The shootings involving police in Baton Rouge this summer, and other such tragedies nationally, have inspired a state legislator to look into ways to expand on the “Blue Lives Matter” law that was approved in Louisiana earlier this year.
Act 184, authored by Rep. Lance Harris of Alexandria, the chairman of the House GOP Caucus, made it a hate crime to target police and first responders with certain criminal offenses. The new law took effect on Aug. 1, after the July shootings occurred in Baton Rouge.
That’s when East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputy Brad Garafola and Baton Rouge City Police officers Matthew Gerald and Montrell Jackson were killed by activist Gavin Long. The U.S. Justice Dept. is looking into the shooting death of Alton Sterling, which set into motion Long’s attack.
Harris’ bill flew through the House and Senate with only three opposing votes. It was signed into law by Gov. John Bel Edwards.
“I’m doing some research on it,” said Harris of the possible follow-up legislation. “I don’t know what we need to do. Do we need to up the penalty for resisting arrest? Do we need to educate? I don’t know. Everybody that gets into that situation; it seems like it’s resisting arrest.”
He added, “We need to look at that initial point of contact between the police and the public and look to see if we can fix it — if there is anything we can do to fix it.”
Harris said he never intended his original legislation to become a national story earlier this year, and he expressed some doubt over the area of law where he added new language. “I’m not a big fan of hate crime statutes,” he said. “Haven’t been since they’ve been in place. But if we’re going to have them, with what’s going on today, we need to have our first responders in that.”
Oil Industry Wants Lawmakers To Intervene
Parish officials started receiving letters from the Edwards Administration two weeks ago encouraging them to join lawsuits filed against oil and gas companies for coastal damages. The governor reportedly views this strategy as a way to force a settlement in the controversial cases.
The decision has put Gov. John Bel Edwards at odds with the oil and gas industry and with Attorney General Jeff Landry, who has questioned the decision by the administration to put private attorneys on the cases in Cameron, Jefferson, Plaquemines and Vermilion Parishes. Edwards has said if the other coastal parishes don’t join the suits, then the state will take action on its own.
The business lobby, in response, met with lawmakers individually, and started brainstorming on ways the Legislature could get involved.
But it’ll be a mighty task.
While the House might go along with an effort to make the governor’s job more difficult, and the votes may potentially be there in the Senate with a bit of arm-twisting, Edwards would most certainly veto any such move.
A constitutional amendment, which could be used to go around the governor, is unlikely to get a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
Richmond Pushing For Chairmanship
Capitol Hill sources confirm that Congressman Cedric Richmond of New Orleans has a legitimate shot at becoming the next chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. An official vote will not be taken until after the November elections, but the jockeying is well underway.
Richmond has been able to take partial credit for helping elect a Democrat in red Louisiana — meaning Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2015 — and the congressman’s relationship with President Barack Obama helps as well.
Congresswoman Yvette Clark of New York is seen as his top competition.
With Louisiana asking for federal recovery money to address this year’s flooding, Richmond’s election as chair would be a big boost to the state.
Hebert Drops Lawsuit, Files Another
Troy Hebert, the former Alcohol and Tobacco Control commissioner and one-time legislator who is running for the U.S. Senate, has dropped one lawsuit related to his candidacy and filed another.
He recently spiked the lawsuit he’d filed against Southern Media and Opinion Research for misidentifying him as a Republican in a poll earlier this year. Hebert is actually an independent, and was identified as such in SMOR’s latest survey.
“My lawsuit is no longer needed because SMOR ran another poll, which this time correctly identified me as an independent, which is all I asked them to do in the first place,” Hebert told LaPolitics.
Now, however, Hebert has also filed for an injunction in the 19th Judicial District Court against Louisiana Public Broadcasting and Council for A Better Louisiana, which co-hosted a U.S. Senate forum on Oct. 18. Hebert is arguing that LPB is partly funded by taxpayer dollars and therefore owes equal TV time to all candidates.
Forum organizers have established thresholds for polling and fundraising that Hebert and several others did not meet. Out of the 24-candidate field, only five were invited to participate.
“Everyone knows that the election system is rigged against the ‘lil man,’” Hebert said in a written statement. “Now they are just putting it in writing. It’s one thing for the big money boys to use special interest money to buy the election. Now they’re getting so greedy, they want to use our tax dollars, too.”
They Said It
“The flood and the flood … and the flood.”
— Consultant Roy Fletcher, on why no one is paying attention to the Baton Rouge mayor’s race, in The Times-Picayune
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Jeremy Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.
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