I told my mother-in-law a few months back that I was now a registered lobbyist in Louisiana. I mentioned it with some pride as I thought she would be somewhat impressed that her 30-year old son-in-law was going to have some sort of influence over legislation that was being discussed in Baton Rouge.

 

She responded by telling me that she did not like lobbyists. She, like many others, hear a lot of negative press over some lobbying groups and think that all lobbying is bad. While there are certainly a few bad ones out there, that's true of all professions.

 

For the first time ever, your Chamber not only has a full-time registered lobbyist on staff (me) but we've also contracted with a lobbying firm to represent us at the legislature. In April, the Chamber contracted with Eric Sunstrom of the The Chesapeake Group. I'm registered as a lobbyist mostly for legal reasons (the new ethics laws require a lot of reporting if we spend any sort of money on government affairs issues including events like our Legislative Issues Luncheon). Eric, on the other hand, has many years of experience under his belt and has already been effective in advocating for our issues.

 

With Eric's help, the Chamber is tracking, and in some instances already taken a position, on a number of bills.

 

SCHOOL BOARD REFORM - The four school board reform bills authored by Rep. Steve Carter have been extremely controversial. While there are many arguments on both sides of these bills, the Chamber's Board voted to support all four bills (House Bill 371 - Nepotism; House Bill 664 - Term limits; House Bill 808 - Compensation and benefits; and House Bill 851 - School board duties and responsibilities). At this time, the term limits bill did not make it out of committee while the duties and responsibilities was just voted out of committee this week.

 

HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION - There are a handful of bills that relate to increasing homestead exemption in the state. Increasing the homestead exemption would further remove residential property and improvements from the property tax rolls, thereby decreasing total assessed values in each parish. Our state constitution requires that, when assessed values decrease, millage rates automatically increase, so that the local taxing bodies will continue to generate the same revenue as collected in the prior year. Increasing the homestead exemption does not result in lower tax collections or lower tax rates – but, rather the tax burden of residential homeowners is passed on to businesses, renters, and middle-class homeowners by imposing higher millage rates necessary to generate the same tax collections as the prior year. The Chamber's Board voted to support keeping the state's homestead exemption at its current level.

 

ENERGY CORRIDOR COMMISSION - The Chamber, along with many of our regional partners, has been a longtime supporter of I-49. Sen. Mike Michot has authored a bill (Senate Bill 176) which would create a commission which would find alternate funding methods for I-49 South including taxes and polls. The Chamber is supportive of the concept of finding alternate funding methods but we feel that there is not equal representation on the commission. The Chamber's Board voted to support amendments to SB 176 which would provide for equal representation to all parishes impacted by the bill. The bill was heard in committee today (5-21) and tabled as the Transportation Committee had other issues with it.

 

There are a few other bills that we are tracking but have not taken positions on yet.

 

If you are interested in getting involved in our political activities, please consider joining the Government Affairs Committee. We meet on the first Thursday each month at 7:45 am. E-mail me and I'll be happy to sign you up.