Louisiana Legislators will reconvene Tuesday to consider overriding Governor John Bel Edwards's vetoes of bill lawmakers approved during the 2023 regular legislative session.
According to the Louisiana Legislature's website, the 2023 special veto session will begin at noon on Tuesday (July 18). By law, that session must end by Saturday (July 22) at 6 p.m.
According to House Speaker Clay Schexnayder (R-Sorrento), not enough lawmakers voted to cancel the veto session. He says while he doesn't know the exact tally of how many lawmakers voted to cancel the session, he knows that the total did not meet the constitutionally-mandate threshold of a majority of either house.
"I don't know what the exact number was," Schexnayder said. "I just know that we did not have enough to not go back in.
"The session is automatically called constitutionally, and then you have to opt out of it. You have to have 53 votes (in the House) to opt out of it, and we didn't meet that threshold."
Schexnayder says he's not sure how many of the bills lawmakers will consider.
"That'll be left up to legislators themselves," Schexnayder said. "Each legislator has his or her responsibility to ask for a vote to be able to override, and we will find out when we get there Tuesday. We will have delegations meeting to get with those members to see which bills they want to bring back up to veto override, but it is left up to them on which ones they want to bring up."
Schexnayder refuted reports that say the leaders of the Louisiana Republican Party have threatened conservative lawmakers with repercussions if they refuse to override the vetoes of three bills that target transgender youths.
"I have not," Schexnayder said when asked he's heard of those threats. "To me, it's kind of premature to say anything like that when the veto session is already called--constitutionally called. So there's no way of getting out of it unless they voted their way out of it. I think we knew when we left at the end of session that we would be back there."
Schexnayder added that how long the session runs is anyone's guess.
"Depending on the agenda and what we have, could it end early? Absolutely. Could we go all the way to Saturday? Absolutely. We'll see when we get there and see where legislators' agendas are and their intentions, and we'll go from there."
Related
Related
Related
