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American Press
25-06-2025
- Politics
- American Press
Jim Beam column:State closing primaries again
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, sponsored the effort to return four state elections to closed Republican and Democratic party primaaries.(Photo courtesy of Remi Tallo at the Louisiana Illuminator). Louisiana's elections will be a little different in 2026. The state is going back to closed political party primaries for three public bodies on April 18, 2026, and a second or runoff primary on May 30, 2026. The state will have closed Republican and Democratic party primary races on those dates for a U.S. Senate seat and six U.S. House districts, a state Supreme Court race and contests for two seats on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The general election will be on Nov. 3. The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will also have a closed primary for its next election on April 17, 2027, and its second or runoff primary on May 29, 2027. Registered Republicans and Democrats will ballot in their party primaries but members of other parties can't. However, in Louisiana's closed party primaries, unaffiliated voters who are registered as 'no party' can choose to vote in either the Democratic or Republican closed primary, but not both. Members of the Green and Libertarian parties cannot vote in the primaries but they can vote in the general election. The state has an Independent Party but it is being dissolved by Act 84 of 2025 effective Aug. 1. The act says, 'A person who applies for registration on or after August 1, 2025, shall not be designated as 'Independent' or designated as being affiliated with the 'Independent Party.' An applicant who declares party affiliation as 'Independent' or with the 'Independent Party' shall have the party affiliation entered as 'No Party'.' Rick Gallot, the current president of the University of Louisiana System of higher education of which McNeese State University is a member, was a state representative for three terms and a state senator for one term. When he was in the House, Gallot tried twice to make it possible for Louisiana voters to be called independents rather than no party. On his second attempt, he said his House colleagues would only vote to create an Independent Party, which is what happened. That is the party being dissolved by Act 84. The secretary of state's office as of 1:59 p.m., June 23, 2025, said the state had 150,411 members of the Independent Party. Party leaders agreed to dissolution of the party in order to give those voters an opportunity to vote in one of the closed primaries. Louisiana has 2,979,443 voters, the office reported. There are 1,095,434 Democrats, 1,049,532 Republicans, 658,477 registered as No Party, 15,030 Libertarian Party members, 2,781 Green Party members, and all others, 7,778 members. The next governor's race will be an open primary contest on Oct. 9, 2027, which will also be the date for BESE's general election. The gubernatorial general election will be on Nov. 20, 2027. Statewide elected officials, state legislators and local elections will be open primaries on Oct. 9, 2027, and the general election will be on Nov. 20, 2027. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry at the first special session he called for Jan. 15, 2024, shortly after his 2023 election, wanted to hold closed primaries for all elections. However, legislators who had been elected at open primaries since 1975 wanted them to continue. Legislators held closed primary congressional elections in 2008 and 2010, but Ballotpedia said widespread confusion during those two elections caused lawmakers to return to open primaries in 2012. The same thing could happen again, but Landry isn't one to give up his original goal of having closed primaries for all elections. Robert Hogan, a political science professor at LSU, last July in an NPR report said Louisiana's open primary has been very popular with voters and has been lauded by election reformers nationwide. Landry was quoted in that same report when he said earlier last year a closed primary would result 'in a stronger, more unified reach of elected leaders' in the state. 'Every voting-aged citizen in Louisiana may or may not join the political party of his or her choosing,' Landry said. 'If you do choose to join a political party, it is only fair and right that you have the ability to select your party's candidates for office, without the interference of another party.' Landry may not be happy that 658,477 No Party voters can ballot in either the state's Republican or Democratic party primaries, but he won't have to worry about Democrats running with Republicans like they have been doing since 1975. Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or Reply Forward Add reaction
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tax cuts stall in Senate over concern they're ‘too much, too fast' for fiscal conservatives
The Louisiana State Capitol building. (Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator) A package of legislation that would have included tax cuts and an overhaul of state budget laws has stalled in the Louisiana Senate and is unlikely to regain momentum before lawmakers end their 2025 legislative session next week. The package includes a proposed constitutional amendment that would have let lawmakers take $3 billion from an emergency savings account and use some of it to pay for income and sales tax cuts, among other things. That proposal, House Bill 678, sponsored by Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, received overwhelming bipartisan support from House lawmakers last month but has been sidelined until next year, according to Sen. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge. Foil, who chairs the Senate Committee on Revenue and Fiscal Affairs, said in an interview Sunday he and other senior lawmakers met with Emerson and Gov. Jeff Landry last week to discuss HB 678 and other fiscal bills being proposed this session. '[After] our last meeting that we had with the governor, I don't believe that we'll be bringing that amendment through this session,' Foil said, adding that Emerson's package of fiscal bills had him worried that it was all 'too much, too fast.' Senate leaders are reluctant to green light more of a fiscal policy overhaul before they even see the results of the one they completed in a November special session. In the fall, lawmakers lowered and flattened both individual and corporate income taxes and increased the sales tax. Emerson, who chairs the House Ways & Means Committee, and other House Republicans have been on an aggressive path to lower the state income tax until they can eliminate it entirely. In a previous interview, Emerson said her goal is to 'get to zero,' referring to a 0% tax rate. Emerson's constitutional amendment would have allowed lawmakers to shift about $2 billion from the state Revenue Stabilization Fund into a separate savings account. The remaining $1 billion would be used to pay down debt, freeing up some money currently being spent on interest payments. But the current version of the amendment also formed the backbone of a plan that included using that extra cash to fund two separate tax cuts and make a pay stipend for teachers part of their permanent salary. Lawmakers have found a new way to pay for teacher stipends for another year and are continuing to work on it through a proposed amendment, but the tax cuts have stalled. House Bill 667 would have cut Louisiana's new 3% flat income tax to 2.75% and authorized a higher deduction for taxpayers age 65 and older. The bill was contingent on the amendment's approval, and senators were concerned with an analysis from the Legislative Fiscal Office that estimated the measure could deprive the state of more than a billion dollars in revenue over a five-year period beginning in 2027. The Fiscal Office also stressed the difficulty in coming up with any estimate due to the lack of data reflecting the tax changes that took place in November. 'We didn't even hear the income tax bill because that's primarily what it did,' Foil said. 'It was going to reduce income taxes even more than what we did during the special session in the fall. Many of us up here would like to see income taxes reduced, but we need to do it in a responsible way, and…we didn't want to accelerate deficits for us either until we see how the finances level out.' Another cut was in House Bill 578, which would have lowered the state sales tax from 5% to 4.75%. The rest of the bill restores some minor sales tax exemptions removed from state law during the special tax session last fall. The Senate Revenue & Fiscal Affairs Committee advanced an amended version of the bill Sunday that no longer contains the sales tax rate cut. It is now pending a vote on the Senate floor. Outside of the committee room Sunday, Emerson, who is typically responsive to reporters, offered only short answers as to how she felt about the setback to her legislation. 'I mean, it is what it is. They took it out,' she said. The legislative session ends June 12. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
American Press
07-05-2025
- Business
- American Press
Teacher stipends survive committee, could be headed to House floor for a vote
By Nolan McKendry | The Center Square Louisiana lawmakers are moving forward this week with a more targeted version of the defeated Amendment 2, which voters rejected in March for being overly complex and far-reaching. On Monday, the House Civil Law and Procedure Committee advanced House Bill 678, a pared-down constitutional amendment that focuses solely on consolidating the state's two primary savings accounts and a companion bill that would fund $2,000 stipends for the state's teachers. HB678, which passed without objection, is a substitute for the original HB472 and is a central piece of lawmakers' effort to revive key elements of the failed 130-page rewrite of Article VII. The new version is significantly shorter — just five pages of actual bill language and three pages of digest — and is framed as a 'single-issue' measure. 'This particular amendment—of course when I first drafted it—it was still part of the Article VII rewrite, which was very, very lengthy,' Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, told the committee. 'But we always intended on making it smaller. I was just trying to meet the bill filing deadlines. In Ways and Means, we amended it down to just the fund combination.' The proposed amendment would merge the Budget Stabilization Fund (commonly known as the Rainy Day Fund) with the Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund, and repeal the latter. It would also eliminate current caps on mineral revenues flowing into the general fund, thereby potentially increasing recurring revenue for the state. 'If you remember in Amendment 2, we were combining our two savings accounts,' Emerson said. 'This is the statutory companion. This allows us to grow that fund to about $3 billion. It's a single issue. I would say pretty simple, but obviously, it's a little bit legal — talking about Revenue Stabilization and Budget Stabilization — but that is exactly what the language says we're doing.' The amendment proposes changes to several sections of Article VII of the state constitution and would go before voters on Nov. 3, 2026, a date chosen to coincide with a high-turnout election cycle. The measure is part of a broader effort to revive fiscal reforms contained in the failed March amendment, but this time through standalone bills to avoid overwhelming voters. A companion bill, HB473, which also passed committee without objection, would reallocate savings generated by HB678 to pay down the state's unfunded liabilities in the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana. That move is intended to eventually fund $2,000 stipends for teachers —though those payments would not arrive until November 2026 at the earliest.
