The rhythms of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ opening addresses to the Legislature are familiar by now: Edwards goes to the House chamber, urges lawmakers to put aside their differences and asks them to pass the bills he favors.
Last week, the second-term Democrat touted a teacher pay raise, homeowner insurance reform and a $500 million down payment on that desperately needed new Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge. He re-upped his annual plea to raise the state’s absurdly low minimum wage and address its nation-leading pay inequity for women, which is sure to be ignored by the Republican majority, as always.
And then he did something a little different: He asked lawmakers aiming to join the nation’s culture wars to stand down.
"Some of the bills being brought up this session do nothing to make lives better. Nothing to continue moving us forward. They only serve to divide us,” he said. “And frankly, some are reminiscent of a dark past that we should learn from, not relive."
Can’t argue with that.
Around the country, it’s a big year for unnecessary, divisive legislation, and bad ideas from elsewhere are finding eager takers in Baton Rouge.
Inspired, surely, by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s successful campaign in Virginia, some lawmakers are trying to legislate what happens in schools.
Even as state education officials who devised new social studies standards skillfully threaded a needle over teaching about past wrongs on race, the critical race theory hysteria has inspired legislative proposals to force teachers to post all materials they use, or to insert ideological takes into the classroom.
Most comically inept is House Bill 747 by state Rep. Ray Garofalo, R-Chalmette — the same guy who was booted from the Education Committee chairmanship last year after he referred to the good and the bad of slavery. It requires the teaching of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and also bans instructional material suggesting that any group is advantaged, disadvantaged, privileged, underprivileged, biased, or oppressed relative to another.
Well, bad news, Rep. Garofalo. That landmark speech may feature the oft-quoted line about King’s children being judged not for the color of their skin but for the content of their character, but it also includes a searing account of how the country has failed to provide Black people with the benefits of the Founding Fathers’ lofty words.
“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds,” King said. So how do you mandate teaching of a speech that you’re also outlawing?
Other bills target transgender people and homosexuality.
State Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, is back with legislation to stop transgender students from playing team sports, a proposal that further marginalizes vulnerable youth. Edwards vetoed a similar bill last year, calling it mean-spirited and noting that it could cause big events like sports championships and business conventions to move to more tolerant locales.
There’s also a Louisiana version of Florida’s noxious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, filed by state Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, which would ban discussion of sexual orientation or gender up to 8th grade and prevent teachers from talking about their own sexual orientation or gender identity through high school. So seven years after same-sex marriages were legalized across the country, schools would be forced to push the reality of many students’, teachers’, and parents’ lives back into the shadows.
And blame Texas for inspiring one of the most offensive of several attempts to clamp down on abortion. State Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, has filed a copycat bill that would allow for civil lawsuits against anyone who either performs an abortion helps a woman get an abortion. The Texas law is already having a chilling effect on providers and keeping women, including some whose pregnancies aren’t viable, from getting the health care they need.
That’s just a smattering from a crowded agenda aimed more at picking fights than addressing challenges the state faces.
But just because other states have gone down this path, it doesn’t mean Louisiana has to follow. The state’s legislative leaders have the power to steer the conversation toward more constructive priorities, if they choose to use it.
Or to paraphrase the governor: What if this time, we didn’t?