Louisiana lawmakers are gearing up for Sessionpalooza in 2024. An organizational session, one for the congressional map, another on crime, and then the regular session in March. LAPolitics.com Publisher Jeremy Alford says the last time the legislature had this many sessions on the calendar was in 2008.
“We’re looking at four different sessions being convened during the first three months of the year which is notable. I can’t remember that many sessions being stacked back to back at the beginning of a term. You’d have to go back to Bobby Jindal’s first year in office to find something comparable.”
The organizational session begins on January 8th. It could wrap up that day or take until January 10th to complete. Alfred says a special session to redraw the Congressional map is tentatively scheduled to take place from January 15th through 23rd…
“I think we could very well see lawmakers go in knowing that they need to produce a new kind of map. I don’t think the governor-elect will want to spend an ordinate amount of time on this.”
A federal judge has given the Louisiana Legislature until January 30th to redraw a Congressional map with two majority-minority districts. Alford says a criminal justice reform special session from February 16 t0 March 6th could change some of the sentencing laws that were approved in 2017 as part of Governor Edwards’ criminal justice reform package…
“We go from smart on crime to tough on-crime and those mandatory minimums are rolled back. So I think there’s going to be some of that pendulum swinging going on with the session and we’ll have to see what comes out of the transition council reports.”
The talk of property insurance reform will have to wait until a regular session that’s set to begin March 11th and end June third.
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