A Democratic legislator is criticizing the Louisiana House of Representatives’ leadership for their lack of transparency about the chamber’s selection of a future state ethics board member.
The full House must approve its appointees to the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Yet only one person, former state lawmaker Mike Huval, a Republican from Breaux Bridge, was nominated for the House’s board seat that opens up in 2025. With no competition, Huval, a longtime friend of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, will win the post by default. State Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, claims more ethics board candidates weren’t proposed because House members were in the dark about the nomination process. State representatives didn’t realize they could submit their own picks for the board until it was too late to do so, she said. “I don’t like the fact that other members of this body didn’t have the opportunity to put forth nominations for this seat,” Newell said Thursday during a House and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting on Huval’s nomination. “I hope it’s a more transparent process in the future,” she said. The ethics board selection process changed dramatically this year after the governor and GOP legislators rewrote the state laws concerning its makeup. For years, Landry has had a strained relationship with the ethics board, which has cited him multiple times for campaign finance and ethics law violations. In previous years, leaders from Louisiana’s private colleges and universities vetted ethics board candidates and put forward a short list of nominees to the governor and legislators for the 11 ethics board seats. The House and Senate then held elections to choose from those candidates to fill their board posts. Previous governors picked their appointees from the lists the college leaders compiled.
With the law change, the governor and lawmakers now pick their board appointees directly without the involvement of the college administrators. The board has also been expanded to 15 seats.
The House and Senate will still hold elections for their six board members, but it’s unclear how candidates such as Huval get on the ballot. Landry and legislators didn’t include a new process for picking the ethics board nominees when they rewrote the law earlier this year.
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Newell said House members were never solicited for nominations or given information about how the new board selection process would work.
“If this is the only stop, we need to make sure that we have multiple candidates that are in front of us,” she said. Previous ethics board candidates also came with more thorough background checks, Newell said. In the past, she was given reports from Louisiana State Police and the state Department of Revenue on nominees before a committee interview took place.
Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, said he personally put forward Huval’s name to House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, for the ethics board seat.
Beaullieu, chairman of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee, chastised Newell for not doing the same.
“You have had since April or May to talk to the speaker about a nomination,” he told Newell, referencing when the ethics board overhaul legislation initially passed. “You had all the opportunity after the bill passed.” Beaullieu also said he went out of his way to ensure transparency in the ethics board nominating process by holding a committee hearing on Huval’s selection. The law doesn’t require the House and Governmental Affairs Committee to interview candidates ahead of time, he said. In addition to being a former legislator, Huval has ties to the governor that go back three decades.
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Landry and Huval are both from St. Martin Parish. Landry’s first political job was working for the St. Martin Parish Economic Development Authority in the mid-1990s at the same time Huval was serving on the St. Martin Parish council.
Despite Newell’s objections, she and the other House and Governmental Affairs Committee members endorsed Huval for the ethics board seat without any objections. Newell said she personally likes Huval, who served in the House from 2010 to 2024, and thinks he will do a good job in the position.
“This is not about you,” she told Huval. “This is about how this process has happened and taken place.”
Louisiana pastor Tony Spell must stay 50 yards from his neighbor’s home unless he’s checking the mail after a protection order was issued against him – as shocking bodycam appears to show him using a homophobic slur to describe his alleged assault victim, just two days after he was arrested.
Spell, 48, is banned from speaking with the neighbor either online and in person, according to the order issued Friday, which has since been reported by The Advocate.
“Mr Spell may walk over and check his mailbox; other than checking his mailbox, he is to be 50 yards away from the protected person’s property,” a note on the order says.
Pastor Tony Spell allegedly assaulted his neighbor’s son after he threatened to kill and rape his wife. WBRZ
Spell, the pastor of Baton Rouge’s Life Tabernacle Church, will appear in court in September after being charged with second degree battery over last month’s assault that unfolded opposite the church.
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He claimed Scott Sherwin’s son had threatened to rape and kill his wife before delivering 35 blows.
But two days after the brawl Scott Sherwin reported Spell for allegedly mowing his lawn at 4 a.m., WBRZ reported.
“He’s doing this to intimidate my victim son,” Sherwin claimed in bodycam video seen by The Post.
“Do you cut your grass at 4 in the morning?” he asked the responding officer.
“You gotta get him to stop man,” the furious dad said.
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Sherwin claimed his family was unable to sleep – alleging Spell was carrying out “psychological warfare.”
An enraged Sherwin then swore at his neighbor, allegedly flipping him off, according to the bodycam.
Tony Spell kneeling and holding a goat. Tony Spell / Facebook
“I was asleep when this started at four in the morning,” Sherwin stressed, aggressively pointing at his phone.
The cop then went over to Spell, who was sitting on his lawnmower, before asking for his name.
“Everybody in the world knows my name,” Spell brazenly replied to the cop.
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Spell, who faces up to eight years in prison if convicted, then labeled Sherwin’s son a “f—-t” and seemed to take pride in the now-viral beatdown.
“He’s just sore because I beat the crap out of his f—-t boy,” he said.
“And he’s next if he comes over here and harasses these boys,” Spell said, speaking while a group of teens gathered nearby.
He has been embroiled in a rivalry with his neighbor. Tony Spell
Spell then started his lawnmower up and told the boys “get to work,” essentially ordering them to clear off.
Spell strongly defended his actions after being released from jail over the assault.
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“Number one, I’m a husband, number two, I’m a father, and number three, I’m a pastor who shepherds his flock,” he said. “I will not allow a man to murder my children when I’m gone,” he told reporters.
He revealed what Sherwin’s son allegedly said, which prompted the beatdown.
“He said, ‘Tony, I’m going to rape your wife, I’m going to rape all your grandchildren, and the next time you go out of town, I’m going to kill them,’” Spell said.
He addressed the altercation to his congregation and compared it to “domestic terrorism.” He also cited a Bible passage from Mark 16:18, WAFB reported.
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“In my name, they shall lay hands on the sick. And they shall recover,” he said.
“So today, I fulfilled the scripture. I laid hands on the sick. I don’t know how much recovery they’re going to have, but I laid hands on the sick.”
Spell has been in a longstanding feud with Sherwin; the pastor filed a lawsuit during the pandemic in 2020 over surveillance cameras that were installed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spell was ticketed for holding in-person church services, defying Louisiana’s social distancing restrictions.
Spell claimed the cameras were installed to monitor him.
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In April 2020, Spell was accused of attacking a protester outside his church. Police alleged that Spell backed his church bus in the direction of the protester, who was identified as Trey Bennett, according to news station WAFB-TV.
He was arrested for aggravated assault but never formally charged.
A new study from researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, FMOL Health | Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and the Metamor Institute found that metabolic and bariatric surgery can be delivered safely and effectively for adolescents and young adults living with severe obesity, leading to significant weight loss and improvements in obesity-related health conditions.
Published in Obesity Surgery, the study examined outcomes from 76 patients ages 10 to 25 who underwent bariatric surgery through a Louisiana-based program at the Metamor Institute between January 2020 and March 2025. Researchers evaluated safety outcomes as well as longer-term health improvements associated with surgical obesity treatment.
The study found that patients achieved an average total body weight loss of 29%-32% maintained over one to five years. Among patients with available follow-up data, 94% experienced remission of type 2 diabetes, 67% showed improvement in hypertension and dyslipidemia and 64% experienced improvement in gastroesophageal reflux disease. Surgical complications remained low, with only 5% of patients experiencing complications within 30 days of surgery.
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Researchers noted that these outcomes were likely supported by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary care model that included experienced surgeons, nutritional guidance, behavioral support and coordinated medical follow-up. The study population represented a broad cross-section of Louisiana patients, with nearly 75% covered by Medicaid, highlighting the importance of ensuring access to effective obesity treatment options across socioeconomic backgrounds.
The findings support current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that adolescents age 13 and older with severe obesity and related health risks be evaluated for metabolic and bariatric surgery as part of comprehensive, evidence-based obesity care.
Meta Platforms Inc. has committed to spending an additional $40 billion on its sprawling data center campus in Louisiana, pushing its total expected investment beyond $250 billion for the site as it continues to grow its artificial intelligence computing footprint.
