Louisiana

What to know about Louisiana laws taking effect Jan. 1 — and what comes next

Published

2 years ago

January 1, 2024

What to know about Louisiana laws taking effect Jan. 1 — and what comes next

A slate of state laws takes effect in Louisiana with the new year, including a measure restricting options for gender-affirming health care available to transgender youth.

Louisiana’s Legislature passed that law in July when it overrode a veto by outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards, bringing the state closer to enacting a number of Republican priorities that Edwards, a Democrat, had mostly staved off during his two terms in office.

The law aligns Louisiana with other GOP-controlled states that have moved to restrict access to gender-affirming care. It comes amid a nationwide rise in anti-LGBTQ+ lawmaking by Republican-controlled statehouses.

Now, with GOP Gov.-elect Jeff Landry poised to be inaugurated on Jan. 8, the party’s priorities in areas like LGBTQ+ rights, public safety and fiscal issues face a clearer path in Louisiana. When the Legislature last year passed two bills to restrict discussion of gender and sexuality in classrooms, Edwards vetoed them, and lawmakers failed to override him on those measures. Landry’s allies are already discussing new public safety measures they say present a better path forward than the state’s 2017 bipartisan criminal justice laws — a signature achievement of Edwards’ tenure.

Other bills passed during the 2023 regular session take effect on Monday, too, but few had the political profile of the ban on gender-affirming care.

Among them are measures that change the way the state calculates minimum child-support payments, implement standards for pet insurers and set rules around police reporting of traffic stop data.

Health care for transgender youth

The ban on gender-affirming care became a priority of Republican state lawmakers during Louisiana’s 2023 regular legislative session.

The target of Pollock Republican Rep. Gabe Firment’s bill is a swath of health care options for children experiencing gender dysphoria, or feelings of distress due to differences in their gender identity and the sex they were assigned at birth.

The bill focused on procedures that alter patients’ bodies by banning surgeries, hormone therapies and puberty-blocking drugs. It also imposes penalties for doctors who violate the ban.

Transgender youth can still receive counseling under the new law, Act 466.

The bill’s supporters argued during the legislative session that children are ill-equipped to make decisions about the procedures and claimed, without providing any data or expert testimony, that doctors are pressuring large numbers of youth to receive the care.

Doctors testified during the session that only a handful of Louisiana providers offered the procedures outlawed by the bill, and did so for a very small number of children. Those who do generally advise counseling for younger children and tend to approve treatments that alter patients’ bodies only in their late teenage years, after careful discussion and years of counseling, doctors said.

Doctors, transgender teenagers and their families have faced difficult decisions since the Legislature overturned Edwards’ veto of Firment’s bill during a special session in July. Some have left the state, while providers who remain are evaluating how they can continue to care for patients within the bounds of the law.

“I can tell you that effective January 1, 2024, Children’s Hospital New Orleans will modify its transgender care services to meet requirements specified in the law,” Dr. Mark Kline, director of Children’s Hospital New Orleans, said in a statement. “We will work with patients and families to ensure continuity of our patients’ health and well-being, within the bounds of the law.”

Pet insurance and traffic stops

Louisiana’s embattled homeowner’s insurance marketplace has made headlines in recent months. But it’s insurance for pets — not roofs and windows — that will see tougher regulations under a law taking effect in January.

The pet insurance measure, Act 94, authored by a Slidell Republican Rep. Mary DuBuisson, allows pet owners who buy insurance for their critters two weeks to return the policy. It will require insurers to disclose formulas they use to determine claim payments. And it lets insurers exclude coverage based on pets’ preexisting health conditions, among a long list of other provisions.

And in a law dealing with Louisiana State Police, Act 217 sponsored by Baton Rouge Democratic Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, the agency must keep logging certain traffic stop data, barring it from using a reporting exemption available to agencies with written policies against racial profiling.

State Police is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over its troopers’ beatings of Black motorists.

Go to legis.la.gov for a full list of state laws taking effect Jan. 1.

Source link

Louisiana

Here’s how much the shift to closed-party primaries could cost Louisiana

Published

11 hours ago

December 5, 2025

Press Room

Louisiana’s shift away from its signature “jungle” primary system is about to come with a serious price tag, The Center Square writes.

Beginning in 2026, voters casting ballots for Congress, the state Supreme Court, BESE and the Public Service Commission will participate in closed-party primaries—while unaffiliated voters can pick just one side. The Legislative Fiscal Office says switching to this more traditional system could cost taxpayers up to $47 million over five years, driven largely by the possibility of more runoff elections.

Each statewide runoff alone could reach $7 million, thanks to printing, staffing and overtime needs. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State’s office is preparing for more than $2 million in voter education and reprogramming costs as Louisiana overhauls ballots, party labels and election technology for 2026.

Read the full story.

Source link

Louisiana

Shops empty in a Hispanic neighborhood as immigration crackdown comes to Louisiana – WTOP News

Published

23 hours ago

December 5, 2025

Press Room

Shops empty in a Hispanic neighborhood as immigration crackdown comes to Louisiana – WTOP News

KENNER, La. (AP) — The doors of Carmela Diaz’s taco joint are locked, the tables are devoid of customers and…

KENNER, La. (AP) — The doors of Carmela Diaz’s taco joint are locked, the tables are devoid of customers and no one is working in the kitchen. It’s one of many once-thriving Hispanic businesses, from Nicaraguan eateries to Honduran restaurants, emptied out in recent weeks in neighborhoods with lots of signs in Spanish but increasingly fewer people on the streets.

In the city of Kenner, which has the highest concentration of Hispanic residents in Louisiana, a federal immigration crackdown aiming for 5,000 arrests has devastated an economy already struggling from ramped-up enforcement efforts this year, some business owners say, and had far-reaching impacts on both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

“Fewer and fewer people came,” said a crying Diaz, whose Taqueria La Conquistadora has been closed for several weeks now with both customers and workers afraid to leave home. “There were days we didn’t sell anything. That’s why I made the decision to close the business — because there was no business.”

On Wednesday, convoys of federal vehicles began rumbling back and forth down Kenner’s main commercial streets as the Department of Homeland Security commenced the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations that have included surges in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. Bystanders have posted videos of federal agents detaining people outside Kenner businesses and at construction sites.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino also made an appearance in the city, surrounded by agents in tactical gear, to tout to reporters the launch of the operation dubbed Catahoula Crunch, a name derived from the big game hound that is the Louisiana state dog.

A community on edge

The state’s Hispanic population has boomed in the last two decades, with many of them arriving in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild. In Kenner, just west of New Orleans between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, Hispanics make up about 30% of residents.

Diaz, who is from El Salvador, arrived in 2006 after years of doing farm work in Texas. She opened food trucks, earning enough to buy a home in Kenner, and her business has since expanded to a fleet of trucks and two brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Nearly all that is shuttered at the moment due to the crackdown, and Diaz is scraping by through making home deliveries to people fearful of being swept up by agents.

“They don’t respect anyone,” Diaz said. “They don’t ask for documents. They don’t investigate. They slap the handcuffs on them and take them away.”

DHS says operations target violent offenders

Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday that federal agents have already made dozens of arrests, though the agency has not released a full list of people detained.

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens harming them, their families, or their neighbors,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “In just 24 hours on the ground, our law enforcement officers have arrested violent criminals with rap sheets that include homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, robbery, theft, and assault.”

The office of Mayor Michael Glaser, a former police chief, declined to comment on his stance on the operation. But it said the crackdown “falls under federal jurisdiction” and the mayor expects all agencies operating in the city to conduct themselves “professionally, lawfully and with respect for our community.” It also said the city is “not participating in or advising” on the operation.

However, the city’s police are among the hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies nationwide that have signed agreements to be part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that authorizes them to hold detainees for potential deportation.

Fearing for vulnerable relatives

Sergio Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant and U.S. citizen who has lived in Kenner since 2010, said he has loved ones there who lack legal permission to be in the country risk and being detained or deported. He also worries that anyone who is Hispanic is at risk of abuse by federal agents, regardless of their immigration status.

While Perez considers Kenner home — a place where it’s easy to find favorite dishes like “caldo de res,” a hearty beef and vegetable stew — he’s prepared to leave the country if family members are deported.

“They don’t want us here,” Perez said. “It’s like you are in someone’s house and you don’t feel welcome. They’re just killing our spirit.”

___

Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.

___

Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Copyright
© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

Source link

Louisiana

First recovery center for women and their children launches in New Orleans

Published

1 day ago

December 4, 2025

Press Room

First recovery center for women and their children launches in New Orleans

At a small play area inside a newly renovated building on Canal Street in New Orleans, De Jon Muwwakkil watched her daughter work a pulley elevator on a dollhouse and tuck a stuffed panda behind a miniature cupboard — “his new home,” the child announced.

For Muwwakkil, who completed outpatient substance use treatment through Volunteers of America Southeast Louisiana, moments like that show what recovery could like when women don’t have to choose between getting help and caring for their children.

“Having my child in the program with me was the pinnacle, the top-notch service I needed,” she said.

Many women in New Orleans have never been able to consistently stay with their children throughout treatment. But on Tuesday, Nov. 25, VOASELA held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Canal Pointe, New Orleans’ only family-centered residential treatment and recovery facility for pregnant women and mothers with children. The site, a former auto dealership across from University Medical Center, has been transformed into a 31-room center where families will live together for about 90 days while the parent goes through treatment.

“This is an opportunity,” Muwwakkil said. “It keeps women and children safe, away from the triggers, away from the bad actors in the streets, away from the bad substances, the traumatic experiences of someone’s life.”

Keeping families together

A small library inside Canal Pointe is stocked with local children’s books, and the facility also includes a teaching kitchen, play areas, community areas for families, and private rooms equipped with cribs and trundle beds so mothers and children can stay together. Outpatient services are already operating, and residential admissions are expected to begin in December or January.

Medication-assisted treatment will be provided on site through DePaul Community Health Centers. The first week for new residents is typically a blur of medical appointments, group therapy, individual counseling and case management, staff said.

Jackie Kellett, VOASELA’s assistant vice president of integrated and behavioral health and a licensed clinical social worker, said treating mothers alongside their children is essential. Child care barriers often stop women from seeking help, but they don’t have to choose between getting help and their children at Canal Point. With everyone able to stay together, Kellett pointed out the facility would also be able to offer services to anyone in the family who needs it. She often has seen multigenerational substance use.

“I’ve worked with clients where sometimes their first substance use was with their parents, when they were as young as 9 doing heroin,” Kellett said. “It’s really important to break that cycle.”

A growing crisis

Louisiana continues to see high overdose rates among pregnant and postpartum women. Accidental overdose is the leading cause of death among pregnant women in the state. In the most recent report, 28 women died of overdose in a single year.

Nick Albares, who helped oversee the project’s development, said the $8-million-plus facility was funded through a mix of tax credits, federal and private grants, and philanthropy. It will cost roughly $2 million annually to operate. Medicaid is expected to cover about a month of treatment per participant, supplemented by TANF dollars. But outside support will remain critical.

No one will be turned away because of an inability to pay, Albares said. “But it’s not a program that is sustainable on its own.”

“It’s going to take everyone to make it work,” said Voris Vigee, CEO and president of VOASELA.

The facility will accept women from across Louisiana.

VOASELA leaders emphasized the project’s goal of providing long-term stability for families navigating both addiction and poverty. The organization expects Canal Pointe to serve 150 to 200 mothers and children each year.

The organization is accepting donations of hygiene items, cleaning supplies and new clothing for residents.

Source link