The special legislative session gaveled in by Republican legislators in Baton Rouge is drawing to a close. To help explain what they’ve been able to achieve and what’s still on the table, Newell invited Jeremy Alford onto the show Monday morning. Alford is the publisher of LaPolitics Weekly.
“This session started out with about 70 items they could have possibly taken up for consideration,” Newell began. “Correct me if I’m wrong Jeremy, but there’s just about one week left, right?”
“That’s right, there are about eight days left,” Alford said. “They must adjourn by October 27th. There’s been rumors they could end earlier, but right now that looks unlikely. We are going to the final full week with no solution on the question of executive orders from the Governor, no definitive solution on repealing the unemployment trust fund… there are still a number of bills floating around, but we are looking towards the end here. The Ways and Means Committee met this morning and chairman Bishop announced no more meetings for the special session - things are starting to wind down, but there are still a lot of question marks out there. The rubber is about to hit the road here, and they need to figure something out!”
“It sounds like we get a D or even an F for this session!” Newell said. “The two primary reasons we went into this… I mean, I understand the delay in the unemployment compensation fund, but as it relates to the authority of the executive branch, that was one of the whole reasons we did this, is it not?”
“It is, and you can take it a step further,” Alford said. “You can suggest that the whole reason lawmakers are in this session is because there was this growing conservative anxiety over the Governor's orders and they let lawmakers know about it. Stop any Representative or Senator up there and they’ll tell you they can’t go anywhere without hearing from voters complaining about how they can’t go to high school football, why they can’t see their mawmaw in the nursing home.
That creates a lot of pressure,” Alford continued. “You’ve got this Old West standoff where you’ve got conservative voters staring at their lawmakers telling them they want something done, lawmakers staring at the Governor saying they’re going to do something about, and the Governor staring back at both and saying he can veto anything that they send. Lawmakers have to decide if they want to do something, do they want to affect orders in existence right now, or future orders? Do they want a temporary resolution or a permanent law that the Governor will almost certainly veto?”
“Is this not the classic example of simply improving communications and reaching compromise? Newell said. “I said early on I thought this was premature, that we’re in an unprecedented event that changes every week. Things we believe are sacrosanct this week, we found out next week are not. I guess its easy to Monday morning quarterback, but it’s certainly not worth doing so in the middle of this event!”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
