LGBTQ+ vetoes set up possible showdown between John Bel Edwards, Louisiana Republicans

Gov. John Bel Edwards has vetoed three politically charged bills targeting LGBTQ+ people, raising the odds that lawmakers will return to Baton Rouge in the coming weeks to try to overturn those vetoes, legislative leaders say.

Edwards promised at the end of the latest legislative session that he would veto a bill that seeks to ban discussion of gender and sexual identity in K-12 school classrooms. He also pledged to reject a bill to limit the use of alternate pronouns in schools and another that would outlaw gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

He made those vetoes official on Friday, calling the bills an attack on some of the state’s most vulnerable children. 

“This bill is entitled the ‘Stop Harming our Kids Act,’ which is ironic because this is precisely what it does,” the governor wrote in a letter explaining his veto of the transgender health care ban. 

Republicans including Attorney General Jeff Landry, a candidate for governor, have described the bills as important protections for children — particularly the ban on gender-affirming care, which is part of a national push to limit minors’ access to such procedures. House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, said before the vetoes were announced hat a veto of that bill in particular would be the biggest reason lawmakers could return to Baton Rouge for an override session.

“I think that will be the one thing that pulls us back in,” Schexnayder said.

Veto overrides are exceedingly rare in Louisiana. There has been only one successful override in the past 31 years — last year, when lawmakers overturned Edwards’ veto of a congressional redistricting bill.

While veto sessions are automatically scheduled under state law after a governor jettisons legislation, lawmakers have almost always canceled those sessions before they happen. They can do so, per the law, if a majority of members in either chamber state that intent in writing. 

The deadline for lawmakers to do so is July 13. If a majority do not vote to skip a veto-override session, the special session would begin on July 18. 

In that session, two-thirds majority votes from both chambers would be required to overturn a veto. 

The three bills Edwards vetoed Friday had sparked fierce controversy during the session that ran from April to June. Critics in a series of hearings decried them as unnecessary and as attacks on LGBTQ+ people, while supporters said they would help protect children from “sexualization” before they reach an age to make educated decisions about their identity.

Each of the three bills received two-thirds votes in at least one of the statehouse’s two chambers. The gender-affirming care bill, House Bill 648, passed with the strongest margins, clearing the two-thirds threshold in both the House and Senate. In a sign of the political momentum behind it, the bill was killed by a Senate committee, then revived and passed by the full chamber near the end of the session.

The Senate voted for HB 466, the ban on talk of gender and sex in school classrooms, on a 29-9 vote, a two-thirds majority; and for HB 81, the pronoun bill, on a 31-8 vote, also a two-thirds majority. But the House passed each of those bills earlier in session without two-thirds majority votes.

If the gender-affirming care ban does not become law, Louisiana would be the only Deep South state without such a ban. Other legislatures across the nation have passed similar bills in recent years. 

Contradicting recommendations of major U.S. medical groups, Louisiana’s bill would outlaw most forms of gender-affirming or transition care for people under 18, including so-called puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgical procedures. It would halt treatment of minors who are already receiving that care. And doctors who prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapies or perform gender-transition surgeries would lose their licenses.

Since Edwards pledged weeks ago to veto the three bills, lawmakers have been fiercely pressured by their constituents to override him on the transgender health care bill, said House Speaker Pro Tem Tanner Magee, R-Houma. Magee described receiving droves of emails in recent weeks from people who want to see the bill become law.

House Conservative Caucus Chairman Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Winnfield, said he believes the votes are there in the more-conservative House to override the governor’s veto of the ban on gender-affirming care.

“I would remind you, it’s an election year,” he said. “Those bills have passed not in every state, but in many states that have already finished their sessions.”

The GOP nabbed two-thirds supermajorities in both the House and Senate before the latest session after a pair of party flips by Democrats — Rep. Francis Thompson, R-Delhi, and Rep. Jeremy LaCombe, R-Livonia. Still, some say an override victory for Edwards’ opponents is far from ensured.

“We’ve done this before and it’s not easy,” said Magee, the speaker pro tem. “You’ve got members who are done serving. You’ve got members who’ve made the decision not to run for re-election. … It’s close.”

Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, could not immediately be reached.