Area lawmakers tout early wins, fret losses

The session of the Louisiana Legislature ending tomorrow was a mixture of successes and failures for the three Tri-parish legislators who are in their final terms because of term limits.

State Sen. Reggie Dupre of Houma called this session “the biggest high-stakes poker game I’ve ever seen.”

While Dupre was referring to the tough negotiations to reduce the state’s budget, his bill increasing penalties for drivers caught operating a vehicle under a suspended driver’s license was a clear success, heading to the governor’s desk for a signature.

Another bill aimed at drunk drivers, sponsored by state Rep. Damon Baldone of Houma, was also successful. The bill, which stiffens the penalty for drivers who refuse a breathalyzer test from six months to a year, passed the Senate and the House. The Senate reduced the time from two years to a year.

“The intent of the bill is to give people an incentive to comply,” Baldone said.

Dupre is leaving the Senate to become executive director of the Terrebonne Levee and Conserva-tion District on July 1. He was term-limited in 2011.

Baldone, also term-limited in 2011, is running for Dupre’s Senate seat.

A third legislator, state Sen. Butch Gautreaux of Morgan City, has announced this term will close out his public career. Gautreaux, last elected in 2007, is term-limited in 2013.

Baldone said the Senate’s 39 members have considerably more influence than the greater number of House members, but the real power in both chambers is in the committees. Baldone currently sits on the powerful Ways and Means Committee; its equivalent in the Senate is the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee.

Though his breathalyzer law awaits Jindal’s signature, two high-profile bills Baldone supported were defeated this session.

A bill that originated in Ways and Means raising the state cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack failed.

Baldone said 70 percent of the people in his district favored raising the tax.

“It could save children’s lives,” he said. “It could decrease the number of people who smoke by 10 percent because price is influential, especially for children.”

He said every home in the state is taxed around $627 to pay for smokers’ healthcare.

The other bill, which failed, would have allowed college faculty and students older than 21 years of age to carry concealed weapons on college campuses.

The proposal originated in the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee on which Baldone sits as vice chair.

“Voters said they didn’t mind having concealed guns,” he said. “It’s a Second Amendment right.”

According to Baldone, fewer shootings occur on campuses allowing concealed weapons than on campuses not permitting them.

Gautreaux also saw two high-profile bills he supported fail in this session.

His bill limiting the amount of money each student can receive through the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS) died in May in the Senate Education Committee, but Gautreaux believes the bill could succeed next year.

Opponents felt education was already being cut heavily enough this year. Good government organizations are supporting the bill, he said.

Gautreaux voted in favor of a measure to ban cigarette smoking in restaurants and gambling establishments, which he considers a straightforward health issue. That bill failed as well.

Another Gautreaux bill reducing from three to two the number of state parole board members required to grant parole was withdrawn early in the session. The bill applied to three-member panels of the board.

“I know it’s against what some people believe,” he said. “There’s a limit to what we can pay for incarceration.”

“It’s impossible for someone to be granted parole because of the bias of people convicted of crimes…If they’re convicted of a crime, they say (prosecute) to the fullest extent of the law regardless,” he said.

Gautreaux indicated that Louisiana has one of the highest incarceration and recidivism rates anywhere, and he contended the state parole board is made up of heavy political contributors.

“A lot don’t agree with me,” he said. “They think I’m a liberal.”

Dupre has had to deal with painful retrenchments to spending on higher education and healthcare during his final legislative session, trying to reduce cuts to education from $200 million to $100 million.

“The biggest problem still is Nicholls State University because the level of cuts could be devastating,” he said. “When you lose tenured professors, it takes generations to recover…It’s not like a highway project losing funding for one year.”

As chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, he said he has worked to bring as much as possible of the $300 million in surplus funds to Terrebonne and Lafourche that the state is devoting to coastal restoration.

He called that effort a big challenge since most of the funding is headed to the New Orleans area.

Dupre’s levee district contract prohibits him from endorsing a state Senate candidate to succeed him, but he said he would have stayed out of the race anyway.