After dropping their sixth game of the season against the Vanderbilt Commodores last time out, the Auburn Tigers have what should be a chance to correct course this week.

Fresh off their second bye week of the season, Auburn hosts the Louisiana Monroe Warhawks at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday. 

Here are three keys to victory for Auburn.

Run the Football

After his record-setting performance against Kentucky, Jarquez Hunter did not have as many opportunities to make an impact against Vanderbilt.

Auburn’s star running back and one of the nation’s best had 12 carries for 50 yards in Auburn’s loss to the Commodores.

If the Tigers allow Hunter to do his thing against the Warhawks on Saturday, they should have no problem keeping their bowl aspirations alive for at least one more week. Additionally, Hunter is closing in on his first 1,000-yard season at the college level and needs 87 yards to cross that threshold.

Slow Down Ahmad Hardy

As much as establishing the run game could benefit Auburn, it is equally as important for it to prevent Louisiana-Monroe from doing the same.

Hardy, a 5-foot-10 freshman from Monticello, Miss., has played a large role in the Warhawks’ offensive success in his first season at the college level. Hardy has picked up 915 yards and nine touchdowns off 164 carries.

Louisiana-Monroe has struggled to move the ball through the air, so eliminating the run game would increase Auburn’s chances of coming out on top even more.

Get the Ball in the Endzone

This one might sound self-explanatory, but with the way Auburn has struggled with field goal kicking this season, it needs to be stated.

True freshman Town McGough is 5-of-12 (41.7%) on the season with a long of 32 yards. However, McGough is a perfect 27-of-27 on extra-point attempts.

Kick-off is set for 11:45 a.m. CT and SEC Network will carry the television broadcast.

A central part of Gov. Jeff Landry’s plan to revamp the state’s tax laws is struggling to gain the votes needed to pass, and some lawmakers have said the bill that would expand the sales tax to services and labor is dead in its current form. 

House Bill 9, sponsored by Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, was sidelined for the second day in a row Thursday as he chose not to bring it up for a vote on the House floor. The measure would expand the state sales tax to apply to a list of more than 40 services, including lawn care, massage therapy and various home repair offerings. 

Similar legislation to place sales taxes on online streaming subscriptions and other digital services cleared the House on Wednesday. 

Riser, who represents a rural area of northeast Louisiana, expressed the precarious nature of the situation in an interview on the House floor as lawmakers adjourned for the day, saying there’s nothing in the bill that could be changed to gain support from one lawmaker without losing support from another. 

“It’s like a ripple in time,” Riser said.

His bill is part of a package Gov. Landry proposed offering lower personal and business income taxes in exchange for more sales taxes and fewer tax credits. Supporters of the plan maintain its measures would bring more business and jobs to the state. 

For a special session that must end by 6 p.m. Nov. 25, the current pace of legislation doesn’t bode well for the original package of bills.

Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said in an interview Riser’s proposal has been a particular sticking point for lawmakers.

“The services have been very difficult throughout this whole process because if you kept everybody in, that’s one thing,” Henry said. “But once you start breaking down and picking winners and losers, it became very difficult to justify.”

Tax bills in Louisiana require a two-thirds majority in each legislative chamber to pass.

From the start, a significant number of lawmakers from each political party have expressed reluctance about taxing services and labor. Some fear its impact will land hardest on lower income residents, and others are concerned with the cost and logistical burden placed on small businesses and sole proprietors. 

Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, said Riser’s bill would leave many small business owners with no choice but to hire accountants who would likely charge a premium because demand would “go through the roof.”

“Small businesses are going to be stampeding into accountants’ offices,” Bayham said. “And, by the way, whose services does the bill exempt from taxation? The accountants’.” 

He said he hopes the governor will realize parts of his plan could end up favoring large businesses over smaller ones. 

“We cannot be corporatists,” Bayham said. “We must help our small businesses along with our big businesses. Don’t favor one over the other.”

Sen. Gerald Boudreaux of Lafayette, who chairs his chamber’s Democratic Caucus, said the sheer number of new services to be taxed would create collection enforcement issues.

“There’s just so many that have never been taxed before,” Boudreaux said. “… How are we going to regulate that, and how is it going to be done?”

New doubts began to mount Wednesday during a hearing on Riser’s bill in the House Ways & Means Committee when several insurance industry executives testified to how the proposal would force property insurance premiums to increase. 

Rodney Braxton, a lobbyist for the Insurance Council of Louisiana trade association, told lawmakers rates would undoubtedly increase if labor on home repairs is taxed. 

The bill would exempt any property services and repairs as a result of an officially declared disaster and any services considered “capital improvements” that increase the value of a property. However, insurance executives told the committee those exemptions could actually create uncertainty in the underwriting market, ultimately resulting in higher costs for policyholders. 

If enacted, Riser’s bill is estimated to generate $1.9 billion in state revenue over the next five years, according to an analysis released Thursday evening by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Office. Without that potential revenue available, lawmakers would likely have to consider increasing sales taxes on other items. 

The House did manage to pass related legislation that would set the actual sales tax rate to 4.4%, allowing 0.05% of a House Bill 10, sponsored by Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, cleared the chamber with a 71-23 vote — just one over the two-thirds needed for tax measures. 

Wright’s bill underwent several floor amendments that tacked on tax exemptions for diapers, church books and other special interests. The legislation heads next to the Senate Committee on Revenue and Fiscal Affairs.

Henry said he would rather not adjust the flat tax bills, which set rates of 3% for personal income and 3.5% for businesses.

“There could be delaying implementation of this to see how much revenue comes in on the other bills …,” Henry said, specifically mentioning the digital services tax bill. “Maybe we don’t have to address it now. We could address it in the future.”

Any such discussions have been put on hold until lawmakers reconvene Monday.

Julie O’Donoghue contributed to this report.

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would reclassify two drugs used for reproductive health as controlled substances, which would place further restrictions on their access.

The proposal mirrors a law in Louisiana that went into effect Oct. 1 that treats mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances in state law. While the drugs are used in medication abortions, they have other applications such as treating life-threatening hemorrhaging.  

Texas state Rep.-elect Pat Curry, a Republican from Austin, has filed legislation, House Bill 1339,  that is comparable to the Louisiana law. Some health care providers have criticized Louisiana’s measure over its stricter storage and documentation requirements. Physicians have said the additional steps could place patients’ lives at risk.

Both Louisiana and Texas have strict abortion bans in place. Both states bar the procedure in almost all instances.

The Texas Legislature convenes for its next lawmaking session Jan. 14. 

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed the new law, Act 246, in May, despite 270 doctors signing a letter against it. Mifepristone and misoprostol have been pulled off obstetric hemorrhage carts in hospitals and are now stored in passcode-protected cabinets outside of labor and delivery rooms.

Misoprostol is a pill often used to help prevent and treat post-delivery bleeding, especially for patients with hypertension or asthma who might have adverse side effects from using other hemorrhage medications usually administered with hypodermic needles or through an IV. 

Doctors and pharmacists in Louisiana have scrambled to come up with postpartum hemorrhage protocols that comply with the law while still providing fast, life-saving care for women.

LCMC Health and Ochsner Health System, which own and operate hospitals throughout Louisiana, keep the drug in a large passcode-protected storage locker on their maternity units. The state health department released guidelines suggesting hospitals modify their obstetric hemorrhage carts to add a locked compartment, but care providers at hospitals have said this isn’t a feasible option. 

Louisiana rural hospitals, which have limited resources compared to Ochsner and LCMC Health, expected to see the biggest impact from the law. With fewer pharmacists and OB-GYNs on staff, critics of the new law fear delays will be compounded in such areas. 

Reproductive health activists and doctors have warned that the Louisiana law could set a new precedent for how other states will treat mifepristone and misoprostol. Congressional Democrats released a report last month calling the law “anti-science.”

The Louisiana law was authored by state Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, who added the drug reclassifications as amendments to his bill that originally created the crime of coerced abortion. He wrote the bill after his pregnant sister, Catherine Herring of Houston, was given an abortion drug by her then-husband without her knowledge. 

Herring’s daughter was born 10 weeks premature, and her ex-spouse, Mason Herring, pleaded guilty to endangering a child and assault against a pregnant person. He was sentenced to 180 days, a punishment Pressly and his sister thought was too light. 

“I commend the Texas Legislature for introducing legislation to address the weaponization of abortion drugs,” Pressly said in a text message Thursday evening. “The reclassification of misoprostol and mifepristone as scheduled drugs enables healthcare providers to continue to prescribe them for legitimate healthcare purposes while limiting the ability of bad actors to obtain them.”

“My sister and nieces’s story is a prime example of why the reclassification is necessary and appropriate,” the senator added. 

The Texas bill is specifically about rescheduling the drug, and is not connected to a criminal coerced abortion law. If approved, it would take effect Sept. 1, 2025. It also adds carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant, to the Schedule IV controlled substances list for the state.

Last month, Louisiana health care providers and advocates filed a lawsuit that claims Act 246 violates the state constitution. The plaintiffs argue it discriminates against people based on a physical condition. They also believe state lawmakers approved a bill that strayed too far from its original version, which Article III of the Louisiana Constitution forbids.