Once again, special interests win at the expense of Louisiana taxpayers and its most vulnerable citizens. These greedy hogs yesterday defeated in committee SB 357 by Republican state Sen. Conrad Appel, which today caused Republican state Rep. Tony Bacala to set aside his HB 334. Both bills would put the state on course to creating a long-term managed care system for persons with disabilities. This change in philosophy discomfits nursing home interests, who benefit greatly from current state practice that biases placement of individuals in nursing homes instead of in their own homes or the community. While waiting lists for access to this care, called waiver programs, has steadily risen to 28,000 people, Louisiana nursing homes enjoy a gravy train at their expense.

The losing streak continues in Gov. John Bel Edwards’ attempts of executive overreach to make the state go where its majority doesn’t wish.

The Louisiana Supreme Court last week confirmed lower court rulings that Edwards’ Executive Order JBE 16-11 violated the Louisiana Constitution, a suit brought by Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry. The gubernatorial pronouncement sought to add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the list of individual characteristics that the state could not discriminate against in dealing with its personnel and concerning the personnel decisions of entities that contracted with the state.

Why is the Louisiana budget so much higher than the budgets of the other states, even the Southern states which Louisiana is often and justifiably compared?

Wait. You mean, the comparisons being made--claiming Louisiana spends so much more than other states with comparative larger populations, are, perhaps, not correct?

At a moment in which money is short and tempers are long, what role does race play as the Louisiana legislature continues to iron out its budgetary and political differences during this spring 2018 legislative session?

In a prior article and segment of an interview with Elizabeth Crisp, the reporter for the Advocate, we discussed an incident last week that occurred in which the issue of race nakedly appeared during a Senate Education committee hearing.     In part three of the interview, Jim Brown probed further into the more general topic and that incident when Metairie Senator Conrad Appel, a Republican, took issue with comments being made by an African American New Orleans legislator during a hearing on the impact of charter schools. Here is how the Advocate reported the incident: