BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a budget for next year that contained deep cuts across government, announcing the move Friday only minutes after lawmakers ended their regular session.
Legislators are taking a few days off before they enter another special session to consider taxes aimed at staving off spending reductions.
The Democratic governor said the steep drops in spending proposed in the $28.5 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 would be “catastrophic” for critical services. He called the spending plan “simply not worthy of the people of Louisiana.”
“They can start with a clean slate on Tuesday afternoon,” Edwards said at a late-night news conference.
The budget veto came shortly after the House and Senate adjourned their general session, after 10 weeks of often break-neck speed to sift through more than 1,400 bills and wrap up early so they can move into the tax debate.
Passed in the final hours was a bill to spend a state surplus and a multibillion-dollar construction budget. Lawmakers lingered to hammer out a deal extending Harrah’s New Orleans casino operating contract, but negotiations fell apart with nothing passed.
Legislators will return Tuesday for a two-week special session to determine if they’ll pass taxes to offset some temporary taxes that expire July 1.
As has been typical for the past decade, Louisiana’s finances took center stage in the regular session, with the state expected to bring in $648 million less in general state tax dollars next year than this year.
The operating budget, crafted in the Senate and backed by the House, would slash spending across most agencies, cut the TOPS college tuition program by 30 percent, eliminate food stamps and reduce spending on colleges and public safety programs.
Nursing home residents, programs for the developmentally disabled and the safety-net hospitals would be shielded from cuts, but even backers of the budget said the other reductions would damage services. Lawmakers who voted for the spending plan said it was a declaration of priorities - and a signal to people outside the Capitol that taxes are needed.
The budget passed on the strength of Republican votes, with Democrats largely opposing it.
Edwards didn’t want the bill to be passed and had urged lawmakers to wait until the special session to firm up a budget, to no avail.
While finances remain uncertain, lawmakers could point to other session achievements.
Lawmakers enacted Louisiana’s first government-wide policy against sexual harassment. They toughened state laws against hazing after the binge-drinking death of LSU student Maxwell Gruver that authorities said was tied to hazing. The House and Senate voted to ban abortion in Louisiana after 15 weeks - though only if a similar Mississippi law is upheld in federal court. And they expanded the medical marijuana program to cover more diseases and disorders when therapeutic cannabis becomes available in late summer.
Rep. Randal Gaines, the LaPlace Democrat who leads the Legislative Black Caucus, praised legislative decisions to allow some convicted felons on probation and parole to be able to vote, and to consider striking down a Jim Crow-era law that allowed split juries to convict people of serious felony crimes. Voters will decide the fate of the unanimous jury proposal on the November ballot.
Many other, high-profile measures failed to gain traction. Gun proposals spurred by the massacre at a Florida high school were spurned. Changes to TOPS failed, along with a bid to hold a constitutional convention. Louisiana won’t be ending its use of the death penalty or enacting statewide regulations for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.
“There was just as many good bills that did not get out of here,” said Rep. Jack McFarland, a Winnfield Republican. “I think the session was rushed so there was not an opportunity to vet bills adequately to give them the time needed to get through the process.”
Much of Edwards’ agenda was jettisoned, including his minimum wage hike and equal pay bills, a bid to block public schools from penalizing students who owe lunch money and an effort to end Louisiana’s licensing requirement for florists.
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