funding arrives at a pivotal time for GSU athletics. "This is a critical moment for GSU Athletics," said Dr. Trayvean Scott, Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics. "These facility upgrades are essential for supporting our student-athletes and ensuring our programs align with the university's mission. We will execute them with discipline and purpose." Meanwhile, the investment in academic facilities signals a push to expand graduate programs. Specifically, the new criminal justice building supports Grambling's launch of a Ph.D. in Criminology. This expansion reflects a growing national trend of HBCUs serving as engines of social mobility, research, and workforce development. This commitment from Louisiana comes as HBCUs nationwide continue calling for equitable state and federal funding. For Grambling State, the money addresses long-overdue infrastructure needs and boosts competitiveness in attracting students, faculty, and athletic talent. President Lemelle emphasized, "We thank Governor Landry and the entire Louisiana Legislature for prioritizing higher education. They clearly recognize the vital role Grambling State plays in expanding opportunity, strengthening Louisiana's workforce, and preparing the next generation of leaders." Grambling's success offers a potential model for other HBCUs. It shows how strategic advocacy, political partnerships, and clear institutional goals can secure the resources, ie, state funding, needed to fuel academic growth, athletic success, and long-term community impact. The post HBCU Set to Receive Over $20 Million in Additional State Funding appeared first on HBCU Gameday. Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Yahoo
Red states push religion in public schools. Supreme Court is their end game.
The creeping Christian nationalist plot to force religion into public schools ‒ calculated to provoke legal challenges that could allow the conservative U.S. Supreme Court supermajority to obliterate part of our First Amendment ‒ took one step forward and one step backward in the same week recently. For hard-right Republican state governors eager to upend America's long legacy of religious freedom, both steps probably feel like they point toward an eventual victory. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on June 21 legislation mandating that public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments starting this fall. This is the same Greg Abbott who, just a day later, vetoed part of a different bill that would have accessed $450 million in federal funding for summer lunch programs for low-income children. Abbott prefers forcing religion down the throats of the children of Texas to actually feeding them. In Louisiana, on June 20, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a November ruling that found a similar law violated the opening line of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, known as the establishment clause, that prohibits our government from forcing religion on us in public places. Opinion: Louisiana's Ten Commandments push shows GOP doesn't care about the Constitution Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed the legislation last June, vowed to appeal. And of course he did. Landry gave up the game a year ago when he said, "I can't wait to be sued" for his Ten Commandments mandate. Unconstitutional legislation and legal challenges set the path. The Supreme Court is the destination. In Arkansas, seven families filed a federal lawsuit on June 11 seeking to block that state's version of the Ten Commandments mandate in public school classrooms. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is supposed to take effect in August. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU state chapters, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are now representing families opposing the mandates in Louisiana and Arkansas. And they have vowed to take Texas to court. Rachel Laser, who leads Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told me these Ten Commandments mandates are "an effort to turn America into a country that prefers European Christians over a country that's dedicated to a pluralistic democracy and equality for all." She said the mandate proponents in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas are designed to "raise a new generation of Americans who are indoctrinated in that Christian nationalist lie that America is a country for European Christians," all in an effort to "get the Supreme Court to allow the Christianization" of public schools. Opinion: Threats against judges nearly doubled under Trump. Republicans blame the victim. Annie Laurie Gaylor, cofounder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, pointed to the First Commandment, taken by some literally, quoting God as saying, "You shall have no other gods before me." "No U.S. state or government ‒ whether Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas ‒ has the right to tell a captive audience of schoolchildren how many gods to worship, which gods to worship, or whether to worship any gods at all!" Gaylor told me. "The language of the First Commandment is the antithesis of our First Amendment." This is settled law that Christian nationalists want to unsettle. The Supreme Court in 1947 ruled that the Constitution's establishment clause applies to both the federal government and state governments. In a 1980 ruling, justices struck down a Kentucky law mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. Our nation's highest court ruled the same way in a similar Kentucky case in 2005. Opinion: Supreme Court reminds Trump to follow the law, signaling concern that he won't So what's changed? The Supreme Court. It tilted rightward in a supermajority in 2020 due to three nominations by Donald Trump during his first term as president. But what do Americans want? The Pew Research Center, in an analysis released June 23, cited its 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed 37,000 American adults and found that 52% favored allowing teacher-led prayer in public schools while 46% opposed it. That was driven by strong support among Christians, especially evangelicals, matched by strong opposition from Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and agnostics. And opinions varied when the survey was broken down, state by state, and when Americans were asked whether the prayers were to God with no specific mention of religion, or if Jesus was mentioned. Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on people, power and policies in the time of Trump from columnist Chris Brennan. Get it delivered to your inbox. Three-quarters of the adults surveyed in Arkansas and Louisiana favored prayer in public schools that specifically referred to Jesus, while 61% backed that in Texas. And that's why the very First Amendment in our Constitution ‒ written as a list of priorities ‒ was crafted to protect Americans from the religious overreach of their government. It was intended to keep politicians like Abbott from force-feeding us his system of values that favors performative religious gestures over real-world caring for children. Now we wait until this fight reaches the Supreme Court, where the justices will have to show us whether they revere our constitutional freedoms more than a mandate that our own Founding Fathers would have certainly rejected. Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas 10 Commandments law is about baiting Supreme Court | Opinion
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Yahoo
Louisiana is latest state to redefine natural gas -- a planet-warming fossil fuel -- as green energy
Louisiana is the latest state to redefine natural gas as green energy under a new law the Republican governor signed this week, even though it's a fossil fuel that emits planet-warming greenhouse gases. Three other states led by Republicans— Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee— have passed similar legislation. In some Democratic-led states, there have been efforts to phase out natural gas. New York and California cities like San Francisco and Berkeley have moved to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings, though some of these policies have been successfully challenged in court. President Donald Trump has signed a spate of executive orders promoting oil, gas and coal, which all warm the planet when burned to produce electricity. The European Union previously designated natural gas and nuclear as sustainable, a move that Greenpeace and the Austrian government are suing over. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a major booster of the state's petrochemical industry, says the new law 'sets the tone for the future' and will help the state 'pursue energy independence and dominance.' Environmental groups say these new laws are part of a broader push by petrochemical industry-backed groups to rebrand fossil fuel as climate friendly and head off efforts to shift electric grids to renewables, such as solar and wind. It's "pure Orwellian greenwashing,' said Tim Donaghy, research director of Greenpeace USA. Globally, the term green energy is used to refer to energy derived from natural sources that do not pollute — solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal energy. Louisiana's law could enable funds slated for state clean energy initiatives to be used to support natural gas. Natural gas has been the top source of electricity generation in the United States for about a decade, since surpassing coal. Coal and natural gas both produce carbon dioxide that warms the planet when burned, but coal produces over twice as much. Switching from coal to natural gas lowers carbon dioxide emissions, but it can increase emissions of methane. The primary component of natural gas, methane is an extraordinarily powerful greenhouse gas, more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and responsible for about 30% of today's global warming. Besides coal, everything else is better than gas for the planet, said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist. Building new gas plants locks in fossil fuel emissions for decades, he added. Redefining natural gas Louisiana's law orders state agencies and utilities regulators to 'prioritize' natural gas, along with nuclear power, on the grounds that it will improve the affordability and reliability of the state's electricity. The law's author, Republican Rep. Jacob Landry, runs an oil and gas industry consulting firm. 'I don't think it's anything crippling to wind or solar, but you got to realize the wind don't blow all the time and the sun don't shine every day,' Landry said. The legislation 'is saying we need to prioritize what keeps the grid energized,' he added. Landry told The Associated Press that he used a model bill by the American Legislative Exchange Council as a template. ALEC is a conservative think tank with ties to the oil and gas industry's billionaire Koch family. ALEC helped shape Ohio's 2023 law to legally redefine natural gas as a source of green energy, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute and first reported by the Washington Post. ALEC spokesperson Lars Dalseide said that just because an Ohio lawmaker left the 2022 ALEC convention with what he described as a model for legislation to define natural gas as clean energy does not mean the group shaped Ohio law. Dalseide said the convention is 'a place where legislators from across the country gather to exchange ideas.' Ohio's legislation was also heavily influenced by an advocacy group led by Republican megadonor Tom Rastin, a now retired gas industry executive. According to Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, these laws are part of a long-running disinformation campaign by the gas industry to cast their product as clean to protect their businesses and prevent a shift to renewable energy sources that will address the climate crisis. 'The goal is to elbow out competition from renewables from wind and solar, and in some cases preempt localities' ability to choose to pursue 100% truly clean energy,' Anderson said, adding that ALEC's legislation makes natural gas 'eligible for state and local clean energy standards and funding.' Questions over grid reliability Gov. Landry and other proponents of the new law said they want to make sure that residents and businesses have a reliable electric grid. Nearly 80% of Louisiana's grid is already powered by natural gas. Landry said that businesses will come to Louisiana if they know they can count on the state's electric grid. He highlighted Meta's plan to build a massive AI data center powered by three natural gas plants. Louisiana's law orders utilities providers to prioritize nuclear energy as well. Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases while producing electricity. However, critics say it is more expensive than solar and wind and the U.S. does not have a sufficient long-term solution for storing the waste. Consumer advocates say states do not need to embrace natural gas at the expense of wind, solar and other technologies to have a reliable grid. Legally mandating that utilities prioritize natural gas is 'blind to innovation, market evolution, and the practical demands of modern electric systems,' Jeffrey Clark, president of the Advanced Power Alliance, a renewable energy advocacy group, wrote in a statement opposing Louisiana's law. It's unclear to what extent Louisiana's utilities regulators will act on the order to prioritize natural gas over renewable energy. While Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, a Democrat, called the law 'unenforceable' and pledged to ignore it, his Republican counterpart Jean-Paul Coussan said promoting natural gas 'aligns well' with the state's economic growth. ___ McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. ___ Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
