April 14, 2025 • 62 mins
Michelle and Ellie celebrate major wins for democracy — Louisiana voters rejected four MAGA-backed amendments, and Wisconsin voters rejected Musk and Trump’s Supreme Court pick.
Louisiana’s legislative session is about to bring a fresh wave of nonsense. Michelle and Ellie break down some of the wild bills already filed — from attacks on abortion rights and DEI programs to laws about deer sex and frog hunting with guns (seriously, we can't make this up).
Listeners, please rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast.
Send us a message on Instagram or at info@liftlouisiana.org - tell us what your Seriously?! moment was.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to Seriously,
the podcast that dives into the baffling.
The ridiculous.
And downright unbelievable political climate in red states
like Louisiana. Seriously.
(00:29):
Welcome to Seriously, I'm Michelle.
And I'm Ellie.
This week was a good week for Democracy.
We are recording on March...
No, April 5th.
No, April 5th.
I have no idea really, but it's definitely April 5th.
(00:49):
We're recording on April 5th.
So do you want to tell us your Seriously moment this week?
I will.
I'll start by saying that I'm wearing my aforementioned,
this is a F-Y of F shirt that you got for me,
because we're going to be getting into the much awaited
(01:10):
bills for the legislative session, which are a F-Y of F.
And also you and I are going to the rally after this.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, to lots of F-y.
But yes, my Seriously is going to be a...
Seriously?
That's a good one.
(01:32):
That's a positive Seriously, yeah.
We need to work on that.
Seriously?
Because, you know,
I'm a glass half full of vodka kind of girl.
And there was a lot of positive stuff this past week in a
lot of ways.
One of the main things being,
(01:52):
as folks in Louisiana will know,
there were four constitutional amendments on the ballot and
like a random mass ballot initiative on March 29th that
were heavily pushed by the governor, and they all failed,
all four of them failed, bigly, bigly, bigly, bigly,
(02:16):
like 65% of voters voted every single one of them down,
which is like basically never happens, so people know.
There's all kinds of F-g ballot initiatives here.
It's always like no one knows what they are,
no one turns out for them.
For most people,
let's say this is the only thing on the ballot,
so the voter turnout was high.
(02:39):
I mean, for an election like this, it was very high.
It was higher in a lot of places than it was for our
governor's race.
But yeah,
no one turns out for these special elections where it's
just constitutional ballot measures.
And no one understands about measures and no one cares.
And it's just like, it's always very, very difficult.
(03:01):
But voters, I mean,
across parish lines and across party lines voted these
down.
The measures themselves,
and one was a horrible anti-criminal justice constitutional
amendment that would have made it easier for juveniles to
be charged as adults and imprisoned in jails with adults.
(03:25):
And then two kind of like in the weeds things.
And then the big,
like the big piece de resistance that Governor Landry and
the Republicans of the legislature had shoved the F through
was like a dramatic,
dramatic overhaul to the entire tax structure of the state.
He campaigned for it, like, you know, big and wide.
(03:47):
So did all of the,
of course they all did without like answering any f-g
questions like about it.
So to me then,
like the big takeaway on that in that in particular,
the tax one, is it's also like, you know,
all the messaging from them were just like,
it's going to reduce taxes.
It's going to save people money.
Like just do it.
(04:08):
And the bill that became the constitutional amendment did
like about a million things,
like about a million different things.
Most of them bad, spoiler alert,
like basically replacing income tax for sales tax.
So like just regressive policy measures,
but a whole kind of, a whole kinds of other shit,
including some stuff that was like not bad,
(04:28):
like teacher pay raises.
But they shoved it through the legislative session.
They had a special tax session for this purpose,
which meant it was super short.
There was very little time for any like the public to weigh
in just like shoved it through a bill that had,
that did a million things.
And we're like, well, just.
(04:49):
put it on the pallet that just says like, hi,
do you want to reform the constitution, you know, blah,
blah, blah,
let the government do whatever the fact they want with like
the money and, you know, um, and voters did not go for it.
I know.
And I think the campaign against the amendments was
fantastic.
(05:09):
It was very simple.
It was basically just
like F off, vote no on all. No on all four. It was very good. It was very good. Some people were obviously talking about it's, you know, a, uh, a referendum, not just on Jeff Landry, but also on, on Trump.
And I think that's, that's true.
But the main thing I think being not necessarily about like
(05:31):
those politicians in general,
but against like the MAGA e-ness that is happening both at
our state and federal level,
that like the government thinks they can just shove shit
through, like just like,
we don't need to tell you what it is.
We don't need to tell you why we're doing it.
but we're doing it and like, you better get on board.
(05:52):
And Louisiana voters were like, take that garbage,
stop feeding us this shit.
No, thank you.
Right.
So thumbs up, Louisiana voters.
Seriously.
And then very briefly on another when we fight, we win.
As a follow up from an earlier discussion about law firms
(06:14):
not fighting,
even though they could win when Trump is issuing executive
orders to unconstitutionally not let them go to court or
whatever, be lawyers, then shout out to Jenner and Block.
They are long friends of us personally,
including Joanna Wright.
Hey, Joanna.
(06:35):
And others at Jenner and Block who have helped us in
Louisiana with reproductive rights litigation in a bunch of
ways for a long time.
So it's a good firm that does good work.
That's just one thing that they do.
And they got in Trump's f-g crosshairs,
which partially also because they're doing some gender
affirming care ban shit in other states.
(06:59):
But no one knows, of course, why they're in the crosshairs.
But that's just all speculation.
But they do good progressive work.
And they're friends of the pods.
They're friends of the pod.
They don't know it, but they are.
So they fought back.
They got a TRO.
So yeah, when we fight, we win.
That's good.
I also wanted to talk about other positive things that
(07:20):
happened this week.
Oh my god, look at us.
So I know.
This is not going to be a recurring theme on this podcast.
Even in this episode.
So don't worry.
Don't worry.
Yeah, because by the end of the week,
I was like, F again. But I wanted to talk about Wisconsin. Wisconsin voters rejected Musk and Trump's candidate for the state Supreme Court, which is incredibly important because state Supreme Courts get to decide.
(07:49):
things like how districts are drawn,
which can have a big impact on which party controls.
And has in Wisconsin.
Big time, big time.
Also things like, you know,
whether certain rights are constitutional under state
Constitution, so this is a big deal.
Also true in Wisconsin,
that whether the 1849 abortion ban in Wisconsin can be
(08:13):
operationalized.
Right, so this is,
this is good and the margin was not slim.
10 points, huge, huge.
So that was very good.
Do you think that was helpful when Elon Musk went in his
like all black bizarro world outfit with the cheese hat?
Do you think that was helpful?
(08:33):
Not at all.
Not even the slightest bit.
So it is good that you can't actually just go into a state
and start handing out million checks and impact elections
when people are really motivated.
to vote.
So he's a bad talker.
Yes, he is.
He had that talking you on musk.
(08:54):
Maybe I'll put that on my side for today at the rally.
Use your words.
All right.
So then we don't know or don't stop using words.
So the other thing that happened this week that I found
incredibly inspiring was Senator Cory Booker shattered the
record for the longest speech on the Senate floor.
(09:17):
He stood for 25 hours and it was incredible.
It was incredible.
I'll tell you,
I started listening to it the morning after he started the
speech and my daughter and I were listening to it on the
way to school.
I listened to it kind of on and off all day.
I was listening to it again when I was picking her up from
(09:39):
school.
She gets in the car and she's like, he's still going.
I'm like, yeah, he's still going.
Then she got into it.
And so we watched it all the way through together.
And it's just something that she'll remember for the rest
of her life.
It was really inspiring.
However,
who wasn't inspired apparently was the New York Times.
(10:04):
So I had been making scrapbooks about Trump destroying this
country.
Because Michelle is a nerd in case you haven't realized big
time nerd.
I actually have four volumes of scrapbooks.
Although I do like this because there's like clips of me
and some stuff.
So yeah.
So just tracking like what he's been doing since he was
(10:24):
president the first time.
So I went to the store to grab a copy of the New York Times
so that I could cut the article about Cory Booker and put
it in my scrapbook.
Like something good in the scrapbook.
A hundred percent.
So I go and I pick up, this is when I did.
I brought receipts.
I like it.
Yeah.
Wednesday, April 2nd.
(10:45):
And I am looking all over page one.
nothing.
There's like a little thing in there.
A19.
It's A19 and it's this tiny little article here.
They don't even have a picture of him.
That is so, that is bullshit.
The,
the media's approach to this administration not publishing
(11:08):
anything that might get them in the cross hairs and they
don't want our face retaliation is so incredibly F-d up.
I mean, the Washington Post we know is just dead to us,
right?
But the New York Times is like literally the paper of
record in this country.
And the thing is the thing that really makes me crazy about
this is they didn't even have to write an article about
(11:31):
this that focused on his criticism of what the Trump
administration was doing.
The fact that he broke the record previously held by racist
segregationist Senator Sean Thurman from South Carolina who
spent 24 hours filibustering civil rights legislation.
(11:52):
The historical significance of what Cory Booker did was
enough to write an article about and to get him
on f-g page one.
A hundred percent.
And also because Cory Booker is who he is,
then it was actually an insanely positive 25 hours of
talking about
the F-y of f. No one but him could have been positive for even like 50 percent of that time.
(12:17):
And he was like positive for like, I mean,
I haven't listened to all of it, but like parts of it.
And it's incredibly inspiring.
And he is incredibly positive.
And this is historical for a bunch of reasons.
Like the news analysis that I read was pretty good.
Just about it ends from like the bulwark and folks like
(12:38):
that who, you know, are like on our side,
but are conservatives still in their hearts that, you know,
it didn't, it doesn't matter.
Like it wasn't an actual filibuster of anything.
Right.
No, this is like, this is the call to, you know,
the prayer from the people everywhere that are like, f-g
(12:58):
do something something,
which was also what he was saying to back to the country.
Like, I'm doing this.
You guys can do it, too.
So do something that's bold.
Do something that matters.
Do something that is going to make you feel uncomfortable.
He fasted for several days.
He didn't have to go to the f-g bathroom.
It's insane.
(13:18):
It's totally insane.
So good on Cory Booker.
Bad on the New York Times.
Yeah, F that.
All right.
Well, we just lost our sponsorship from the New York Times.
Whatever.
All right.
Sorry, New York Times.
All right.
Well,
let's get into the meat of what we're going to talk about
today because we're going to talk about some of the bills,
(13:39):
but we wanted to quickly let people know a little bit of
process stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
So just like briefly, so.
people know just a little bit about the process here,
whether you live here or not,
then every other year than the legislative session is
either a fiscal session or I call it a substantive session.
(14:02):
I think it's just called a non-fiscal session, whatever.
During the fiscal session,
then the bill's mainly have to be about taxing and
spending.
So because of that,
usually it's not quite as much of a shit show.
I mean, it can be a real shit show on taxing and spending,
but it's not as much of a shit show in trying to take away
(14:23):
everyone's rights.
Each legislator during a fiscal session can propose five
bills that are substantive bills.
Not tax-related, not budget-related.
Yeah, about any topic, just any amazing idea.
I mean, some of which are good ideas, it, whatever.
But two things I want to flag for people,
(14:44):
because we have been waiting for the pre-filing deadline.
So that's the deadline for legislators to file their bills
before the session starts.
So you're like, we finally have our arms around,
what the F are you could possibly be?
The pre-filing deadline has passed.
That is not true.
Do not rest on your laurels.
(15:05):
Do not stop watching and paying attention.
Because if you didn't file five bills,
you can keep one like in your wack pocket and come up with
some shit later.
You can file a bill on any substantive issue later.
And we've seen that before.
They can also amend bills in the process.
(15:26):
And they can also substitute bills that they previously
filed and basically change the entire context of the bill.
Well, that's, yes, a hundred percent.
That's the other thing to really watch for.
And sometimes the way bills start out,
they seem kind of like a little bit of sleepers, like, oh,
I don't really know what this is.
Or this doesn't seem great,
(15:48):
but it's probably not going to really do that much or
whatever.
Those are often the ones that get transformed very,
very late in the session to a completely different and
really dangerous proposal.
So beware.
That's right.
Beware.
But we'll be obviously talking about any changes that
(16:10):
happened to the bills in the session.
So today we're going to do just kind of a brief overview of
what we're looking at.
We're probably going to get deeper into the weeds on these
bills as they go through the process.
So Ellie is our legal eagle,
which is great because some of the stuff is a little,
a little, a little complicated.
(16:31):
The laws they're trying to pass.
Right.
Most of them don't know how to, like what the laws are.
So, right.
And despite our legislators,
disinterest in the constitutionality or the legality of
what they're proposing.
We actually do care,
so that's what we're going to talk about.
What bill do you want to start with?
(16:52):
Well, I guess the last thing I'll say,
the things to kind of watch for as bills move through the
process is when they're scheduled for committee hearings,
that's like the main main time that the public can weigh
in,
and also then when they're scheduled on the floor of either
the House or the Senate.
Those are the times to be like emailing, calling,
(17:14):
et cetera.
So we'll keep people posted,
but there's only certain times when the public can weigh
in, and the committee part is like the first and best time.
But without further ado, all right,
so the first bill that we're going to focus on is HB 575 by
(17:38):
Rep Ventrella.
and Rep.
Emerson.
This one is bad.
This is a bill that amends the old law that created civil
liability that allowed for people to be sued,
for doctors to be sued,
for performing abortions that were lawful,
(18:00):
but just somebody wanted to sue about it.
So it's like quasi medical malpractice actions.
I created a separate cause of action that regardless of
consent, if you have an abortion,
you can later sue the doctor for it and the malpractice
(18:22):
laws did not apply,
which meant that people could not get malpractice
insurance.
Doctors for their abortion practice,
if you were an OBGYN and you performed abortions,
you could not get malpractice insurance for providing
abortions.
It was a huge problem.
So now what they've done is they're retooling this so that
(18:42):
now it would create civil liability,
like a cause of action to sue people,
for anyone who not just performs an abortion,
but who performs causes, aids, or abets an abortion,
including, wait for it, including by manufacturing,
administering, prescribing, dispensing, distributing,
(19:06):
or selling an abortion inducing drug.
Okay.
I have a question.
Okay.
I'm interrupting.
No, please do.
This bill is, this bill is very, very bad.
And it's also has a lot of nuance about why it's bad.
So go ahead.
Okay.
So the first thing that stood out to me is manufacturing.
Yeah.
So how I understand this, and I'm not the legal eagle.
(19:29):
You're pretty close.
So that means that anyone who knows that someone took
medications to cause an abortion,
whether they did the that because they ordered the
medications online, they drove to another state,
brought them back, and used them,
(19:49):
they could actually sue the manufacturer of the,
who provides the medication.
There's a lot that's unclear about this, but clearly,
so a couple key takeaways.
Like one is that going after manufacturers is 100% the
point.
We're talking about the manufacturers of mifepristone in
particular, but it could also be misopristol.
(20:10):
It's very convoluted to me, quite honestly,
what it is that,
what the degree of causation or how tangential it would
have to be.
And that's obviously intentional.
Also, I love this part.
So this is the, doing any of those things,
(20:31):
manufacturing and ministering, blah, blah, blah.
that causes an abortion,
regardless of whether the abortion resulted in the death of
the unborn child.
So, I mean, you know, I'm not sure.
You just like gaff the medication,
(20:51):
help somebody get the medication.
Don't know.
The cause of action this creates is, of course, not just,
you know, in addition to the mother, as they call it,
been pregnant, or maybe still is,
because it doesn't have to actually cause an abortion to be
sued.
It's not just that person that can sue.
(21:13):
It's also the biological father.
They do have an exception for if the father, you know,
raped you to get you pregnant, how that would play out,
you know, who knows.
Or the maternal or paternal grandparents of the unborn
child.
So like your f-g asshole parents or the rapist f-g asshole.
(21:34):
There's no exclusion for if the parents of the rapist.
So this,
there was some of this that was true in the old law too.
And that has been like sort of a theme for a while about
trying to like set up situations basically where with civil
liability,
where the person who had the abortion is kind of a pawn in
(21:56):
the whole suit.
Like whether they consented,
whether they wanted the abortion, that doesn't matter.
But then someone else can swoop in and weaponize these laws
against someone else.
And also obviously against that person,
because then you're getting caught up in all of that shit.
(22:18):
It explicitly of course applies to out of state entities.
That's one of their big jams here,
including an entity that is not licensed to dispense
pharmaceutical drugs in this state.
Note.
And also still includes the parts about malpractice.
limitations on liability, not applying.
(22:39):
You're not liable under this law if you're practicing
healthcare in a manner that is defined not as an abortion
under our f-g abortion ban, which as we've talked about,
that law is not clear.
That's the whole problem that doctors like do not really
know, am I performing an abortion?
(23:01):
Well, I mean, I know medically I am, but like,
is somebody else going to decide who's not a f-g doctor
that this is illegal.
So let me back up.
So from that,
it seems to me that what could happen in a situation like
this is that someone who is carrying a pregnancy with a
(23:22):
severe genetic anomaly that is included as an exception in
our law, could, with their healthcare provider,
decide that it's necessary to terminate the pregnancy.
They want to terminate the pregnancy.
That is totally in accordance with the law.
(23:44):
However, then the rapist, the rapist, mom, the father,
the grandparents,
all of these people could then come back and sue you
And the, you being like, you know, the doctor, it was,
you know, a medication abortion, the manufacturer,
apparently distributors, like, you know,
(24:06):
a whole sort of host of people involved.
Yes, for sure.
And not just like the, there's, oh,
I forgot to say this is one of the best parts.
This section shall be known and may be cited as the justice
for victims of abortion drug dealers act.
Yes.
(24:27):
Which again,
there is no requirement that the victim in this scenario
actually like did not want to have an abortion.
Number one, also it is not limited to abortion drugs.
It is also would apply to any sort of surgical abortion as
you're talking about.
So there's,
there's a ton of nuance in this law that like I and many
(24:49):
other people need to dig into, but there's three sort of,
I think main takeaways that are pretty obvious.
So one is that this is explicitly about targeting out of
state actors, right?
Um,
and broadening the ability to target people as like aider and abeters. So, you know, on the one hand, then that of course is problematic because people in our seat are already f-g isolated and, you know, cannot access the care that they need.
(25:21):
So they're trying to scare out of state doctors,
scare out of state, anybody's from,
from helping people here.
So,
that just jst continues to lead to the crisis that pregnant
people are facing in Louisiana.
That's what they want.
That's the intended consequence of this law, is to ...
(25:45):
They see any sort of access that people are getting out of
state as a loophole, so that's the point of this law.
They don't give a shit about what I just said,
and they won't give a shit about the next two things I'm
going to say,
even though they're the very obvious unintended
consequences of this law that are totally foreseeable and
(26:08):
will be ignored.
The first being that,
as we've already seen with severe restrictions on
medication abortion that we saw first with the medication
abortion ban in 2022,
and then with the scheduling of those drugs last year,
that it has a dramatic impact then on the availability of
(26:32):
the drug and accessibility of those drugs, like,
for any purpose whatsoever.
So, people who are hemorrhaging,
people who need Mife and Miso for some other purpose, like,
this is intended to, or if not intended to,
will have the impact of dissuading pharmacists.
(26:54):
There's an exception,
there's the same pharmacist exception in here as there is
in those other laws.
And as we know,
many pharmacies have stopped stocking these drugs.
Many pharmacists will not fill these prescriptions.
There have been major distributors have stopped sending
these drugs into our state.
Like, it's been by a hook and a prayer, basically,
(27:16):
that Louisiana still has access to these life-saving drugs.
So now you're explicitly making it so that anybody and,
like, pretty close to their uncle can sue those people,
sue those out-of-state actors.
Especially if your uncle is the rapist.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
It's true, which that's fine.
It can't be, but not him, but his mom is fine.
(27:39):
Right.
Or, like, if your mom is an a-hole for that matter.
So,
the unintended consequences in terms of access and availability
of care from, you know,
big entities out-of-state is very worrying.
And then, in our state, of course, then,
(28:00):
as I alluded to before,
doctors are already so f-g freaked out for good reason
that, like, if I do X, will it be, will people, like,
do I face the potential of being prosecuted that some DA
somewhere who doesn't know s-- about s-- thinks that, like,
(28:21):
I don't think that that was reasonable medical judgment.
I don't think that that person's miscarriage really was,
like, in the unavoidable and what is it, whatever.
medical terms like this.
So doctors are already in that situation.
And now what you're telling them is that randos can bring a
(28:42):
cause of action to sue you civilly as well for a hundred
thousand dollars.
Oh, that's the minimum.
That's the minimum.
There's the potential for punitive damages,
which like basically doesn't exist in Louisiana.
Um, so the other thing to sort of, and I will move on then,
(29:04):
but things that fit in with this is not just like the additional chilling effect that doctors are just going to feel themselves, but also, I mean, I'm very worried about math practice coverage.
Again, I mean, why would there not when I,
when I know for a fact that doctors operating under a
(29:25):
similar law here, when they were providing abortions,
we're not able to get malpractice coverage.
Why would you think that people would want to ensure you as
an OBGYN if you say you're not providing abortions,
but nobody f-g knows if that's how the law is going to get
interpreted or not?
So if we're trying to get OBGYNs to leave the state,
(29:50):
this is a really good step in the right direction.
Okay.
More on this later.
Yeah.
This is the worst bill I have read so far.
Yeah.
This is a really, really dangerous bill.
It's not necessarily going to get better from here,
but this is the worst.
It's not exactly on the same theme,
(30:10):
but it sort of is in terms of just taking old laws and
twisting them around to weaponize them in new and different
ways that really sort of go to the heart of- Really,
really the heart of people's private matters.
Obviously, all of these things do,
but now that abortion is illegal,
(30:31):
then the state continues to try to basically invade more
and more and more into what people are doing in their
private lives.
So this is HB 425 by Representative Carlson,
which amends the old crime of coerced abortion,
which is like some s-- that's been on the books for a long
time,
(30:53):
which made it a crime to use physical force to force someone
to have an
abortion, to coerce someone into having an abortion.
Which obviously is terrible.
It's bad.
It's terrible.
Yes.
And it should be illegal.
And it is illegal.
That's correct.
It is illegal.
And there's also a version of this,
which I need to look back up because I remember fighting
(31:15):
this one before,
that's in the children's code having to do with minors.
Right.
So this takes that and adds to what counts as like a
coerced abortion,
a list of 18-incluse including but not limited to things
that constitute not just force,
(31:38):
but control or intimidation.
And they run like the full gamut of s-- that like, yes,
it's like stuff that's very bad,
which also PS would already be illegal, like kidnapping,
right?
Or like, you know,
of other physical force or actual implied threats of
(31:59):
physical force.
Those are things that would be illegal under this law or
other criminal laws.
But then like all kinds of like, you know,
very vague and broad things.
Threats of interference with parental rights or
responsibilities, promise of illegal benefit,
such as posting of bail,
(32:20):
procurement of an attorney or protection from arrest,
isolation of individuals from others.
But it doesn't sound like a nice thing to do,
but like also how would they know that?
Well, that's the problem.
It's a bunch of different, very broad things,
promising a financial benefit,
(32:42):
like exploitation of a pornographic performance.
I mean, like just a million different things.
Like,
have this abortion or I'm going to release our sex tape,
I guess is what that is.
And again,
I think this has been adapted from other sort of coercive
statutes.
But the point is this,
(33:03):
they are creating all kinds of broad categories of conduct
that like could constitute the crime of coerced abortion.
And they've lowered the criminal threshold from
intentionally to knowingly.
And basically the point is,
is to try to criminalize people's moms and people's
(33:29):
boyfriends.
And are there conversations that are happening in people's
private lives that aren't great?
Maybe,
but is that a crime that people should be thrown in jail
for five years with hard labor?
And more importantly,
how is the government going to find that out?
How are they going to judge what counts and what doesn't
count as extortion of claims of indebtedness?
(33:53):
Right.
Well,
so this is the point that I wanted to talk a little bit
about.
Interference with opportunities for education or skills
training.
Right.
So your mom says,
I'm not paying for you to go to college unless you have an
abortion.
Or because there's also the promise of financial reward.
Like if you have an abortion, I will pay for college.
(34:14):
Right.
Okay.
All right.
So the enforcement of this and how in practical terms they
would ever find this information out means that someone who
maybe ordered medications online,
maybe their mom helped them figure out how to do that.
(34:35):
They have some sort of complication, rarely happens,
but it does happen in some circumstances.
They go to the hospital,
they tell the people at the hospital,
they took these medications,
and then now all of a sudden they're asking them who helped
you get them, where'd you get them from?
(34:55):
And it's like the kind of thing that would be,
and I'll get to the second part of this,
it's the kicker along these lines, is then if you're upset,
you're in the hospital,
you're dealing with a medical complication, like,
I didn't even want to do this.
I didn't even want to do this,
but my mom said that I really needed you.
(35:18):
It's like that kind of thing that's just like things that
people just might say that then...
could lead to a criminal prosecution or just criminal
investigation.
It has the ability to really just twist around things that
people are just personal shit that people are dealing with
(35:42):
into a criminal investigation where then somebody might be
going to jail.
That's right.
So yeah,
the second part is that this bill amends the mandatory
reporting laws,
which is the old law that just applied to abortion clinics
in terms of mandatory reporting for suspecting rape,
(36:06):
incest, or coerced abortion.
Now this is back to all mandatory reporters for minors and
adults.
If that person has cause to believe that a minor or an
adult has been the victim of a coerced abortion,
they shall report such crime immediately or no later than
(36:28):
the end of the business day to the sheriff's department in
that parish where the resident resides.
That is so dangerous in terms of people's ability to talk
to a therapist, to talk to a school counselor.
And again, this is for adults too, not just for minors.
Talk to a doctor,
(36:49):
talk to anyone about just being honest about their own
decision making or grief or whatever the F and how that
then gets interpreted, mandatory reporting of that,
which is very serious.
If you don't come by with your mandatory reporting
obligations, that's very serious.
(37:11):
So the intrusion on those types of confidential
relationships to feed a bunch of bullshit into law
enforcement that then for people to start getting
investigated and basically just like the law, again,
this is intended, it is intended.
This is not unintended. This is intended to be a means of
(37:32):
weaponizing the criminal laws against people who might be
helping somebody to get a abortion.
I would really like to think about or to have a legislator
that was brave enough to introduce a bill about coerced
birth because all of these things really could be
(37:54):
weaponized to force someone to carry a pregnancy to turn.
And they are.
Again, I mean,
the scenario that they want to make a crime happens exactly
the same way on the other side by moms, boyfriends,
adoption agencies.
Exactly.
In other words, people who have a stake in it,
(38:16):
that have strong feelings one way or the other about what
somebody should do.
The problem is there's of course a point at which that
becomes way beyond just disagreements and reasonable fights
and families and becomes something totally different,
(38:40):
that we have laws already that would criminalize,
forcing people to do things against their will.
That sort of thing.
There's laws in place.
And there should be.
Yes, exactly.
A lot of those are reasonable laws.
But that's all we'll hear about.
That's all we'll hear about.
(39:01):
But then there will also be,
so listen closely when these bills are heard.
I'm over it.
What are we going to, what, what,
what is next on our agenda?
Oh, I'm next.
Okay.
I want to start with HB 400.
So this is by Representatives, Chenevert,
who's also new and representative, running for,
(39:25):
running for Bobert.
Right.
Dodie Horton.
So long time favorite Dodie Horton.
So yeah.
So Dodie Horton introduced this bill last year when it was
introduced.
It was one thing.
This is an example of things completely changing in the
process.
It was already concerning to us because it broadly expanded
(39:50):
parental involvement in healthcare access for minors.
Yes.
When it was presented in committee,
they substituted the bill.
So it became a whole new bill, which went even further.
Yeah.
I mean, extremely far.
It would mandate parental consent for any and all medical
(40:15):
treatment and mental health care, mental health, dental,
dental care,
not that I think like a lot of minors are probably like
going to the dentist without like, you know.
They're parents making the appointment.
But unless it's an emergency, yeah.
And emergency is very narrowly defined.
(40:37):
Correct, correct.
Yeah, including, yes,
like mental health for like substance abuse treatments,
like not allowing like schools to like intervene with like
substance abuse treatment for minors without parental
consent.
Right.
It also,
it doesn't allow minors to consent to donate blood themselves
anymore.
And I mean, okay, so 12 year olds are not donating blood,
(40:59):
but a lot of high schools have blood donation jobs.
So if you're like a junior, senior in high school,
then you can go and donate blood.
This would get rid of that.
You would have to have your parents permission to be able
to do that.
So this is just really taking this whole MAGA parental
rights agenda to an extreme that yes,
(41:22):
would have serious impacts on young people's ability to
access.
any sort of medical care.
Yes.
Because also it's twofold, right?
Like one is is that it's stupid and unworkable, right?
Many situations like like you're talking about with like,
just like,
do you have to like f-g get your parent to like sign a note
so you can, you know, donate blood or like be with you,
(41:45):
you know,
like working parents like at the doctor's office when
you're 16.
Because you know, you have an ear infection.
So there's like the feasibility crap.
And then of course there's the really damaging stuff.
That's like not everybody has a legal guardian who can
consent for that.
And certainly not everybody has a trusted legal guardian.
(42:08):
Like many people in our seat and elsewhere, you know,
their, their parents are, are dealing with drug abuse.
You know, they're, they're, they're,
they're living with their auntie,
they're living with their grandma,
their grandmother doesn't have legal custody according to
the law.
But that is who is taking care of this child.
(42:29):
That person is fine with the kid,
getting the healthcare that they need,
but they're not the legal guardian.
So they can't actually consent.
And of course, even if it's just because your parent,
which I mean, this is what they are really getting at.
So like, if you, as like a minor, which again,
includes like, you know, 16 and 17 year olds,
like really not any different than 18.
(42:49):
But you know,
like going to get birth control or going to get like STI
testing because like they're sexually active,
like that's the s-- that they really want to prevent.
Right.
But I mean,
like we live in a state where the unintended pregnancy rate
for teens is through the roof where abortion is illegal and
where STIs are the high in New Orleans and in Baton Rouge,
(43:13):
at least they used to be like the highest in the f-g
country in the country.
And especially among young people,
because it's hard to access care and you have to be like
really responsible and proactive to like,
you don't have a supportive parent, right,
go do that on your own.
So, you know, like, we should actually be like, of course,
like, you know,
(43:34):
trying to make it easier for doing more to empower young
people to access medical care, right,
to take care of themselves to stay healthy.
Yeah.
So yeah, this bill is this.
Yeah, it was proposed last year, there was some pushback.
Good afternoon,
Morgan Lamandre with STAR and for those who don't know us.
(43:55):
It stands for sexual trauma awareness and response.
I just kind of want to go through the bill of how it
affects survivors and why we should be concerned.
According to this, this says mental health services,
it doesn't say mental health counseling.
So I'm going to need to get consent from the parent to
maybe not there.
Some people are just not in the picture.
(44:16):
And what ends up happening is There is no court documents
declaring somebody a legal guardian,
so an advocate just coming to the hospital trying to figure
out what's going on to even get the disclosure.
We can't do that without parental consent, a tutor,
or a legal guardian.
We're going to remove a minor's ability to consent,
then I think we also would like to see a hierarchical class
(44:39):
of individuals that can consent on behalf of the minor just
as we do with adults so that you don't potentially get in a
situation where if the parent or legal guardian is
otherwise absent that the individual or the minor has to
medically degrade to the extent that it can be considered
an emergency before medical care could be rendered.
Rep. Chenevert (45:01):
"I do think there's a way to tweak things,
and I can ask the author in a minute,
I think that there's a way that we could work and maybe on
the way to the floor if this gets out of committee,
that we make sure we protect a child that is abused.
We make sure we're doing the right thing,
but I just want to say I do think it's needed that in law,
if we don't have an age right now,
(45:23):
if we don't have anything in law in Louisiana that errs on
the side of protecting parental rights,
I do find that a concern,
and I know a lot of parents that find that a
concern. So I just want to say I don't think it's either or."
So anyway,
so Chenevert actually was in the committee last year heard
all of the opposition to this, and then was like,
(45:47):
you know what, let's do it again, F it, F it,
let's do it again, let's double down.
So she also has a bill that directs each secretary or other
agency heads in Louisiana to abolish all DEI programs,
offices and positions,
and all DEI performance requirements for employees.
I mean, come on, one,
(46:10):
how much of this was actually going on in Louisiana state
agencies?
Probably not that much, because let's face it,
we're a pretty racist state.
I mean, the federal government, this is, I love it when,
like the kind of hilarious newbie crap that the new MAGA,
you know, legislators do where they're like, me too.
(46:30):
Also that's bad.
Like last, remember last session,
like how many of the f-g ones of them had like COVID bills?
We're like, folks, folks, we fought this shit.
Like you are late to the game.
I know you just got elected,
but like this s-- is already like been fought and whatever.
Yeah, but they're still going after, I mean,
they're still like anti-vaxxed bills.
(46:52):
Which it's not that it's not important.
I mean, it could still, I mean,
it could still have a real impact, but it's like,
they don't have any of their own f-g ideas.
Like all they know is what's like, you know,
popular that Donald Trump likes and like whatever that they
see on, on Fox news.
So for sure, whatever Chenevert's bill would do, Trump.
(47:14):
is already doing.
Yeah.
And it's not like the governor who's in charge of all of
these things.
It's like in favor now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, if they're not running any DEI, anyway,
it's just some bullshit.
I just needed to point out that like,
basically all of her bills suck f-g hard.
Yeah.
It's true.
So, but she's teamed up with Dodie.
(47:34):
Dodie's been there for a while and reliably has very bad
ultra conservative and really ultra Christian idea.
And we'll play some clips of Dodie as we go through the
session because there's bound to be some real gems.
But Dodie in particular is one of these like very sweet,
(48:00):
very soft-spoken, just like,
I'm just trying to save the babies, you know, just real.
She's just a good Christian woman.
What do you say about her? She smells like cinnamon and sugar.
She really does smell like sugar cookies.
She hugged me one time after a committee hearing and I was
like, she smells like sugar cookies.
And what did you find out?
(48:21):
She owns a bakery.
Oh,
I wonder how she feels about the tariffs on vanilla from
Madagascar.
Probably not going to be good for her
bakery. She's probably using fake vanilla? You think so? Imitation. I mean, well, at any rate.
All right.
Well, anyway, so Dodie's got another gem.
Let's talk about this one.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
HB 478.
(48:43):
I'm not even going to read what it says.
I'll just tell you what it does.
So it basically requires all student health centers,
whether they be in elementary, high schools, or colleges,
universities that get state funding to post everywhere in
the building,
(49:03):
essentially information that directs people to crisis
pregnancy centers, unlicensed pregnancy centers.
So wait, I just, I only read this book.
So it's all, so it's school.
right?
All schools.
So it's not enough that the state is giving $5 million
every single year to these unlicensed pregnancy centers.
(49:25):
They are getting giant tax breaks for, you know,
people who donate get like a huge tax break, right?
To these,
through these crisis pregnancy centers that are unlicensed.
They don't comply with HIPAA.
They are all religiously based and many have no doctor or
anything like medical.
(49:46):
They're not medical providers at all,
but they pretend to be.
So people think they're going there for medical.
It's a f-g racket.
It is a f-g grift.
It is a f-g racket.
It's not enough that we're giving all this money to them.
Every freaking highway that you drive down in Louisiana,
every, if it's not a Morris Bart advertisement, you know,
(50:08):
an ambulance chase or advertisement.
It's an advertisement for a f-g CPC, like seriously.
So now free advertising.
Now more free advertising, more free advertising.
It's government paid advertising.
The government is going to produce all this medically
accurate pregnancy information that the schools have to put
(50:29):
in.
Now,
how medically accurate do you think anything coming out of
Louisiana's Department of Health is gonna be?
Like not at all.
So you, CPCs, as our many, many listeners will soon learn,
is one of Michelle's like areas of expert and like real
areas of expertise.
Like she has done a deep, deep dive.
(50:51):
She knows everything there is to know about crisis
pregnancy centers, CPCs.
So yeah, that was sort of like your immediate like focus.
When you read this, mine was like, oh,
this is just like the f-g Women's Right To Know Act! Back
when there were abortions and there were abortion clinics.
They passed a version of that,
(51:12):
that mandated a pamphlet that had to be in every waiting
room in a clinic.
So the right to life would
send a public records request to the Department of Health about how many pamphlets such and such clinic has ordered and then compare that to the numbers that also had to be reported out about how many abortions had been performed at that clinic and be like, aha,
(51:35):
they only ordered, you know,
500 pamphlets and they provided 600 abortions.
Like gotcha, they're not really giving them out.
But in reality, what is happening is that they are giving them, the people are looking at them and they're like, this is some bulls--.
I don't need this.
They leave it on their seat when they leave the clinic.
(51:55):
There are two bills on IVF,
which one is by representative Paula Davis, who is great.
One is by Senator Thomas Pressley, who is not.
state's IVF laws,
which are incredibly outdated and also like just really
(52:17):
arcane and also have the potential to get us into an
Alabama situation where providers could be so concerned
about criminal or civil liability that they don't feel like
they can provide the services of the state.
Representative Davis proposed a version of this last year
and then, you know, there were like issues on the left,
(52:37):
issues on the right.
I would expect that to also be true this year,
but I know a lot about the IVF laws.
As some of you guys know,
I represented Sofia Vergara when she was being sued by her
asshole person who would totally be the kind of person,
by the way, who'd bring that, the civil liability lawsuit.
(52:58):
Right.
Totally would be.
We'll do a deeper dive into those bills and then we are
also going to talk about the bill that was introduced by
Representative Delisha Boyd to add an exception into our
abortion ban for people who become pregnant because of rape
and incest.
There's some nuances to that bill,
but we actually talked to Delisha Boyd.
(53:20):
Deep dive.
Deep dive with Delisha.
With Representative Boyd.
That episode will actually be posted next week after this
episode.
So we're not going to get into that bill now because we get
into it with her pretty, pretty significantly.
One of the things that I think makes following what is
(53:42):
happening in your state legislature.
So interesting is that there's all kinds of legislators
that come from different parts of your state that you may
not live in more rural communities.
And they are introducing bills that have a very narrow
constituency,
(54:03):
but one that is very important to that particular
legislator.
And if you're not paying attention to what's going on in
Louisiana,
then you might miss the opportunity to know about some
things that are important to other people in your state.
Like for example,
a bill that's been introduced that removes the requirement
that evidence of the sex identification of a deer be
(54:26):
maintained after the wildlife services has validated that
deer take, I guess is what they call it.
I'm not a hunter.
So anyway, yeah,
I'm a vegetarian.
Like if you hunt a deer,
apparently you have to maintain evidence of the sex.
I am normally I wouldn't follow this bill,
(54:49):
but I am so interested in how the evidence of sex
identification of a deer actually goes down.
Anyway, that's hilarious.
The beauty of, yes, the Louisiana legislature,
and I'm sure.
this is true in many other states,
particularly rural states with like,
(55:09):
interesting priorities is that, like,
often when you'll be like waiting for a bill and committee,
a whole other, just hilarity will come along about,
licensing and tagging of dead road kills.
Right.
Yeah.
I think there was a roadkill bill a couple years ago.
(55:29):
I was making that up.
But there probably was.
Yeah.
Like whether you can harvest it for, yeah, that would be,
can you scrape a deer off of the highway?
It's going to be always whether it counts in your,
in your count, in your take.
It's going to be, yeah, that's okay.
Yeah.
How many things can you kill before you've killed too many?
Because people obviously want to kill as many as possible.
(55:51):
Well, okay.
So the other bill that was obviously very important to some
number of people in
Louisiana. So in Louisiana, we're basically on this. mission to make sure that people can carry guns anywhere.
Anytime.
Yep.
Doesn't matter.
So even though we have a problem with gun violence,
(56:13):
because you know, right.
Everyone knows a good solution to gun violence is yeah,
more, more guns.
Right.
So anyway, what, what, what was really important though,
for us to fix was that there was a prohibition on carrying
guns while frogging at night.
This is a very,
any of y'all who live in the South or like live in f-g
(56:35):
redneck places.
Like, you know, people go frogging.
I don't know what the F it is.
I'm sure it's fun.
But if you go at night in Louisiana currently,
you can't carry your guns.
But my God, you've got to carry your guns anywhere.
I mean, we really need a shotgun to go frogging.
If you shot a frog with a shotgun...
it's going to be people need to defend.
I actually have no idea.
Maybe you might need to hunt something else.
(56:58):
It's not going to be, it's going to be like to defend.
What if you ran into,
what if you ran into a bad guy with a gun when you were a
good guy?
I will never get the amount of time in my life back that
I've listened to shit at our legislature about the Chinese
crawfish coming in.
(57:21):
If it's really has the antibiotics,
how do we know what are they putting on their packaging?
Yeah, it's an epidemic.
All right, we do have a listener.
We do have a listener submission.
Let's listen to that.
Hey, podcast people.
It's FCL here with the Are you f-g serious moment from the
past week.
Now,
if you haven't read the gambits new article about the nitrogen
(57:42):
supplier for the executions,
you'll probably want to go take a look at that.
There's actually some delicious public records for the
picking in there.
If you read towards the bottom of the article,
as it turns out air gas,
the supplier of the nitrogen for the executions was in
contact with the governor's office before telling them not
to use their nitrogen.
(58:04):
for the executions, but we know how that turned out.
Their products were used in the execution and now they are
suing the state for having their products used to kill a
man.
Okay, well, I'm not surprised by that.
I mean,
the way that all the Southern states got into this bind to
(58:26):
begin with,
where they had to come up with like new Fery in terms of
methods of how to execute people is because the European
manufacturers of drugs that had previously been used for
lethal injection refused to continue selling them to the
United States.
Because we were using them to Kill people.
Yes, correct.
Yeah.
So I'm not surprised.
(58:47):
I'm interested to see what happens with that.
I hadn't heard about that lawsuit.
Yeah, so when Governor Landry took office, he decided,
well,
since it's so hard to get the lethal injection drugs- Yeah,
it's impossible now.
Then we're gonna bring back old, curler forms of execution,
including- basically like restarting gas chambers in the
state.
And I'm sorry, as a Jewish person,
(59:08):
I'm very alarmed that we have gas chambers in the state and
that we're gassing people.
I just think that maybe we should not be doing that.
But so this was,
this was an execution that happened a couple weeks ago,
the person who was executed, Jesse Hoffman.
And yeah,
so apparently the state decided to use gas by this company.
(59:32):
Even the company had said very explicitly, like, no,
don't do this.
Now I think that the company may be suing the state.
Yeah.
And just so that people know,
like death sentences by what they call nitrogen hypoxia.
So, you know, this gas that, you know, chokes you to death.
I mean, it is highly controversial.
It's still pretty experimental.
(59:54):
And yeah, I mean, it causes extreme suffering and agony.
I mean,
this is literally the definition of cruel and unusual
punishment.
Well, that's again, I mean,
that's all the states that are continuing to execute brutal
are having to come up with either old fashioned bizarro
methods like firing squads or new fashion bizarro methods
(01:00:15):
because European manufacturers will not sell the drugs that
were used for lethal injection before.
I looked up the gambit article and in that article,
it said that nitrogen hypoxia is illegal for the use of
euthanizing animals.
So we don't even use this to euthanize animals.
No, they're just trying to find anything that works.
(01:00:36):
It's f-g sick.
It is.
It's sick.
Okay.
And of course that they were rushing to do it,
rushing to do it.
Right.
All right.
So all right.
Good episode, long episode.
So we'll be back next week with our interview with
representative Delisha Boyd.
Leave us, send us a voice memo on Instagram.
(01:00:58):
Isn't it on Instagram?
You can send it through Instagram messages.
Memo.
However people send voice memos.
I don't understand voice memos.
I just figured it out from Michelle recently.
Send us a voice memo.
Send us an email.
Read us.
Subscribe to us.
Tell us how great we are because we really want more people
(01:01:18):
to get interested in our podcasts.
Yeah.
So that obviously this will eventually become the most
listened to podcast in the country,
which I think is like just absolutely a
foregone conclusion.
Yeah.
I mean, in particular,
I would love to hear from people about other bizarro
legislation that's being introduced on your state.
(01:01:38):
Do I forgot to say what to send this voice memo about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just anything.
But if you have a Frogger related bill in your state,
if you have some bizarre thing that is like, you know, how,
whatever your state is known for, like Wisconsin,
(01:02:00):
if you're out there.
If we have people from Wisconsin, like if y'all have,
I'm sure you have a ton of legislation on cheese.
Like, yes.
For sure.
Send us that kind of stuff.
Because it's funny.
We want to know.
We want to know.
Yeah.
So see you next week.
Seriously is presented by Lift Louisiana,
(01:02:21):
a nonprofit organization advocating for reproductive health
rights and justice.
Welcome to Seriously,
the podcast that dives into the baffling.
The ridiculous.
And downright unbelievable political climate in red states
like Louisiana. Seriously.
(00:29):
Welcome to Seriously, I'm Michelle.
And I'm Ellie.
This week was a good week for Democracy.
We are recording on March...
No, April 5th.
No, April 5th.
I have no idea really, but it's definitely April 5th.
(00:49):
We're recording on April 5th.
So do you want to tell us your Seriously moment this week?
I will.
I'll start by saying that I'm wearing my aforementioned,
this is a F-Y of F shirt that you got for me,
because we're going to be getting into the much awaited
(01:10):
bills for the legislative session, which are a F-Y of F.
And also you and I are going to the rally after this.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, to lots of F-y.
But yes, my Seriously is going to be a...
Seriously?
That's a good one.
(01:32):
That's a positive Seriously, yeah.
We need to work on that.
Seriously?
Because, you know,
I'm a glass half full of vodka kind of girl.
And there was a lot of positive stuff this past week in a
lot of ways.
One of the main things being,
(01:52):
as folks in Louisiana will know,
there were four constitutional amendments on the ballot and
like a random mass ballot initiative on March 29th that
were heavily pushed by the governor, and they all failed,
all four of them failed, bigly, bigly, bigly, bigly,
(02:16):
like 65% of voters voted every single one of them down,
which is like basically never happens, so people know.
There's all kinds of F-g ballot initiatives here.
It's always like no one knows what they are,
no one turns out for them.
For most people,
let's say this is the only thing on the ballot,
so the voter turnout was high.
(02:39):
I mean, for an election like this, it was very high.
It was higher in a lot of places than it was for our
governor's race.
But yeah,
no one turns out for these special elections where it's
just constitutional ballot measures.
And no one understands about measures and no one cares.
And it's just like, it's always very, very difficult.
(03:01):
But voters, I mean,
across parish lines and across party lines voted these
down.
The measures themselves,
and one was a horrible anti-criminal justice constitutional
amendment that would have made it easier for juveniles to
be charged as adults and imprisoned in jails with adults.
(03:25):
And then two kind of like in the weeds things.
And then the big,
like the big piece de resistance that Governor Landry and
the Republicans of the legislature had shoved the F through
was like a dramatic,
dramatic overhaul to the entire tax structure of the state.
He campaigned for it, like, you know, big and wide.
(03:47):
So did all of the,
of course they all did without like answering any f-g
questions like about it.
So to me then,
like the big takeaway on that in that in particular,
the tax one, is it's also like, you know,
all the messaging from them were just like,
it's going to reduce taxes.
It's going to save people money.
Like just do it.
(04:08):
And the bill that became the constitutional amendment did
like about a million things,
like about a million different things.
Most of them bad, spoiler alert,
like basically replacing income tax for sales tax.
So like just regressive policy measures,
but a whole kind of, a whole kinds of other shit,
including some stuff that was like not bad,
(04:28):
like teacher pay raises.
But they shoved it through the legislative session.
They had a special tax session for this purpose,
which meant it was super short.
There was very little time for any like the public to weigh
in just like shoved it through a bill that had,
that did a million things.
And we're like, well, just.
(04:49):
put it on the pallet that just says like, hi,
do you want to reform the constitution, you know, blah,
blah, blah,
let the government do whatever the fact they want with like
the money and, you know, um, and voters did not go for it.
I know.
And I think the campaign against the amendments was
fantastic.
(05:09):
It was very simple.
It was basically just
like F off, vote no on all. No on all four. It was very good. It was very good. Some people were obviously talking about it's, you know, a, uh, a referendum, not just on Jeff Landry, but also on, on Trump.
And I think that's, that's true.
But the main thing I think being not necessarily about like
(05:31):
those politicians in general,
but against like the MAGA e-ness that is happening both at
our state and federal level,
that like the government thinks they can just shove shit
through, like just like,
we don't need to tell you what it is.
We don't need to tell you why we're doing it.
but we're doing it and like, you better get on board.
(05:52):
And Louisiana voters were like, take that garbage,
stop feeding us this shit.
No, thank you.
Right.
So thumbs up, Louisiana voters.
Seriously.
And then very briefly on another when we fight, we win.
As a follow up from an earlier discussion about law firms
(06:14):
not fighting,
even though they could win when Trump is issuing executive
orders to unconstitutionally not let them go to court or
whatever, be lawyers, then shout out to Jenner and Block.
They are long friends of us personally,
including Joanna Wright.
Hey, Joanna.
(06:35):
And others at Jenner and Block who have helped us in
Louisiana with reproductive rights litigation in a bunch of
ways for a long time.
So it's a good firm that does good work.
That's just one thing that they do.
And they got in Trump's f-g crosshairs,
which partially also because they're doing some gender
affirming care ban shit in other states.
(06:59):
But no one knows, of course, why they're in the crosshairs.
But that's just all speculation.
But they do good progressive work.
And they're friends of the pods.
They're friends of the pod.
They don't know it, but they are.
So they fought back.
They got a TRO.
So yeah, when we fight, we win.
That's good.
I also wanted to talk about other positive things that
(07:20):
happened this week.
Oh my god, look at us.
So I know.
This is not going to be a recurring theme on this podcast.
Even in this episode.
So don't worry.
Don't worry.
Yeah, because by the end of the week,
I was like, F again. But I wanted to talk about Wisconsin. Wisconsin voters rejected Musk and Trump's candidate for the state Supreme Court, which is incredibly important because state Supreme Courts get to decide.
(07:49):
things like how districts are drawn,
which can have a big impact on which party controls.
And has in Wisconsin.
Big time, big time.
Also things like, you know,
whether certain rights are constitutional under state
Constitution, so this is a big deal.
Also true in Wisconsin,
that whether the 1849 abortion ban in Wisconsin can be
(08:13):
operationalized.
Right, so this is,
this is good and the margin was not slim.
10 points, huge, huge.
So that was very good.
Do you think that was helpful when Elon Musk went in his
like all black bizarro world outfit with the cheese hat?
Do you think that was helpful?
(08:33):
Not at all.
Not even the slightest bit.
So it is good that you can't actually just go into a state
and start handing out million checks and impact elections
when people are really motivated.
to vote.
So he's a bad talker.
Yes, he is.
He had that talking you on musk.
(08:54):
Maybe I'll put that on my side for today at the rally.
Use your words.
All right.
So then we don't know or don't stop using words.
So the other thing that happened this week that I found
incredibly inspiring was Senator Cory Booker shattered the
record for the longest speech on the Senate floor.
(09:17):
He stood for 25 hours and it was incredible.
It was incredible.
I'll tell you,
I started listening to it the morning after he started the
speech and my daughter and I were listening to it on the
way to school.
I listened to it kind of on and off all day.
I was listening to it again when I was picking her up from
(09:39):
school.
She gets in the car and she's like, he's still going.
I'm like, yeah, he's still going.
Then she got into it.
And so we watched it all the way through together.
And it's just something that she'll remember for the rest
of her life.
It was really inspiring.
However,
who wasn't inspired apparently was the New York Times.
(10:04):
So I had been making scrapbooks about Trump destroying this
country.
Because Michelle is a nerd in case you haven't realized big
time nerd.
I actually have four volumes of scrapbooks.
Although I do like this because there's like clips of me
and some stuff.
So yeah.
So just tracking like what he's been doing since he was
(10:24):
president the first time.
So I went to the store to grab a copy of the New York Times
so that I could cut the article about Cory Booker and put
it in my scrapbook.
Like something good in the scrapbook.
A hundred percent.
So I go and I pick up, this is when I did.
I brought receipts.
I like it.
Yeah.
Wednesday, April 2nd.
(10:45):
And I am looking all over page one.
nothing.
There's like a little thing in there.
A19.
It's A19 and it's this tiny little article here.
They don't even have a picture of him.
That is so, that is bullshit.
The,
the media's approach to this administration not publishing
(11:08):
anything that might get them in the cross hairs and they
don't want our face retaliation is so incredibly F-d up.
I mean, the Washington Post we know is just dead to us,
right?
But the New York Times is like literally the paper of
record in this country.
And the thing is the thing that really makes me crazy about
this is they didn't even have to write an article about
(11:31):
this that focused on his criticism of what the Trump
administration was doing.
The fact that he broke the record previously held by racist
segregationist Senator Sean Thurman from South Carolina who
spent 24 hours filibustering civil rights legislation.
(11:52):
The historical significance of what Cory Booker did was
enough to write an article about and to get him
on f-g page one.
A hundred percent.
And also because Cory Booker is who he is,
then it was actually an insanely positive 25 hours of
talking about
the F-y of f. No one but him could have been positive for even like 50 percent of that time.
(12:17):
And he was like positive for like, I mean,
I haven't listened to all of it, but like parts of it.
And it's incredibly inspiring.
And he is incredibly positive.
And this is historical for a bunch of reasons.
Like the news analysis that I read was pretty good.
Just about it ends from like the bulwark and folks like
(12:38):
that who, you know, are like on our side,
but are conservatives still in their hearts that, you know,
it didn't, it doesn't matter.
Like it wasn't an actual filibuster of anything.
Right.
No, this is like, this is the call to, you know,
the prayer from the people everywhere that are like, f-g
(12:58):
do something something,
which was also what he was saying to back to the country.
Like, I'm doing this.
You guys can do it, too.
So do something that's bold.
Do something that matters.
Do something that is going to make you feel uncomfortable.
He fasted for several days.
He didn't have to go to the f-g bathroom.
It's insane.
(13:18):
It's totally insane.
So good on Cory Booker.
Bad on the New York Times.
Yeah, F that.
All right.
Well, we just lost our sponsorship from the New York Times.
Whatever.
All right.
Sorry, New York Times.
All right.
Well,
let's get into the meat of what we're going to talk about
today because we're going to talk about some of the bills,
(13:39):
but we wanted to quickly let people know a little bit of
process stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
So just like briefly, so.
people know just a little bit about the process here,
whether you live here or not,
then every other year than the legislative session is
either a fiscal session or I call it a substantive session.
(14:02):
I think it's just called a non-fiscal session, whatever.
During the fiscal session,
then the bill's mainly have to be about taxing and
spending.
So because of that,
usually it's not quite as much of a shit show.
I mean, it can be a real shit show on taxing and spending,
but it's not as much of a shit show in trying to take away
(14:23):
everyone's rights.
Each legislator during a fiscal session can propose five
bills that are substantive bills.
Not tax-related, not budget-related.
Yeah, about any topic, just any amazing idea.
I mean, some of which are good ideas, it, whatever.
But two things I want to flag for people,
(14:44):
because we have been waiting for the pre-filing deadline.
So that's the deadline for legislators to file their bills
before the session starts.
So you're like, we finally have our arms around,
what the F are you could possibly be?
The pre-filing deadline has passed.
That is not true.
Do not rest on your laurels.
(15:05):
Do not stop watching and paying attention.
Because if you didn't file five bills,
you can keep one like in your wack pocket and come up with
some shit later.
You can file a bill on any substantive issue later.
And we've seen that before.
They can also amend bills in the process.
(15:26):
And they can also substitute bills that they previously
filed and basically change the entire context of the bill.
Well, that's, yes, a hundred percent.
That's the other thing to really watch for.
And sometimes the way bills start out,
they seem kind of like a little bit of sleepers, like, oh,
I don't really know what this is.
Or this doesn't seem great,
(15:48):
but it's probably not going to really do that much or
whatever.
Those are often the ones that get transformed very,
very late in the session to a completely different and
really dangerous proposal.
So beware.
That's right.
Beware.
But we'll be obviously talking about any changes that
(16:10):
happened to the bills in the session.
So today we're going to do just kind of a brief overview of
what we're looking at.
We're probably going to get deeper into the weeds on these
bills as they go through the process.
So Ellie is our legal eagle,
which is great because some of the stuff is a little,
a little, a little complicated.
(16:31):
The laws they're trying to pass.
Right.
Most of them don't know how to, like what the laws are.
So, right.
And despite our legislators,
disinterest in the constitutionality or the legality of
what they're proposing.
We actually do care,
so that's what we're going to talk about.
What bill do you want to start with?
(16:52):
Well, I guess the last thing I'll say,
the things to kind of watch for as bills move through the
process is when they're scheduled for committee hearings,
that's like the main main time that the public can weigh
in,
and also then when they're scheduled on the floor of either
the House or the Senate.
Those are the times to be like emailing, calling,
(17:14):
et cetera.
So we'll keep people posted,
but there's only certain times when the public can weigh
in, and the committee part is like the first and best time.
But without further ado, all right,
so the first bill that we're going to focus on is HB 575 by
(17:38):
Rep Ventrella.
and Rep.
Emerson.
This one is bad.
This is a bill that amends the old law that created civil
liability that allowed for people to be sued,
for doctors to be sued,
for performing abortions that were lawful,
(18:00):
but just somebody wanted to sue about it.
So it's like quasi medical malpractice actions.
I created a separate cause of action that regardless of
consent, if you have an abortion,
you can later sue the doctor for it and the malpractice
(18:22):
laws did not apply,
which meant that people could not get malpractice
insurance.
Doctors for their abortion practice,
if you were an OBGYN and you performed abortions,
you could not get malpractice insurance for providing
abortions.
It was a huge problem.
So now what they've done is they're retooling this so that
(18:42):
now it would create civil liability,
like a cause of action to sue people,
for anyone who not just performs an abortion,
but who performs causes, aids, or abets an abortion,
including, wait for it, including by manufacturing,
administering, prescribing, dispensing, distributing,
(19:06):
or selling an abortion inducing drug.
Okay.
I have a question.
Okay.
I'm interrupting.
No, please do.
This bill is, this bill is very, very bad.
And it's also has a lot of nuance about why it's bad.
So go ahead.
Okay.
So the first thing that stood out to me is manufacturing.
Yeah.
So how I understand this, and I'm not the legal eagle.
(19:29):
You're pretty close.
So that means that anyone who knows that someone took
medications to cause an abortion,
whether they did the that because they ordered the
medications online, they drove to another state,
brought them back, and used them,
(19:49):
they could actually sue the manufacturer of the,
who provides the medication.
There's a lot that's unclear about this, but clearly,
so a couple key takeaways.
Like one is that going after manufacturers is 100% the
point.
We're talking about the manufacturers of mifepristone in
particular, but it could also be misopristol.
(20:10):
It's very convoluted to me, quite honestly,
what it is that,
what the degree of causation or how tangential it would
have to be.
And that's obviously intentional.
Also, I love this part.
So this is the, doing any of those things,
(20:31):
manufacturing and ministering, blah, blah, blah.
that causes an abortion,
regardless of whether the abortion resulted in the death of
the unborn child.
So, I mean, you know, I'm not sure.
You just like gaff the medication,
(20:51):
help somebody get the medication.
Don't know.
The cause of action this creates is, of course, not just,
you know, in addition to the mother, as they call it,
been pregnant, or maybe still is,
because it doesn't have to actually cause an abortion to be
sued.
It's not just that person that can sue.
(21:13):
It's also the biological father.
They do have an exception for if the father, you know,
raped you to get you pregnant, how that would play out,
you know, who knows.
Or the maternal or paternal grandparents of the unborn
child.
So like your f-g asshole parents or the rapist f-g asshole.
(21:34):
There's no exclusion for if the parents of the rapist.
So this,
there was some of this that was true in the old law too.
And that has been like sort of a theme for a while about
trying to like set up situations basically where with civil
liability,
where the person who had the abortion is kind of a pawn in
(21:56):
the whole suit.
Like whether they consented,
whether they wanted the abortion, that doesn't matter.
But then someone else can swoop in and weaponize these laws
against someone else.
And also obviously against that person,
because then you're getting caught up in all of that shit.
(22:18):
It explicitly of course applies to out of state entities.
That's one of their big jams here,
including an entity that is not licensed to dispense
pharmaceutical drugs in this state.
Note.
And also still includes the parts about malpractice.
limitations on liability, not applying.
(22:39):
You're not liable under this law if you're practicing
healthcare in a manner that is defined not as an abortion
under our f-g abortion ban, which as we've talked about,
that law is not clear.
That's the whole problem that doctors like do not really
know, am I performing an abortion?
(23:01):
Well, I mean, I know medically I am, but like,
is somebody else going to decide who's not a f-g doctor
that this is illegal.
So let me back up.
So from that,
it seems to me that what could happen in a situation like
this is that someone who is carrying a pregnancy with a
(23:22):
severe genetic anomaly that is included as an exception in
our law, could, with their healthcare provider,
decide that it's necessary to terminate the pregnancy.
They want to terminate the pregnancy.
That is totally in accordance with the law.
(23:44):
However, then the rapist, the rapist, mom, the father,
the grandparents,
all of these people could then come back and sue you
And the, you being like, you know, the doctor, it was,
you know, a medication abortion, the manufacturer,
apparently distributors, like, you know,
(24:06):
a whole sort of host of people involved.
Yes, for sure.
And not just like the, there's, oh,
I forgot to say this is one of the best parts.
This section shall be known and may be cited as the justice
for victims of abortion drug dealers act.
Yes.
(24:27):
Which again,
there is no requirement that the victim in this scenario
actually like did not want to have an abortion.
Number one, also it is not limited to abortion drugs.
It is also would apply to any sort of surgical abortion as
you're talking about.
So there's,
there's a ton of nuance in this law that like I and many
(24:49):
other people need to dig into, but there's three sort of,
I think main takeaways that are pretty obvious.
So one is that this is explicitly about targeting out of
state actors, right?
Um,
and broadening the ability to target people as like aider and abeters. So, you know, on the one hand, then that of course is problematic because people in our seat are already f-g isolated and, you know, cannot access the care that they need.
(25:21):
So they're trying to scare out of state doctors,
scare out of state, anybody's from,
from helping people here.
So,
that just jst continues to lead to the crisis that pregnant
people are facing in Louisiana.
That's what they want.
That's the intended consequence of this law, is to ...
(25:45):
They see any sort of access that people are getting out of
state as a loophole, so that's the point of this law.
They don't give a shit about what I just said,
and they won't give a shit about the next two things I'm
going to say,
even though they're the very obvious unintended
consequences of this law that are totally foreseeable and
(26:08):
will be ignored.
The first being that,
as we've already seen with severe restrictions on
medication abortion that we saw first with the medication
abortion ban in 2022,
and then with the scheduling of those drugs last year,
that it has a dramatic impact then on the availability of
(26:32):
the drug and accessibility of those drugs, like,
for any purpose whatsoever.
So, people who are hemorrhaging,
people who need Mife and Miso for some other purpose, like,
this is intended to, or if not intended to,
will have the impact of dissuading pharmacists.
(26:54):
There's an exception,
there's the same pharmacist exception in here as there is
in those other laws.
And as we know,
many pharmacies have stopped stocking these drugs.
Many pharmacists will not fill these prescriptions.
There have been major distributors have stopped sending
these drugs into our state.
Like, it's been by a hook and a prayer, basically,
(27:16):
that Louisiana still has access to these life-saving drugs.
So now you're explicitly making it so that anybody and,
like, pretty close to their uncle can sue those people,
sue those out-of-state actors.
Especially if your uncle is the rapist.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
It's true, which that's fine.
It can't be, but not him, but his mom is fine.
(27:39):
Right.
Or, like, if your mom is an a-hole for that matter.
So,
the unintended consequences in terms of access and availability
of care from, you know,
big entities out-of-state is very worrying.
And then, in our state, of course, then,
(28:00):
as I alluded to before,
doctors are already so f-g freaked out for good reason
that, like, if I do X, will it be, will people, like,
do I face the potential of being prosecuted that some DA
somewhere who doesn't know s-- about s-- thinks that, like,
(28:21):
I don't think that that was reasonable medical judgment.
I don't think that that person's miscarriage really was,
like, in the unavoidable and what is it, whatever.
medical terms like this.
So doctors are already in that situation.
And now what you're telling them is that randos can bring a
(28:42):
cause of action to sue you civilly as well for a hundred
thousand dollars.
Oh, that's the minimum.
That's the minimum.
There's the potential for punitive damages,
which like basically doesn't exist in Louisiana.
Um, so the other thing to sort of, and I will move on then,
(29:04):
but things that fit in with this is not just like the additional chilling effect that doctors are just going to feel themselves, but also, I mean, I'm very worried about math practice coverage.
Again, I mean, why would there not when I,
when I know for a fact that doctors operating under a
(29:25):
similar law here, when they were providing abortions,
we're not able to get malpractice coverage.
Why would you think that people would want to ensure you as
an OBGYN if you say you're not providing abortions,
but nobody f-g knows if that's how the law is going to get
interpreted or not?
So if we're trying to get OBGYNs to leave the state,
(29:50):
this is a really good step in the right direction.
Okay.
Yeah.
This is the worst bill I have read so far.
Yeah.
This is a really, really dangerous bill.
It's not necessarily going to get better from here,
but this is the worst.
It's not exactly on the same theme,
(30:10):
but it sort of is in terms of just taking old laws and
twisting them around to weaponize them in new and different
ways that really sort of go to the heart of- Really,
really the heart of people's private matters.
Obviously, all of these things do,
but now that abortion is illegal,
(30:31):
then the state continues to try to basically invade more
and more and more into what people are doing in their
private lives.
So this is HB 425 by Representative Carlson,
which amends the old crime of coerced abortion,
which is like some s-- that's been on the books for a long
time,
(30:53):
which made it a crime to use physical force to force someone
to have an
abortion, to coerce someone into having an abortion.
Which obviously is terrible.
It's bad.
It's terrible.
Yes.
And it should be illegal.
And it is illegal.
That's correct.
It is illegal.
And there's also a version of this,
which I need to look back up because I remember fighting
(31:15):
this one before,
that's in the children's code having to do with minors.
Right.
So this takes that and adds to what counts as like a
coerced abortion,
a list of 18-incluse including but not limited to things
that constitute not just force,
(31:38):
but control or intimidation.
And they run like the full gamut of s-- that like, yes,
it's like stuff that's very bad,
which also PS would already be illegal, like kidnapping,
right?
Or like, you know,
of other physical force or actual implied threats of
(31:59):
physical force.
Those are things that would be illegal under this law or
other criminal laws.
But then like all kinds of like, you know,
very vague and broad things.
Threats of interference with parental rights or
responsibilities, promise of illegal benefit,
such as posting of bail,
(32:20):
procurement of an attorney or protection from arrest,
isolation of individuals from others.
But it doesn't sound like a nice thing to do,
but like also how would they know that?
Well, that's the problem.
It's a bunch of different, very broad things,
promising a financial benefit,
(32:42):
like exploitation of a pornographic performance.
I mean, like just a million different things.
Like,
have this abortion or I'm going to release our sex tape,
I guess is what that is.
And again,
I think this has been adapted from other sort of coercive
statutes.
But the point is this,
(33:03):
they are creating all kinds of broad categories of conduct
that like could constitute the crime of coerced abortion.
And they've lowered the criminal threshold from
intentionally to knowingly.
And basically the point is,
is to try to criminalize people's moms and people's
(33:29):
boyfriends.
And are there conversations that are happening in people's
private lives that aren't great?
Maybe,
but is that a crime that people should be thrown in jail
for five years with hard labor?
And more importantly,
how is the government going to find that out?
How are they going to judge what counts and what doesn't
count as extortion of claims of indebtedness?
(33:53):
Right.
Well,
so this is the point that I wanted to talk a little bit
about.
Interference with opportunities for education or skills
training.
Right.
So your mom says,
I'm not paying for you to go to college unless you have an
abortion.
Or because there's also the promise of financial reward.
Like if you have an abortion, I will pay for college.
(34:14):
Right.
Okay.
All right.
So the enforcement of this and how in practical terms they
would ever find this information out means that someone who
maybe ordered medications online,
maybe their mom helped them figure out how to do that.
(34:35):
They have some sort of complication, rarely happens,
but it does happen in some circumstances.
They go to the hospital,
they tell the people at the hospital,
they took these medications,
and then now all of a sudden they're asking them who helped
you get them, where'd you get them from?
(34:55):
And it's like the kind of thing that would be,
and I'll get to the second part of this,
it's the kicker along these lines, is then if you're upset,
you're in the hospital,
you're dealing with a medical complication, like,
I didn't even want to do this.
I didn't even want to do this,
but my mom said that I really needed you.
(35:18):
It's like that kind of thing that's just like things that
people just might say that then...
could lead to a criminal prosecution or just criminal
investigation.
It has the ability to really just twist around things that
people are just personal shit that people are dealing with
(35:42):
into a criminal investigation where then somebody might be
going to jail.
That's right.
So yeah,
the second part is that this bill amends the mandatory
reporting laws,
which is the old law that just applied to abortion clinics
in terms of mandatory reporting for suspecting rape,
(36:06):
incest, or coerced abortion.
Now this is back to all mandatory reporters for minors and
adults.
If that person has cause to believe that a minor or an
adult has been the victim of a coerced abortion,
they shall report such crime immediately or no later than
(36:28):
the end of the business day to the sheriff's department in
that parish where the resident resides.
That is so dangerous in terms of people's ability to talk
to a therapist, to talk to a school counselor.
And again, this is for adults too, not just for minors.
Talk to a doctor,
(36:49):
talk to anyone about just being honest about their own
decision making or grief or whatever the F and how that
then gets interpreted, mandatory reporting of that,
which is very serious.
If you don't come by with your mandatory reporting
obligations, that's very serious.
(37:11):
So the intrusion on those types of confidential
relationships to feed a bunch of bullshit into law
enforcement that then for people to start getting
investigated and basically just like the law, again,
this is intended, it is intended.
This is not unintended. This is intended to be a means of
(37:32):
weaponizing the criminal laws against people who might be
helping somebody to get a abortion.
I would really like to think about or to have a legislator
that was brave enough to introduce a bill about coerced
birth because all of these things really could be
(37:54):
weaponized to force someone to carry a pregnancy to turn.
And they are.
Again, I mean,
the scenario that they want to make a crime happens exactly
the same way on the other side by moms, boyfriends,
adoption agencies.
Exactly.
In other words, people who have a stake in it,
(38:16):
that have strong feelings one way or the other about what
somebody should do.
The problem is there's of course a point at which that
becomes way beyond just disagreements and reasonable fights
and families and becomes something totally different,
(38:40):
that we have laws already that would criminalize,
forcing people to do things against their will.
That sort of thing.
There's laws in place.
And there should be.
Yes, exactly.
A lot of those are reasonable laws.
But that's all we'll hear about.
That's all we'll hear about.
(39:01):
But then there will also be,
so listen closely when these bills are heard.
I'm over it.
What are we going to, what, what,
what is next on our agenda?
Oh, I'm next.
Okay.
I want to start with HB 400.
So this is by Representatives, Chenevert,
who's also new and representative, running for,
(39:25):
running for Bobert.
Right.
Dodie Horton.
So long time favorite Dodie Horton.
So yeah.
So Dodie Horton introduced this bill last year when it was
introduced.
It was one thing.
This is an example of things completely changing in the
process.
It was already concerning to us because it broadly expanded
(39:50):
parental involvement in healthcare access for minors.
Yes.
When it was presented in committee,
they substituted the bill.
So it became a whole new bill, which went even further.
Yeah.
I mean, extremely far.
It would mandate parental consent for any and all medical
(40:15):
treatment and mental health care, mental health, dental,
dental care,
not that I think like a lot of minors are probably like
going to the dentist without like, you know.
They're parents making the appointment.
But unless it's an emergency, yeah.
And emergency is very narrowly defined.
(40:37):
Correct, correct.
Yeah, including, yes,
like mental health for like substance abuse treatments,
like not allowing like schools to like intervene with like
substance abuse treatment for minors without parental
consent.
Right.
It also,
it doesn't allow minors to consent to donate blood themselves
anymore.
And I mean, okay, so 12 year olds are not donating blood,
(40:59):
but a lot of high schools have blood donation jobs.
So if you're like a junior, senior in high school,
then you can go and donate blood.
This would get rid of that.
You would have to have your parents permission to be able
to do that.
So this is just really taking this whole MAGA parental
rights agenda to an extreme that yes,
(41:22):
would have serious impacts on young people's ability to
access.
any sort of medical care.
Yes.
Because also it's twofold, right?
Like one is is that it's stupid and unworkable, right?
Many situations like like you're talking about with like,
just like,
do you have to like f-g get your parent to like sign a note
so you can, you know, donate blood or like be with you,
(41:45):
you know,
like working parents like at the doctor's office when
you're 16.
Because you know, you have an ear infection.
So there's like the feasibility crap.
And then of course there's the really damaging stuff.
That's like not everybody has a legal guardian who can
consent for that.
And certainly not everybody has a trusted legal guardian.
(42:08):
Like many people in our seat and elsewhere, you know,
their, their parents are, are dealing with drug abuse.
You know, they're, they're, they're,
they're living with their auntie,
they're living with their grandma,
their grandmother doesn't have legal custody according to
the law.
But that is who is taking care of this child.
(42:29):
That person is fine with the kid,
getting the healthcare that they need,
but they're not the legal guardian.
So they can't actually consent.
And of course, even if it's just because your parent,
which I mean, this is what they are really getting at.
So like, if you, as like a minor, which again,
includes like, you know, 16 and 17 year olds,
like really not any different than 18.
(42:49):
But you know,
like going to get birth control or going to get like STI
testing because like they're sexually active,
like that's the s-- that they really want to prevent.
Right.
But I mean,
like we live in a state where the unintended pregnancy rate
for teens is through the roof where abortion is illegal and
where STIs are the high in New Orleans and in Baton Rouge,
(43:13):
at least they used to be like the highest in the f-g
country in the country.
And especially among young people,
because it's hard to access care and you have to be like
really responsible and proactive to like,
you don't have a supportive parent, right,
go do that on your own.
So, you know, like, we should actually be like, of course,
like, you know,
(43:34):
trying to make it easier for doing more to empower young
people to access medical care, right,
to take care of themselves to stay healthy.
Yeah.
So yeah, this bill is this.
Yeah, it was proposed last year, there was some pushback.
Good afternoon,
Morgan Lamandre with STAR and for those who don't know us.
(43:55):
It stands for sexual trauma awareness and response.
I just kind of want to go through the bill of how it
affects survivors and why we should be concerned.
According to this, this says mental health services,
it doesn't say mental health counseling.
So I'm going to need to get consent from the parent to
maybe not there.
Some people are just not in the picture.
(44:16):
And what ends up happening is There is no court documents
declaring somebody a legal guardian,
so an advocate just coming to the hospital trying to figure
out what's going on to even get the disclosure.
We can't do that without parental consent, a tutor,
or a legal guardian.
We're going to remove a minor's ability to consent,
then I think we also would like to see a hierarchical class
(44:39):
of individuals that can consent on behalf of the minor just
as we do with adults so that you don't potentially get in a
situation where if the parent or legal guardian is
otherwise absent that the individual or the minor has to
medically degrade to the extent that it can be considered
an emergency before medical care could be rendered.
Rep. Chenevert (45:01):
"I do think there's a way to tweak things,
and I can ask the author in a minute,
I think that there's a way that we could work and maybe on
the way to the floor if this gets out of committee,
that we make sure we protect a child that is abused.
We make sure we're doing the right thing,
but I just want to say I do think it's needed that in law,
if we don't have an age right now,
(45:23):
if we don't have anything in law in Louisiana that errs on
the side of protecting parental rights,
I do find that a concern,
and I know a lot of parents that find that a
concern. So I just want to say I don't think it's either or."
So anyway,
so Chenevert actually was in the committee last year heard
all of the opposition to this, and then was like,
(45:47):
you know what, let's do it again, F it, F it,
let's do it again, let's double down.
So she also has a bill that directs each secretary or other
agency heads in Louisiana to abolish all DEI programs,
offices and positions,
and all DEI performance requirements for employees.
I mean, come on, one,
(46:10):
how much of this was actually going on in Louisiana state
agencies?
Probably not that much, because let's face it,
we're a pretty racist state.
I mean, the federal government, this is, I love it when,
like the kind of hilarious newbie crap that the new MAGA,
you know, legislators do where they're like, me too.
(46:30):
Also that's bad.
Like last, remember last session,
like how many of the f-g ones of them had like COVID bills?
We're like, folks, folks, we fought this shit.
Like you are late to the game.
I know you just got elected,
but like this s-- is already like been fought and whatever.
Yeah, but they're still going after, I mean,
they're still like anti-vaxxed bills.
(46:52):
Which it's not that it's not important.
I mean, it could still, I mean,
it could still have a real impact, but it's like,
they don't have any of their own f-g ideas.
Like all they know is what's like, you know,
popular that Donald Trump likes and like whatever that they
see on, on Fox news.
So for sure, whatever Chenevert's bill would do, Trump.
(47:14):
is already doing.
Yeah.
And it's not like the governor who's in charge of all of
these things.
It's like in favor now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, if they're not running any DEI, anyway,
it's just some bullshit.
I just needed to point out that like,
basically all of her bills suck f-g hard.
Yeah.
It's true.
So, but she's teamed up with Dodie.
(47:34):
Dodie's been there for a while and reliably has very bad
ultra conservative and really ultra Christian idea.
And we'll play some clips of Dodie as we go through the
session because there's bound to be some real gems.
But Dodie in particular is one of these like very sweet,
(48:00):
very soft-spoken, just like,
I'm just trying to save the babies, you know, just real.
She's just a good Christian woman.
What do you say about her? She smells like cinnamon and sugar.
She really does smell like sugar cookies.
She hugged me one time after a committee hearing and I was
like, she smells like sugar cookies.
And what did you find out?
(48:21):
She owns a bakery.
Oh,
I wonder how she feels about the tariffs on vanilla from
Madagascar.
Probably not going to be good for her
bakery. She's probably using fake vanilla? You think so? Imitation. I mean, well, at any rate.
All right.
Well, anyway, so Dodie's got another gem.
Let's talk about this one.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
HB 478.
(48:43):
I'm not even going to read what it says.
I'll just tell you what it does.
So it basically requires all student health centers,
whether they be in elementary, high schools, or colleges,
universities that get state funding to post everywhere in
the building,
(49:03):
essentially information that directs people to crisis
pregnancy centers, unlicensed pregnancy centers.
So wait, I just, I only read this book.
So it's all, so it's school.
right?
All schools.
So it's not enough that the state is giving $5 million
every single year to these unlicensed pregnancy centers.
(49:25):
They are getting giant tax breaks for, you know,
people who donate get like a huge tax break, right?
To these,
through these crisis pregnancy centers that are unlicensed.
They don't comply with HIPAA.
They are all religiously based and many have no doctor or
anything like medical.
(49:46):
They're not medical providers at all,
but they pretend to be.
So people think they're going there for medical.
It's a f-g racket.
It is a f-g grift.
It is a f-g racket.
It's not enough that we're giving all this money to them.
Every freaking highway that you drive down in Louisiana,
every, if it's not a Morris Bart advertisement, you know,
(50:08):
an ambulance chase or advertisement.
It's an advertisement for a f-g CPC, like seriously.
So now free advertising.
Now more free advertising, more free advertising.
It's government paid advertising.
The government is going to produce all this medically
accurate pregnancy information that the schools have to put
(50:29):
in.
Now,
how medically accurate do you think anything coming out of
Louisiana's Department of Health is gonna be?
Like not at all.
So you, CPCs, as our many, many listeners will soon learn,
is one of Michelle's like areas of expert and like real
areas of expertise.
Like she has done a deep, deep dive.
(50:51):
She knows everything there is to know about crisis
pregnancy centers, CPCs.
So yeah, that was sort of like your immediate like focus.
When you read this, mine was like, oh,
this is just like the f-g Women's Right To Know Act! Back
when there were abortions and there were abortion clinics.
They passed a version of that,
(51:12):
that mandated a pamphlet that had to be in every waiting
room in a clinic.
So the right to life would
send a public records request to the Department of Health about how many pamphlets such and such clinic has ordered and then compare that to the numbers that also had to be reported out about how many abortions had been performed at that clinic and be like, aha,
(51:35):
they only ordered, you know,
500 pamphlets and they provided 600 abortions.
Like gotcha, they're not really giving them out.
But in reality, what is happening is that they are giving them, the people are looking at them and they're like, this is some bulls--.
I don't need this.
They leave it on their seat when they leave the clinic.
(51:55):
There are two bills on IVF,
which one is by representative Paula Davis, who is great.
One is by Senator Thomas Pressley, who is not.
state's IVF laws,
which are incredibly outdated and also like just really
(52:17):
arcane and also have the potential to get us into an
Alabama situation where providers could be so concerned
about criminal or civil liability that they don't feel like
they can provide the services of the state.
Representative Davis proposed a version of this last year
and then, you know, there were like issues on the left,
(52:37):
issues on the right.
I would expect that to also be true this year,
but I know a lot about the IVF laws.
As some of you guys know,
I represented Sofia Vergara when she was being sued by her
asshole person who would totally be the kind of person,
by the way, who'd bring that, the civil liability lawsuit.
(52:58):
Right.
Totally would be.
We'll do a deeper dive into those bills and then we are
also going to talk about the bill that was introduced by
Representative Delisha Boyd to add an exception into our
abortion ban for people who become pregnant because of rape
and incest.
There's some nuances to that bill,
but we actually talked to Delisha Boyd.
(53:20):
Deep dive.
Deep dive with Delisha.
With Representative Boyd.
That episode will actually be posted next week after this
episode.
So we're not going to get into that bill now because we get
into it with her pretty, pretty significantly.
One of the things that I think makes following what is
(53:42):
happening in your state legislature.
So interesting is that there's all kinds of legislators
that come from different parts of your state that you may
not live in more rural communities.
And they are introducing bills that have a very narrow
constituency,
(54:03):
but one that is very important to that particular
legislator.
And if you're not paying attention to what's going on in
Louisiana,
then you might miss the opportunity to know about some
things that are important to other people in your state.
Like for example,
a bill that's been introduced that removes the requirement
that evidence of the sex identification of a deer be
(54:26):
maintained after the wildlife services has validated that
deer take, I guess is what they call it.
I'm not a hunter.
So anyway, yeah,
I'm a vegetarian.
Like if you hunt a deer,
apparently you have to maintain evidence of the sex.
I am normally I wouldn't follow this bill,
(54:49):
but I am so interested in how the evidence of sex
identification of a deer actually goes down.
Anyway, that's hilarious.
The beauty of, yes, the Louisiana legislature,
and I'm sure.
this is true in many other states,
particularly rural states with like,
(55:09):
interesting priorities is that, like,
often when you'll be like waiting for a bill and committee,
a whole other, just hilarity will come along about,
licensing and tagging of dead road kills.
Right.
Yeah.
I think there was a roadkill bill a couple years ago.
(55:29):
I was making that up.
But there probably was.
Yeah.
Like whether you can harvest it for, yeah, that would be,
can you scrape a deer off of the highway?
It's going to be always whether it counts in your,
in your count, in your take.
It's going to be, yeah, that's okay.
Yeah.
How many things can you kill before you've killed too many?
Because people obviously want to kill as many as possible.
(55:51):
Well, okay.
So the other bill that was obviously very important to some
number of people in
Louisiana. So in Louisiana, we're basically on this. mission to make sure that people can carry guns anywhere.
Anytime.
Yep.
Doesn't matter.
So even though we have a problem with gun violence,
(56:13):
because you know, right.
Everyone knows a good solution to gun violence is yeah,
more, more guns.
Right.
So anyway, what, what, what was really important though,
for us to fix was that there was a prohibition on carrying
guns while frogging at night.
This is a very,
any of y'all who live in the South or like live in f-g
(56:35):
redneck places.
Like, you know, people go frogging.
I don't know what the F it is.
I'm sure it's fun.
But if you go at night in Louisiana currently,
you can't carry your guns.
But my God, you've got to carry your guns anywhere.
I mean, we really need a shotgun to go frogging.
If you shot a frog with a shotgun...
it's going to be people need to defend.
I actually have no idea.
Maybe you might need to hunt something else.
(56:58):
It's not going to be, it's going to be like to defend.
What if you ran into,
what if you ran into a bad guy with a gun when you were a
good guy?
I will never get the amount of time in my life back that
I've listened to shit at our legislature about the Chinese
crawfish coming in.
(57:21):
If it's really has the antibiotics,
how do we know what are they putting on their packaging?
Yeah, it's an epidemic.
All right, we do have a listener.
We do have a listener submission.
Let's listen to that.
Hey, podcast people.
It's FCL here with the Are you f-g serious moment from the
past week.
Now,
if you haven't read the gambits new article about the nitrogen
(57:42):
supplier for the executions,
you'll probably want to go take a look at that.
There's actually some delicious public records for the
picking in there.
If you read towards the bottom of the article,
as it turns out air gas,
the supplier of the nitrogen for the executions was in
contact with the governor's office before telling them not
to use their nitrogen.
(58:04):
for the executions, but we know how that turned out.
Their products were used in the execution and now they are
suing the state for having their products used to kill a
man.
Okay, well, I'm not surprised by that.
I mean,
the way that all the Southern states got into this bind to
(58:26):
begin with,
where they had to come up with like new Fery in terms of
methods of how to execute people is because the European
manufacturers of drugs that had previously been used for
lethal injection refused to continue selling them to the
United States.
Because we were using them to Kill people.
Yes, correct.
Yeah.
So I'm not surprised.
(58:47):
I'm interested to see what happens with that.
I hadn't heard about that lawsuit.
Yeah, so when Governor Landry took office, he decided,
well,
since it's so hard to get the lethal injection drugs- Yeah,
it's impossible now.
Then we're gonna bring back old, curler forms of execution,
including- basically like restarting gas chambers in the
state.
And I'm sorry, as a Jewish person,
(59:08):
I'm very alarmed that we have gas chambers in the state and
that we're gassing people.
I just think that maybe we should not be doing that.
But so this was,
this was an execution that happened a couple weeks ago,
the person who was executed, Jesse Hoffman.
And yeah,
so apparently the state decided to use gas by this company.
(59:32):
Even the company had said very explicitly, like, no,
don't do this.
Now I think that the company may be suing the state.
Yeah.
And just so that people know,
like death sentences by what they call nitrogen hypoxia.
So, you know, this gas that, you know, chokes you to death.
I mean, it is highly controversial.
It's still pretty experimental.
(59:54):
And yeah, I mean, it causes extreme suffering and agony.
I mean,
this is literally the definition of cruel and unusual
punishment.
Well, that's again, I mean,
that's all the states that are continuing to execute brutal
are having to come up with either old fashioned bizarro
methods like firing squads or new fashion bizarro methods
(01:00:15):
because European manufacturers will not sell the drugs that
were used for lethal injection before.
I looked up the gambit article and in that article,
it said that nitrogen hypoxia is illegal for the use of
euthanizing animals.
So we don't even use this to euthanize animals.
No, they're just trying to find anything that works.
(01:00:36):
It's f-g sick.
It is.
It's sick.
Okay.
And of course that they were rushing to do it,
rushing to do it.
Right.
All right.
So all right.
Good episode, long episode.
So we'll be back next week with our interview with
representative Delisha Boyd.
Leave us, send us a voice memo on Instagram.
(01:00:58):
Isn't it on Instagram?
You can send it through Instagram messages.
Memo.
However people send voice memos.
I don't understand voice memos.
I just figured it out from Michelle recently.
Send us a voice memo.
Send us an email.
Read us.
Subscribe to us.
Tell us how great we are because we really want more people
(01:01:18):
to get interested in our podcasts.
Yeah.
So that obviously this will eventually become the most
listened to podcast in the country,
which I think is like just absolutely a
foregone conclusion.
Yeah.
I mean, in particular,
I would love to hear from people about other bizarro
legislation that's being introduced on your state.
(01:01:38):
Do I forgot to say what to send this voice memo about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just anything.
But if you have a Frogger related bill in your state,
if you have some bizarre thing that is like, you know, how,
whatever your state is known for, like Wisconsin,
(01:02:00):
if you're out there.
If we have people from Wisconsin, like if y'all have,
I'm sure you have a ton of legislation on cheese.
Like, yes.
For sure.
Send us that kind of stuff.
Because it's funny.
We want to know.
We want to know.
Yeah.
So see you next week.
Seriously is presented by Lift Louisiana,
(01:02:21):
a nonprofit organization advocating for reproductive health
rights and justice.
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