BATON ROUGE (CNS)—The 2012 legislative session is only weeks away and already the bills are piling. We thought we’d get a jump on last year with an early edition of our (second) annual “Seriously, are our legislators really spending time on this?” edition.
With the issues facing the state—privatization, education reform, stealing contractual retirement benefits from state employees, budgetary shortfalls, and the coercion of college presidents to keep a muzzle on their administrators and professors—one might expect the 144 legislators to be a bit more focused.
One would be mistaken.
Accordingly, we are breaking up this year’s edition into at least two installments—maybe more, depending on just how silly it gets before the deadline for filing bills.
And, having said that, here we go:
• HB 25 by Rep. Henry Burns (R-Haughton): Establishes an exemption to the subject matter exam for licensed arborists who apply for a landscape, grading and beautification building contractors’ license in order to perform certain arborist work. Don’t let Gov. Bobby Jindal know about this or he’ll build an arborist charter school.
• HB 48 by Rep. Lance Harris (R-Alexandria): Creates the crime of theft of copper and other metals. Don’t we already have laws to cover that?
• HB 64 by Rep. Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville): Prohibits the false personation of a firefighter. We don’t care if it is your house; put down that water hose and move away from the fire.
• HB 88 by Hensgens: Prohibits political uses of public payroll withholdings and deductions. If this passes, you can look for Jindal to veto pronto.
• HB 75 by Rep. Sherman Q. Mack (R-Livingston): Creates the crime of failure to report a missing or deceased child. See HB 48.
• HB 84 by Rep. Austin J. Badon (D-New Orleans), Jr.: Repeals the governor’s authority to grant pardons to persons convicted of offenses against the state and repeals statutory authority for the Board of Pardons. Would arbitrarily slashing civil service retirement benefits be considered an offense against the state? We’re just sayin’.
• HB 107 by Rep. Clifton Richardson (R-Baton Rouge): Creates the Hampton Village Crime Prevention and Improvement District within East Baton Rouge Parish. Considering there are multiple shooting deaths each week in Baton Rouge, why limit this to affluent, mostly white Hampton Village?
• HB 109 by Rep. Simone Champagne (R-Erath): Repeals provision relative to the production and marketing of livestock. And all this time we thought there was only one way to produce livestock.
• HB110 by Champagne: Changes the name of a certain animal disease. That should solve the problem; if the animal can’t find the virus because the name changed, then it won’t get sick.
• HB 120 by Rep. Joseph P. Lopinto III (R-Metairie): Removes the requirement that the operator of an electric chair be present at every execution of a death sentence. Operator of an electric chair? Is this a throwback to railroad featherbedding? Louisiana last used the electric chair on July 22, 1991. We use lethal injection now. Is that “operator” still around? Seriously? As an aside, Louisiana and Mississippi once had portable electric chairs. “We deliver in 30 minutes or your next execution is free” was the states’ motto.
• HB 148 by Rep. Jim Morris (R-Oil City): Precludes a person owes a past due debt to the municipality from running for mayor or alderman in a Lawrason Act municipality. That’s awfully specific but it does provide inspiration for the possibility of more bills to limit candidate qualifications.
• HB 151 by Rep. Cameron Henry (R-Metairie): Removes the exemptions for political calls, thereby requiring political robocalls to obtain copies of the “Do Not Call” listing and to be subject to all other current law requirements. Now that’s a bill we can support. Who let this guy in, anyway?
• HB 161 by Rep. Harold Richie (D-Bogalusa): Establishes a continuing education program for embalmers and funeral directors. Why? It’s not like the customers are going to complain.
• HB 162 by Rep. Jerry Gisclair (D-Larose): Requires drivers to use headlights when driving through a tunnel. How requiring all drivers to just use their heads?
• SB 85 by Sen. Daniel Martiny (R-Metairie): Requires voter approval before local governing authorities may impose civil fines for traffic violations captured by automatic traffic enforcement systems. The camera got me? I vote no.
• SB 87 by Sen. Sherri Smith Buffington: Re-creates the Department of Health and Hospitals. Didn’t Jindal already privatize that department?
• SB 101 by Sen. Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas): Increases the number of days that games of chance may be conducted. Games of chance: that would be the jobs with the Office of Risk Management, the Office of Group Benefits, public schools, state prisons, DHH and state employees whose retirements are years away.
That’s it for now, but it for certain there will be many more in the days to come and to paraphrase Frasier Crane, we’re watching.
Louisiana Voice 
Any chance of having legislation introduced that requires an annual sanity exam for all legislators and the governor? What the heck, throw all elected officials into that pot.
Re HB 107…..Crime Prevention Districts are established at the request of the subdivision. The purpose is to impose a parcel fee on the yearly tax bill of residents who live there to hire off duty police or private security companies to patrol their neighborhood. It is paid for by the residents and a portion of the money collected on the tax bill is retained by the state as a “handling” fee. The Crime Prevention/Improvement District have absolutely nothing to do with race, or being affluent. My subdivision, Wedgewood, is a diverse one and we voted for and created a crime prevention disctrict 6 years ago.
Your points are well taken and, believe it or not, appreciated.
–editor
Do we have tunnels in Louisiana?
Yes, two that I know of: one in Houma and one in Belle Chase. In the mid-1960s, when I lived in Gretna, the Belle Chase tunnel leaked so badly, it was known as the Belle Chase Car Wash.