#310 2025 Legislative Wrap-Up Part 2

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:48):
Well, good morning, everybody.
Thank you for joining us on the state of freedom.
Danielle Walker and Chris Alexander here, your hosts.
We hope that you are having a great day.
We hope that you are trying to shake off some of what happened this legislative session.
We have not shaken it off and I'm not sure if we will because this episode has a lot offire in it.

(01:10):
yeah, there, you know, we want to talk about the fact that
There are some state politicians with an insatiable hunger and thirst for personal power.
We also wanna talk about their completely naked ignoring of the constitution,particularly, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but Article 1, Section 1's free
speech clause.

(01:32):
Pretty primary there.
So we got a lot of them in vigor this morning, but we are so pleased that you're joiningus.
um If you are catching this later, please know that you can catch us live
every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m.
on Rumble, YouTube, X and Facebook.
And you can catch us anytime, anywhere on pretty much every major platform, uh audio orvideo.

(02:01):
So if you're having a hard time uh finding us or um finding us on your favorite platform,you can go to freedomstate.us and see.
that we are on a ton of platforms and I have the links all put up there for you.
So hope you'll check that out.
Follow us on more than one.

(02:23):
Before we get into the real juice of the day, let me read the scripture of the day.
It is Colossians chapter two and it is verses eight through 10.
And it says, all right.
Beware that no one distracts you or intimidates you in their attempt to lead you away fromChrist's fullness by pretending to be full of wisdom when they're filled with endless

(02:52):
arguments of human logic, for they operate with humanistic and clouded judgments based onthe mindset of this world system and not on the anointed truths of the anointed one, for
he is the complete fullness of deity living in human form.
and our own completeness is now found in him.

(03:12):
We're completely filled with God as Christ's fullness overflows within us.
He is the head of every kingdom and authority in the universe.
How encouraging is that?
It's so easy to get caught up in the opinions of others, particularly when it comes toworld events that are happening, politics, conflict and war.

(03:33):
But if we listen and when we listen, we need to do so with ears of discernment.
We know, come on, we know a lot of these people are paid handsomely to lie to us and throwus off course.
We know a lot of these people just speak without any insight into what's really going on,into either the physical and definitely not the spiritual world.

(03:53):
So before we allow ourselves to get drawn reactively, before we allow ourselves to agreewith the point of view of a TV or radio personality or a politician or even some amateur
analyst,
ask Holy Spirit for his insight.
He is the source of all truth and he leads us into all truth.

(04:16):
And polar opinions seem to be making their mark right now.
A huge world conflict is one of those flash points for polarizing viewpoints right now.
And the choice between two sides is often a false one.
You don't have to choose one side or the other.
Choose the side of the Lord.
Listen to his voice.

(04:37):
you'll find it's the only one that won't stress you out.
He's the God of peace and we have access to his mind, his perspective and his thoughts ifhe lives in us.
So be encouraged.
Don't let the TV stress you out and don't let TV personalities or radio personalities tellyou what to think.

(04:58):
We have to make time for him, Danielle, to get what you just said.
We have to make time for him.
ah And that means being alone with the Lord.
It's very difficult to do that.
um Was it Blaise Pascal who said, Danielle, that it never ceases to amaze me, theinability of most men and women to be able to sit alone?

(05:26):
in a room completely by themselves.
It's very, very difficult for most people to do that because we're so dependent upon beingconnected.
But the only way we can get the fruits that you're talking about and be able to discernthe will of God in the morass of chaos and dysfunction that we seem to see around us
everywhere is by taking that time alone with God.

(05:49):
The Spirit speaks silently and gently.
The Spirit does not beat us over the head.
Yeah, well said.
Well said.
Well, we have, there may be some individuals or some bills that we would like to see hitover the head.
Well, there you go.
I'll be honest with you.

(06:10):
You were mentioning something about a bat on the last show, Danielle.
Not in this context, but that's what came to my mind when you said bat.
So, no, we will refrain from any kind of uh corporal punishment.
The legislators can rest assured of that.
We will, we will, but it doesn't mean uh that we're gonna let them off the hook becausewhat never ceases to amaze me, Chris, is the more we dig into the bills, even after we

(06:40):
thought we knew most of what was going on, we always can find some new dark web underneathit.
And it's just...
It's amazing and we want to make sure that everyone who's listening is aware of those ahand is able to stand up and hold their elected officials to account for that.

(07:03):
So we certainly intend to.
Chris may be here at the top, just a reminder that in Louisiana, the governor has 10 daysto sign or veto a bill after it's delivered to him if the legislature is still in session.
ah And then
after the legislature is out of session, the governor has 20 days to act.

(07:25):
If the governor fails to sign or veto the bill within 20 days of having received the bill,ah it becomes law automatically.
So we're kind of still in that window and there is still some haziness, which I knowsurprises none of our listeners, as to when the governor receives a bill.

(07:46):
Because it's very clear when the legislature sends it to him,
it is very unclear as to when he actually takes receipt of that and that is not madepublic, which is insanely frustrating.
And we've talked about that a year or two, a couple of years ago.
Exactly.
think Representative Amadei was on the show, Danielle, and we talked about that littlegray area there.
So look, the bottom line is he's either going to sign, veto, or let him sit and becomelaw.

(08:11):
He can only do those three things and he can't wait forever to do it.
That's right.
That's right.
So let's get started.
There are a number of bills that touch on free speech elections and the increase in theSecretary of State's power.
So we will get into those now.
The first one y'all have heard us talk about quite a bit.

(08:34):
House Bill 206.
This was by Representative Michael Melloran.
And it was an attempt at a workaround of the law that would allow
would have allowed Cleo Fields to keep his congressional seat regardless of what theSupreme Court rules on the gerrymandered district.
It would have done some other nasty things as well, but Chris, uh honesty prevailed onthat one.

(08:58):
Yeah, very much so.
uh Very relieved about that.
And it was the direct result of just a lot of citizen pushback on it.
You know, it got through, you know, the House Committee, Governmental Affairs, SenateGovernmental House floor, Senate Governmental Affairs, and then over on the Senate floor,
uh we were able to get an amendment put on that bill by Representative Seabow thatspecifically prohibits any consent agreements that will be allowed.

(09:27):
under HP 206 from being used to advance any redistricting plan or any kind ofreapportionment.
And that was the big concern that we had.
So very, very thankful.
And also in the bill and the amendment, it was amended in the Senate to require the methodby which these consent agreements are ratified by the legislature to be done in the same

(09:51):
way that they would do it if they were passing.
a bill so it can't be done remotely, can't be done in a streamlined way.
So HB 206 will not serve Cleo Field's purpose in trying to give him a new congressionaldistrict once the United States Supreme Court uh vacates his current district because it's

(10:11):
a classic racial gerrymand as Paul Heard pointed out very clearly on our show.
There's no question about that.
So hopefully Danielle, we will have something from the Supreme Court within the next
week or two was projected to come out down mid late June.
Here we are.
here we are indeed.
And I think it bears mentioning Chris, there was a little bit of opposition in the Housebefore the amendment.

(10:36):
So that was good to see.
I'll just name the people who voted against this bill in its original form, because that'sworth noting.
And that's Barrow Omaday, Robbie Carter, Wilford Carter, Kathy Edmondson, Gabe Firmett,Jacob Landry, Danny McCormick, Rodney Schammerhorn and Lauren Ventrella.

(10:57):
And then over on the Senate after the amendment by Senator Seabow, only Democrats votedagainst it.
Yeah.
unanimous, you know, I don't care about the bill one way or the other, except insofar aswhat it would have done if it had not been amended.

(11:17):
But nonetheless, and so for that reason, I'm so glad you mentioned the names of therepresentatives who voted against it prior to its amendment.
They understood what was going on.
Those Republicans.
And if they didn't understand exactly what was going on, they did smell the fish just likewe did.
Yeah.
And Danielle, even before, quite frankly, the Cleo Fields issue came up on our radarscreen, we just thought it was just a bad idea to do that, to be able to ratify unlawful

(11:50):
election agreements, consent agreements through a, know, a streamlined process in thelegislature.
But again, I mean, the bottom line is what we wanted out, what we wanted to include in itto make sure that it wasn't used in the way we thought it was going to be used.
got in there and very thankful for that.
And again, it was because of a lot of pushback from grassroots citizens and advocates uhon that bill.

(12:15):
So hats off to all of Louisiana grassroots advocates who did that call to action, whocalled the reps and the senators.
It's all about you.
And when you make demands, if we do it in sufficient numbers and we do it relentlessly,we're going to get what we need.
That's right.
That's right.
And the next one is House Bill 405.
We followed this one all session.

(12:36):
It was by Representative Matthew Willard, a Democrat, and it was requiring the Secretaryof State to update the election code after new laws were passed during session and be
generally more transparent about the way that the office operates.
We were hoping, Chris, that it would be amended to be more direct around

(13:00):
movements, movements related to the procurement of those voting computers that none of uswant except for the secretary of state and a handful of others it appears.
Maybe the dominion, maybe the dominion reps.
uh
So, yeah, I mean, it's a good bill insofar as it goes.

(13:21):
It just requires the Secretary of State to post on our website any changes to the electioncode, the actual text of the new law, the digest of the new law, when it becomes
effective, things like that.
Very important.
And as you said, Danielle, we requested an amendment be put on there ah that would haveincreased her transparency.
transparency with regard to the procurement process of this new voting system that shewants, because people really don't know what's going on ah when it comes to that process.

(13:50):
uh I will say that there have been a lot of hell raised in different ways, in differentcommittees this session about the lack of transparency in the procurement process.
So my understanding is that there are some additional things up on the website.
ah And she made the commitment, remember,
Danielle that she committed on the record that this would be absolutely transparent.

(14:15):
There would be additional hearings before the committees and the public would have a rightto be present anytime a new voting system or proposed system is tested or certified.
She made that proclamation in the committees on record.
So whether or not she has it up on her web, you know, she has to be transparent.
And if she's not, going to we're going to call her out.
I wish we could have gotten an amendment requiring it.

(14:38):
But we certainly did everything that we could do to make sure that people know what'sgoing on in this process.
We're talking about $140, $150 million of our money.
The least that she can do is make sure that the public knows what's going on.
Yeah, well, I know she said it on the record that she's going to be transparent, butnothing, nothing that she has done so far lends me to believe that she will.

(15:06):
So we'll see.
Maybe she's happy to be transparent whenever she got everything she wanted and she canjust move forward at record speed.
Yeah, well, look, absolutely, we'll see.
We'll see what she does.
But if she can put up, you know, on her web, on X and on Facebook, notices of judicialvacancies and deadlines to run for office, she can certainly do the same thing and have

(15:29):
the same transparency when it comes to securing the most fundamental right we have, whichis how we are going to be voting.
ah That, to me, seems not like an unreasonable demand.
Well, I'm sure our view and her view of reasonable is very different.
All right.
Next, next is house bill 577 by rep Darryl Desatel.

(15:54):
This is, ah this is the next one that gave a secretary of state Landry basically all shewanted with regard to procuring the machines.
Do you want to, do you want to talk about, you want to break this down for us, Chris?
just very briefly.
This is the bill that converts the competitive open bidding process, procurement process,for the voting systems.

(16:20):
It converts it to what's called an invitation to negotiate, which significantly increasesher power and her flexibility with regard to what vendors she negotiates with.
So she basically has the authority under this bill to negotiate with one vendor of herchoosing.
and go through the procurement process with that one vendor and not go through acompetitive bid process.

(16:45):
But this was the Bill, Danielle, where she made such significant concessions in the SenateGovernmental Affairs Committee in response to Senator Maguiz's questions.
And again, we've clipped a lot of those statements that she's made.
ah And so, you know, the bill passed, but we have committed that we opposed it.
But she's made, again, very significant commitments, including not using foreign parts forany voting system, not using any manufacturer that's based in another country or foreign

(17:14):
country.
uh And so, you know, if she lies about that and goes forward, you know, it won't, youknow, it will be a direct violation of what she said on the record in committee.
And we are absolutely going to hold her accountable.
Yeah.
Well, it's going to be a difficult needle to thread.
And I'll also say that Louisiana politicians haven't had a hard time ah lying to thepeople's faces directly ever before.

(17:45):
But I think it's really notable that this passed the House unanimously.
And that is very concerning to me.
And the only member of the entire legislature who had the
courage to stand up against this was Senator Valerie Hodges.
So massive kudos to you Senator Hodges.

(18:07):
um Blake Miguez was absent for the vote.
I know he gave Secretary of State Landry, as you said, ah a run for her money in thecommittee.
So we appreciate that.
Absolutely.
um
And Danielle, again, I'm not sure that the reps and the senators, I don't really know thatthey understood what the bill does.

(18:32):
And I think many of them trust her, ah even the ones who did know what the bill does, theytrust her.
We don't really trust her and we have good reason not to trust her.
So we don't want to give her more power.
We want to increase transparency and we want the
bidding process to include any and all potential vendors, including, by the way, a securehand-marked paper ballot system to be tested, certified, and looked at.

(19:02):
That, as President Trump said, will cost 8 % of what these computers and these machineswill cost.
But under this law, she's not under any obligation to include really any vendor in theprocess that she doesn't want.
sick.
It's absolutely sick.
The next bill is one that we have referenced this session, but we haven't talked about.

(19:26):
We never really dug into it until today.
And that's House Bill 693 by Representative Mark Wright.
And you will have seen most likely in the news, I saw it on NOLA.com and several otherplaces, people had their hair on fire about this was going to permit the camp.
the legislators, all elected officials, any candidates to uh use their campaign funds forMardi Gras, to use their campaign funds for all these other things.

(19:55):
Well, we dug into it today and the expenditures is not the concerning part.
think that Chris, you and I dug through this.
It seemed like the expenditures were pretty reasonable.
The Mardi Gras thing was the one Mardi Gras event that happens in Washington every year,which is a political.
event, I don't have a problem if they need to pay for their flight through their campaignfunds.

(20:17):
That doesn't bother me.
uh Especially versus what this bill actually does that is extremely dark and extremelyconcerning.
And that is, feel like this was a little bit of uh a bait and switch.
know, the mainstream media on this, the local mainstream media really fired things upabout the personal expenditures when the real

(20:43):
concerning thing never ever got mentioned in the news and that's what we uncovered today.
uh Chris specifically, which allows foreign nationals to donate to campaigns.
So this explains a lot of the shenanigans and frankly the treachery that we saw thissession with regard to trying to close the loophole of foreigners to prohibit foreigners

(21:08):
from donating to the election campaigns.
Would you talk about this Chris?
Sure.
This is an 85 page bill, Daniel, HP 692 is it?
692?
Yeah.
693, 85 page bill, the digest itself is 18 pages and we're following 60, 80, 100 billsvery closely during the legislature.

(21:31):
And I skimmed through this during the session when it came out.
And by and large, as you said, I don't think it's a bad bill.
It's not a dangerous bill.
except for one provision ah that is tucked down in it, which ah provides that foreignnationals, foreign nationals, well, first of all, the bill prohibits foreign nationals

(21:56):
from being able to donate to Louisiana campaigns, Louisiana ballot propositions, anythinglike that.
They simply cannot do it.
But excluded from the definition of foreign national,
It's a for as an individual who lives in another country and as a citizen of that countryand is not uh connected in any way to the government of that country or to a political

(22:23):
party in that country and is not a citizen of a country that's a sworn foreign adversary.
OK, so with those exceptions, a foreign individual, foreign citizen has the same rights todonate to Louisiana campaigns.
as you and I have, because this law says that in order to be a foreign national, you haveto be living in America, living in the United States, and you have to have been denied or

(22:53):
you don't have permanent legal resident status in the United States.
Or else, but if you don't live here, if you live in another country, you can do whateveryou want to do if you're just an individual donating.
You know why this is bad?
And now we know why HB 590, Danielle, was killed on the Senate floor.

(23:16):
Because Annie Spells' bill was categorical.
No non-citizens at all can donate to any Louisiana campaign, any Louisiana candidate, anyballot proposition, nothing.
And there were also very significant criminal penalties up to five years in prison fordoing so.

(23:36):
If you do so,
And of course, the provision that the recipient, the candidate, whoever got it, has toreturn the money.
So there was a big wall in her bill with no exceptions regarding non-citizens donating toLouisiana campaigns or election or ballot propositions.
And that one died on the floor.
Meanwhile, this HB, you know, this bill by Mark Wright, 693, allows individuals who livein another country

(24:05):
as long as it's not a country that's a sworn adversary of the United States, to donate tocampaigns in the same way that Louisiana citizens can do it with the same rights.
Chris, do you think that Representative Spell was delaying her bill on the floor becauseshe knew what was in this bill and she needed her bill to pass last in order to supersede

(24:29):
the provisions of this bill?
uh I don't think so.
I think what happened was, uh you know, the powers that be in the Senate did not want thebill because for whatever reason, they do not want to have in place a categorical ban
against non-citizens or foreign governments donating in our elections in Louisiana.

(24:55):
They don't want that ban.
They want the loophole.
They want the exception.
that we just talked about.
But now we know the rest of the story.
Yeah, now we know the rest of the story.
Indeed.
I'd be very interested to understand why someone like a Senator Seba did not propose anamendment to this because he did have, um, Annie Spells companion, uh, bill that would

(25:23):
have been a proposed constitutional amendment had it moved forward.
But, but it doesn't seem that any amendments to close this loophole were, uh, well, theycertainly weren't accepted if they were discussed.
are offered, didn't make it through.
Exactly, So again, Daniel, we can't emphasize this enough.

(25:48):
A foreigner who lives in the United States and has not been granted permanent legal statusin the United States, but is not a citizen, ah cannot donate individually to any campaign
or anything else.
But if they don't live here, live in another country, citizen of another country,

(26:08):
and they're donating individually their own money, they're not part of a PAC or apolitical, and they don't work for the government of that country, they have the same
rights we have, unless they live in a country that's a sworn adversary of the UnitedStates.
And if you are a permanent legal resident, also have the right to donate.
If you're, if exactly, if you're a permanent legal resident here and you live here,obviously, then then you have the same rights.

(26:36):
So the bottom line is the glaring loophole, much more concerning than someone who's herepermanently and has the legal right to be here permanently donating to a campaign.
I find that more palatable than someone who doesn't even live here, you know, and is ableto donate to Louisiana campaigns.
and Louisiana candidates, I don't think that should be legal.

(26:59):
No, it shouldn't be legal.
It disenfranchises our voice, right?
Because our freedom of speech is tied to our ability to spend money.
And if we spend money donated and we're donating it to one candidate and the othercandidate is taking in 10x that from Portugal, then, and they are able to win, then our

(27:22):
free speech was infringed.
That's how I view it.
100%.
You know, why should someone who doesn't live here, not a citizen of Louisiana, not acitizen of the United States, not subject to our laws, will not be living under the
consequences or the results of whatever candidate wins the race or whatever ballotproposition passes or fails, has no bearing on them whatsoever?

(27:47):
Why should they be able to have that kind of influence over our process?
It doesn't, I couldn't agree with you more.
I think it's wrong.
I think it's unjust.
And I think it's probably unconstitutional because it does dilute our voice in thedemocratic process, which is a core constitutional right we have.
This is a government of, by, and for the people of the United States, not of, by, and forforeign donors who happen to have a lot of money.

(28:18):
Yeah, exactly.
And this is even more concerning in light of John Solomon's recent expose that the Chinesewere uh inserting uh paper, what is it, mail-in ballots and having their uh lawfully,
lawful students who were here legally, Chinese citizens who were here legally were votingusing these mail-in ballots.

(28:46):
that were illegally harvested for other people.
They were voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
So we know that foreign interference happened in the 2020 election.
There's no doubt about it.
And if we think that they can circumvent rules related that specifically to voting in ourelection, what makes us think that they're not flooding the coffers of these legislators

(29:10):
and others?
uh other elected officials with their cash.
They have every incentive to do so and here's a big, big green flag that says, compor yourforeign money into our state so that we can do your bidding instead of the will of the
people that we are meant to serve.

(29:31):
That's a huge, huge problem.
It's a huge problem and that is exactly why HB 590 was so important, Danielle, because itwould have prohibited exactly what you just said.
we are not letting this die.
HB 590 died on the Senate floor because of Cameron Henry and maybe because of Jeff Landry.

(29:57):
mean, well, if Jeff Landry had said, I want this bill passed.
And I want this on my desk to sign it, which he should have done.
It'd be on his desk right now, probably already signed.
All it needed was a Senate vote.
It had already gone through the House and the Senate committee.
uh And so this is the most important bill that failed and the most alarming to me,especially now that we know what was tucked into HB 693.

(30:26):
Yeah, and like you said, Chris, this is an 85 page bill.
It's difficult for these legislators under the stress of session to understand everysingle clause of the bill.
had, probably dug into it for 45 minutes to an hour, specifically looking for something,you know, because we had a hunch.
So if you, if you're not, if you don't have any reason to believe that there's somethingsinister in there, you can understand that this is just a campaign finance reform bill.

(30:54):
Most of it looks.
pretty innocuous on its face, but when you dig down into it, this is buried in there.
So I have a hard time uh coming down too hard on some of these people because of the sizeof the bill, but I will, I do want to mention the people who voted against it in the
Senate because they had the longest time to read the bill and they deserve credit forvoting against that.

(31:15):
And they are uh Robert Allain, Adam Bass, Patrick Connick, Royce Duplessis.
Valerie Hodges and Thomas Pressley.
So a big, big applause to you six and then also it's noteworthy Joseph Bowie and BlakeMiguez were absent for that vote.

(31:35):
Yeah.
Good for those Republicans.
m
Yeah, and I will also say that I think some of this stuff must have started coming tolight after the debate in the Senate because it was a very mixed bag uh vote on the House
to concur.
So the vote to pass it the first time was much higher.

(31:58):
was, let me see, 77 to 6.
It passed in the House initially.
And then the vote to concur was a lot closer, 56 to 40.
So people caught wind of what was going on and were not necessarily on board with it bythe end of things, but it still made it through.
And I believe we should be asking and demanding that Governor Landry veto it, even thoughthere's a lot of good provisions in there.

(32:23):
Maybe he could just line item veto the new definition of foreign nationals and leave it atleast to the old definition.
It would be less sinister than it is now.
I know he can line item appropriations bills uh and I assume he could line item thatprovision out of this because again, that's the only troubling provision of the bill and

(32:45):
it's very troubling.
It really is.
It's almost like a deliberate loophole that you can literally drive a Mack truck through.
But basically the people that we talked about are just excluded from the definition of aforeign national.
Why should an individual who lives in another country, a foreigner, doesn't live here, whyshould they not be included in the definition of a foreign national?

(33:12):
I mean, it doesn't make any sense, except if you want that loophole so that they candonate to campaigns and candidates in Louisiana.
That's the only thing that makes sense.
Yeah, well, it certainly was not an oversight.
They took a lot of words to make that oversight.
Absolutely.
All right.

(33:32):
And Chris, we've talked now uh in conjunction with that bill with um Representative AnnieSpells Bill 590.
So I don't know that we necessarily need to go through that except to maybe mention thatSenator Seabow had the companion bill in the Senate that was would have been a
constitutional amendment had it made it through.
And probably also worth mentioning that uh Representative Spells Bill uh

(33:59):
that would have prohibited foreign funding in our elections.
Passed the House 87 to 7.
um Seven Democrats voted against it, which is pretty telling.
And then it made it out of the Senate in governmental affairs.
And like you said, it was never called up for a vote on the Senate floor, despite verystrong advocacy in favor of it going.

(34:23):
But now we know why.
Now we know why.
So, yeah, Danielle on the House floor, every single Republican who was present voted forit because they recognized the importance of the bill.
ah So, yeah, this is all squarely at the feet of Senate President Cameron Henry andprobably also Governor Jeff Landry.

(34:46):
Y590 failed.
I'll also say that we could probably in a large part put House Bill 693 at the feet insomewhat of Secretary of State Landry.
Well, yeah, I would say so.
My understanding through our exceedingly effective grapevine is that she was pushing at$6.93.

(35:12):
Yeah.
All right.
And she still Chris hasn't given us instructions on how she's enforcing keeping illegalaliens out of our elections.
So this all just kind of ties together in a nice web of nastiness.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm just waiting every day with bated breath to see when she's going to start enforcing SB436 to require people trying to register to vote to provide independent proof of American

(35:40):
citizenship, which is the law in Louisiana now.
ah And so we live in a state right now, at least in this respect, where the executivebranch member, the secretary of state who is responsible for enforcing
A very important provision of current law is not enforcing it and apparently not beingheld in any way accountable for not enforcing it.

(36:03):
Yeah.
All right.
Now that we've got all the warm and fuzzies out of the way, House Bill 592 byRepresentative Beau Bowie.
This was supposed to be a straightforward piece of legislation, Chris, but ChairmanKleinpeter tried to do some dirty dealing on this one to undermine our newly slash

(36:24):
partially closed primaries, not fully closed because of the tinkering last year of Senator
John Kennedy, but this one he was doing to favor, the work that he was doing here wasultimately with an end goal to favor Senator Bill Cassidy.

(36:45):
So we know that the only time that Senator Bill Cassidy and Senator John Kennedy areinvolved in what's going on in Louisiana is whenever it relates to their specific chances
of reelection.
100 % right, Danielle.
And we have to remember that because of Governor Landry and in significant part because ofSenator Kennedy, we don't have a pure closed primary system in Louisiana right now.

(37:10):
We had it when Julie Emerson's bill came out of the House in its original form a couple ofyears ago because it specifically provided that only Republicans can vote in Republican
primaries, only Democrats can vote in Democrat primaries.
But because of Landry and Kennedy, that was expanded
to allow no party or unaffiliated voters to vote in either Republican or Democratprimaries.

(37:34):
And so we don't have a pure system.
It's much better than we had.
It's not a jungle primary.
However, they wanted to take it a step further.
And I'm not saying Senator Kennedy had anything to do with this, but I suspect GovernorLandry did.
This bill, HB 592, as you said, largely innocuous, but goes before Senate GovernmentalAffairs.

(37:56):
And Caleb Kleinpeter offers an amendment to this bill that would eliminate the secondRepublican primary in the Republican closed primary system.
Because right now, Cassidy will run against five or six Republicans probably in a firstRepublican primary.
And then if he is in the top two in that first primary, he goes on a statewide ballotagainst the other top Republican finisher.

(38:23):
And he's going to have a very
difficult time against any Republican right now in Louisiana.
So Caleb Kleinpeter brings an amendment to eliminate that second primary and allow Cassidyto basically win by a plurality against five or six Republicans.

(38:43):
So you get 25 % of the vote, 30%, which he should be able to command, and then go straightinto a runoff, a general election against the Democrat.
and avoid a second Republican primary.
That's what this amendment would have done.
It would have directly favored Bill Cassidy and greatly enhanced his chances of walkingback into the US Senate.

(39:05):
Fortunately, Representative Boehner, who was completely caught off guard by this amendmentwas like, I'm not saying we can't do it this way, but this would affect other laws that
are in place regarding the closed primary system that we passed a couple of years ago.
So I don't really, so I think we need to keep it.
He was very gracious about it.
But so then Caleb Kleinpeter withdrew the amendment and they had a colloquy and discussionabout, you know, working it out on the Senate floor, which led us to believe that Henry

(39:35):
was going to give it another shot on the Senate floor and try to get this amendment backin there to benefit Cassidy.
So that's when we went on red alert.
That's when we started hammering the calls to action.
and letting everybody know about what's going on here.
And if this amendment gets on this bill and is passed and signed by the governor, you'regoing to be looking at Senator Bill Cassidy's face for another six years in all

(39:56):
likelihood.
That motivated a lot of people and ultimately 592 passed on the Senate without thissinister uh amendment.
It passed on the Senate floor.
But that's what was going on there, Danielle.
And I'll tell you that Cameron Henry did not do himself any favors, even where he's fromin Jefferson Parish, which is not just a bastion.

(40:17):
of conservative uh voters over there, but they are not Bill Cassidy fans.
I can promise you.
And I don't think he did himself any favors by now going, you know, being on record ashaving supporting an amendment like this and drafting it.
yeah.
And the independent media was all over this.
Our friend with Louisiana Standard, Nate Koenig, wrote a great article about it.

(40:41):
I think it may have also made it to the Hayride.
uh There were definitely several pieces that exposed what was going on with this.
No question about it.
And a lot of people came together and said, I'm sorry, we may disagree on a lot of things,but this is absolutely, and it was so brazen by the way, the way it was initially brought

(41:03):
in the committee, here's what we're gonna do, which is gonna eliminate the secondRepublican primary.
And that's what we're gonna do.
So let's just keep moving forward.
And fortunately, like I said, there was a lot of pushback and it didn't happen.
So.
You know, Bill Cassidy's not particularly happy about this, I can assure you.
And Cameron Henry is absolutely not only probably unhappy, I think he's embarrassedprobably by this and he should be because he was, I don't even know if Cameron Henry

(41:33):
really, uh I don't know if he would have done this if he had not been put up to it, if hehad not been asked to do it.
I know we went to a Cassidy fundraiser, may have hosted one.
I think he's going to probably vote for Cassidy.
But he's got to be smarter than this.
I guarantee you there has to be some pressure that was put on him to do this.

(41:53):
Maybe not, but I would imagine.
Well, I'll tell you what, Chris, anyone who is supporting Cassidy at that level is notMAGA.
And that's just a fact.
mean, no one who remembers anything about Bill Cassidy has forgotten his vote to impeach.
that's really uh tells you the state of affairs in Louisiana when the president of ourSenate is someone who would support someone like that.

(42:22):
I'm telling you, it's massively important.
And by the way, Danielle, we're at about 115, 120,000 views on LeCag's Facebook page ofthat 10 second clip from Cassidy.
I voted to convict President Trump because he's guilty.
Let me tell you what, those are words that will live in infamy.

(42:44):
No question about it and will probably spell.
the demise of Senator Cassidy's political career.
And do you know, Danielle, he has yet, I know we're digressing a bit here, but do knowthat he has yet to come out and express any remorse, any apology, any regret whatsoever
about that vote?
I know.

(43:05):
And we also know that he is very busy undermining, doing his level best anyway toundermine HHS Secretary RFK Jr.
because of the way he insinuated himself into the business of HHS.
So ah if things are not moving as fast as you would like on the make America healthy againfront, can most likely point back to Senator Bill Cassidy to thank for that.

(43:32):
Yes, we could literally spend a week talking about all the reasons why Senator BillCassidy needs to ride off into the sunset forever.
Yeah.
All right.
Next up, uh another bill that we could talk about for a very long time and we have talkedabout at great length and very passionately, SB 80 by Senator Comrade Greg Miller.

(43:58):
This is his bill that he carried for Secretary of State Nancy Landry saying that only bonafide journalists could participate in exit polling uh subject to her approval.
And obviously this is a huge censorship bill.
This is offensive to the first amendment, but the governor couldn't sign it fast enoughand it will be effective August 1st.

(44:22):
Yeah, and he's going to wear this around his neck like a dirty tie.
We're going to make sure of that.
He is going to wear this and he is going to own this because it is just obnoxious to theConstitution, grossly unfair to Louisiana citizens.
And every time people think about Jeff Landry and SB 80 and Greg Miller and SB 80, theyneed to immediately ennance oh

(44:51):
and Nancy Landry and SB 80.
They need immediately to understand this bill and these Nancy Landry, Greg Miller and JeffLandry, they by pushing and signing this bill have afforded more basic constitutional
rights to CNN and to MSNBC than they do ordinary regular Louisiana citizens who've livedhere their whole lives who

(45:20):
have sweat here, bled here, cried here, their families, paid taxes here, they will not beallowed to conduct lawful exit interviews at polling precincts.
But MSNBC and CNN, their constitutional rights will be fully protected in the state ofLouisiana.
And I think it is absolutely reprehensible, reprehensible that Governor Landry signed thisbill, that Secretary of State, Nancy Landry,

(45:50):
pushed this bill and that Greg Miller was her lapdog on this bill because this was not hisidea.
Greg Miller is not thinking about exit interviews.
He doesn't care one way the other about that.
He's doing this because Nancy Landry pushed him to do it and he was doing her dirty work.
There's no doubt of it.
And I'm not holding him less responsible.

(46:10):
Danielle, he is just as responsible.
But he was not the prime mover.
He was not the brain behind this.
No, but he did carry a lot of water for Nancy Landry this session.
And, you know, we were looking back, Chris, over his, uh, his voting record last year.
He was a hundred percent with us last year.

(46:31):
So Comrade has had a strong turn of affections in the last year.
Absolutely, I think he's going to be advancing up the ranks of the party, comrade.
no other explanation for it.
But maybe I'll just give uh credit where credit is due.
There's 28 Republicans in the House who are pro-free speech, and they are Beryl Omade,Tony Bockela, Rhonda Butler, Josh Carlson, DeWitt Carrier, Emily Genevieve, Kim Coats, Ray

(47:04):
Cruz, Kelly Dickerson, Jessica Doe-Ming.
Kathy Edmonston, Peter Egan, Gabe Firmat, Brian Fontenot, Jay Galle, Dodie Horton, JacobLandry, Shane Mack, Danny McCormick, Jack McFarland, Michael Melloran, Joe Augeron, Chuck
Owen, Rodney Schammerhorn, Philip Tarver, Lauren Ventrillo, Roger Wilder, and Jeff Wiley.

(47:27):
And some of those are not typically uh ones we'll find on the right side of the fence.
So they deserve credit for voting against this, absolutely.
And there were five free speech senators uh on the other chamber and they were RickEdmonds, Mike Facy, Valerie Hodges, Blake Miguez, and Alan Siebel.

(47:48):
Robert Allam was absent.
Good for all of them, Danielle.
we're going to, this bill is going to be weighted significantly when we do our scorecard.
Because I think that bill, not all bills should have the same weight.
Bills of this significance, of this consequence, people who stood up and did the rightthing, be, the bill should be weighted heavily in their favor, even if they may have made

(48:13):
some mistakes on some other bills.
So we have to consider that when we do our scorecard.
I just find this so alarming.
so disturbing ah and there has been no public statement whatsoever by either the attorneygeneral, Liz Murrell, either by the governor, Landry Miller, nothing defending this.
ah And so, yeah.

(48:33):
no defense.
There's no defense of it.
Because there is no defense of it.
That's exactly right.
So we sit here in Louisiana as a result of SB 80 as the only state in the country with theignominious honor of being able to say that we distinguish among citizens insofar as their

(48:53):
constitutional rights are concerned and we give greater weight to CNN and people who workfor CNN than we do for ordinary law abiding citizens.
It's an absolute
disgrace.
Yeah, and if you want to add to that, can also mention that we've also given, thislegislature has also given uh additional weight to foreign nationals versus citizens.

(49:18):
ah
as you're talking about, as we talked about a few minutes ago, right, Danielle?
Absolutely.
If you don't live in the country, you're not a citizen, you live in another country,you're the citizen of another country, you can donate as much of your own money as you
want uh within the whatever the constraints, if it's constraints are in Louisiana,whatever those regulations are, you are just as free as you would be if you were a

(49:42):
Louisiana citizen right here, donating to campaigns and ballot propositions.
And that is...
uh
Very unfortunate.
Yeah, very unfortunate.
Well, while we're on the topic of government overreach and government consolidation ofpower, can train our eyes now onto some of the areas where Governor Landry was looking to

(50:04):
bolster his position even further.
We'll start out with House Bill 200 by Representative Dixon McMakin, who did a lot of hispolitical bidding this session, which was surprising to me, I have to say.
ah
uh first came out with this bill that would have uh made it so basically anyone who's anelected official in the state uh at an executive level or uh at the legislature level that

(50:33):
uh would be part of the RPEC, the Republican, what does that stand for, Chris?
Yes, uh in East Baton Rouge Parish, you probably have a more succinct way of describingthis, but
basically it would have completely diluted the power of a local political party.

(50:56):
The Republican Parish Executive Committee is the governing body of the Republican Party inthe parish of East Baton Rouge.
Very close to the grassroots, very close to the pulse of the local community.
Dixon-McMacon's bill would have provided for automatic appointment to the local parishexecutive committee in East Baton Rouge Parish of any representative from any district in

(51:22):
East Baton Rouge Parish, any state senator.
And any statewide official who's domiciled uh in Baton Rouge, any statewide official,you're talking about Bill Cassidy.
If this bill had passed and been signed, Bill Cassidy would be an automatic member of thelocal Republican Parish Executive Committee in Baton Rouge.

(51:42):
And this is a private organization, by the way.
The government has no constitutional authority to regulate the membership or the electionprocess of a private organization.
Derek Babcock pointed that out in the House Committee.
uh we in, Woody Jenkins pointed that out as well.
So really, there was no authority to do this.

(52:04):
uh It failed in a 7-7.
And by the way, Daniel, one of the big reasons why we opposed it, in addition to thegrounds we just said, was that it just invites corruption into the process.
Do you not think that if Bill Cassidy or John Kennedy
are members voting members of the local Republican parish executive committee that there'snot going to be huge political influence uh that may be directed toward things that are

(52:32):
not in the best interest of East Baton Rouge parish.
Of course there is the it just is a recipe for corruption and that's why we opposed it.
So it failed seven seven in the House committee and I was out of town so I didn't get totestify for the bill but it failed in a seven seven vote.
ah But I was surprised and I know you're going to talk Danielle about who voted for this.

(52:56):
If I remember correctly, our friend Mike Baham, whom I like an awful lot, who's a formergrassroots activist, voted for this.
And I was like, Mike, what are you doing?
Yeah, so the committee members who voted in favor of this were Mike Baeham, Beau Bowier,Les Farnham, Dixon McMakin, Polly Thomas, Mark Wright, and John Weibel.

(53:20):
And Chris, just to go back to your point there about the undue influence of some of theseuh elected officials, that's not to say that they don't already have influence.
It's not to say that they're not already trying to sway and involve themselves in the
processes of the RPAC they very well may be, but at least they're not voting members.

(53:42):
Well, exactly, exactly.
Very, very well said.
And so I sent Dixon to make a message and said, Dixon, this is a terrible bill.
I think you should pull this bill.
Not a good idea.
If you want to run or if you want to run for the local RPAC, run for the RPAC and win theseat.

(54:04):
automatic appointments across the state and across the district is not the way to go here.
The legislature really doesn't have the authority to do this to begin with.
I really thought it was just an awful bill.
And one of the things that he did in committee, Danielle, to make it more palatable to theDemocrats was he made it, he created another problem because he eliminated uh the Democrat

(54:29):
party executive committee in East Baton Rouge Parish from the law.
So basically, so the bill as amended would have only applied to the Republican Parishexecutive committee.
not to the Democrat committee.
So that's an equal protection violation right there.
You can't selectively pass laws that apply only to a certain group of individuals,otherwise similarly situated.

(54:51):
But that's what he did because he wanted to get the bill through committee.
ah And so he just created another problem.
anyway, I think this is up there toward the top of my least favorite bills.
As a matter of fact, when I spoke to Dixon and I've said this publicly, said, this bill isthe functional equivalent of
a very bad movie that uh otherwise good actor hopes a lot of people forget.

(55:17):
And I think that Dixon will look back on this bill that way.
Well, ah he did try and get it revoted because it failed 7-7.
So you can bring it back for a revote in that case, but ah it got removed from thecalendar and it never got voted on again in the committee.
So that one thankfully died.
Yeah.

(55:38):
Yeah.
So, so he's, so, so well, I think honestly, in moments of honest reflection, I think thatDixon is going to have to come to the realization that this was a stupid thing to do.
Well, whether he does or doesn't, it didn't move forward and I'm thankful for that.
The next bill is House Bill 364 by Representative Darrell Desatel.

(56:00):
This would have been a constitutional amendment or a proposed constitutional amendmentshould it have made it through the process that would have increased the membership of the
Public Service Commission giving two seats to the governor uh to make appointments.
Yeah.
Representative Deschatel pulled it back.

(56:22):
I don't even know if this ever got a vote, Danielle.
think he voluntarily deferred it before it ever got the first vote, because I believe thathe understood that there is no possible way that the likelihood of this getting even
through the House to be voted on, to put it on a statewide ballot, I think would have beenhard.

(56:44):
in light of the current political climate uh and the unpopularity of our governor.
But even if it had gotten to a statewide ballot for the people, there's no possible waythat Louisiana citizens are going to look at ballot and say, do you approve amending the
Constitution to allow two additional members to the Louisiana Public Service Commission,both of whom will be appointed by the governor?

(57:10):
What percentage of voters do you think would have approved that?
in light of the current perception of our governor.
I would say 15%, maybe, 20%, maybe.
I think they understood the appetite's not there, but you know why this is revealing,Danielle?
It's revealing because it shows where their agenda is, where their motive is, what they'retrying to accomplish.

(57:35):
This was an effort to increase legislatively and constitutionally the governor's power.
And I think the only reason why it was pulled back was because they realized this thing isgoing to be dead in the water when it goes to the people.
And there probably will be major backlash that they that it's even on a statewide ballot.
So I think they recognized this and and pulled it back.

(57:57):
But yeah.
Yeah, what's remarkable to me about this is the public service commissioners are electedby the people.
And so someone bringing this bill in this manner shows me that one, they don't necessarilyvalue the voice of the people and two, that they are, or maybe they value the voice of the

(58:23):
people, but less so than the favor of the governor.
You know what?
That's a great point.
That is such a great point, you know, that they...
He is in there on their radar and making sure that they don't offend him or that theydon't upset him or do anything to undermine his agenda.

(58:48):
They're much more concerned about that than they are about being faithful to Louisianacitizens and exercising the kind of oversight and guardianship over our rights and
freedoms that they should be doing.
And that has to change, Danielle.
There's a fundamental structural problem in our constitutional system in Louisiana.

(59:08):
And the problem is that legislators are chronically afraid to vigorously oppose thisgovernor or any governor and exercise real fiscal restraint, real oversight, because
they're afraid of retaliation.
They're afraid of him using his veto pen.

(59:29):
to cut the projects in their districts, critical things that they need, the bondcommission, absolutely.
And so that is where this comes from.
In an ideal world, and quite frankly, it really should be that way, they should be morecourageous.
They should do the right thing, even if it does mean that projects in their district getcut, because that's what they're there to do.

(59:54):
But they shouldn't have to choose between the two.
That's right.
Yup.
that has to change.
know, Chuck Owens said, Danielle, that one of the ways to get rid of this is to eliminatethe line item veto altogether.
You know, I have feelings on both sides about that, but that's clearly a problem when itcomes to causing these legislators to be so impotent in standing up to the governor.

(01:00:18):
yeah it does.
And it has created a universe of perverse incentives, right?
People have their priorities out of whack because the stick of the governor is so heavy.
Absolutely.
And it cuts both ways.
I don't think that any governor should have the power just to overrule constitutionally,legislatively appropriated funds just because he disagrees with a vote on an unrelated

(01:00:53):
matter or an unrelated bill.
I just think that's completely unfair and it's a big part of the reason why our governmentis so dysfunctional.
Yeah, I agree with you.
think the line item veto in the hands of a person who really wants to right size thebudget would be one thing, but someone who is using it for political maneuvering and

(01:01:20):
punishment or uh otherwise, it's been destructive.
Absolutely.
If everyone who served in office were men and women of principle, then it would be awonderful thing, but they're not.
And so therein lies the problem.
Yeah.
All right.
Next up House Bill 603.

(01:01:40):
This is also by Representative Dixon McMaken.
We had kind of mixed feelings on this one.
This was uh a bill that would have made it so that the governor did not have to adhere toany of the recommendations of occupational licensing boards, committees, authorities, uh
any associations when appointing to rather when appointing to those occupational licensingboards, committees and authorities.

(01:02:06):
And on the one hand, we don't believe that those associations are necessarily the best, uhhave the best interest of the people at heart at all times.
So, you know, we get it, but also we don't necessarily think that the governor needs uhunchecked power in every venue either.

(01:02:29):
So I think we could see both arguments.
both sides of this argument.
um I don't know that I'm necessarily holding votes ah for this um against people for thatreason, but the fact that something like this would be brought is pretty telling.
Yeah, no question about it, Danielle.
And I agree with you, you said it so well, 100%, that there's corruption on both sides.

(01:02:54):
No matter who's choosing these appointees, there's always going to be political motivesbehind it.
Usually corruption is walking very closely therein.
So if there's any criticism about this bill, the legislature, if they want to do this, thelegislature should have crafted specific

(01:03:15):
objective standards and criteria by which these trade associations choose their nomineesand prohibited them from choosing based on this.
you know, that that would have probably been the best way to address this, to impose uponthem certain very specific constraints with regard to the criteria that they use to to

(01:03:39):
choose these nominees to send to the governor.
But I don't think putting all of the power in his hands
ah is the right answer, you know?
And maybe my view on this is colored a bit by the fact that I have grown so skeptical ofhis ability to use power wisely and objectively.

(01:04:00):
And I see him time and time again trying to increase his own power.
So maybe if it was a different governor, I might have a different view, but I, just as amatter of principle, I oppose, and I think you do, any legislation
that would result in a greater concentration of power in the hands of our governor.
And that's where we stand on it.

(01:04:21):
Not that the trade associations don't have their own share of corruption, but if theywanted to pass a bill to address this issue, the way I just said it, they should have done
it.
They should have had specific legislation that directs their criteria.
Yeah.
And you can call me cynical, but I think the only reason this bill failed is becausegroups like lobby and other other lobbying organizations, I don't know if it was lobby

(01:04:47):
specifically, I'm just using their name as an example, are the ones who both have ascorecard for these legislators on how they vote and they donate to their campaign and
they're the ones who uh put forward nominations.
So there's definitely vested interests on both sides of this bill, and I don't think thatcan go without being said.

(01:05:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So neither here nor there, 603.
uh It'll be interesting to see, I guess, if it's brought back in different form next year.
We'll see.
it will be.
John says in the chat, eventually you will have a different governor.
Well, God willing.
Well, hopefully, John, sooner rather than later.

(01:05:31):
We shall see.
We shall see.
All right.
Next up Senate Bill 89 by Senator Joseph Bowie.
This bill, I mean, it's kind of exhausting to be honest with you.
He was bringing a very simple, straightforward bill that would have required the Board ofCommissioners of the Port of New Orleans, a very powerful board, to be confirmed by the

(01:05:55):
Senate.
just use their traditional oversight.
Chris.
this may already be provided for in the Constitution as it is.
You know, it may be, but I don't believe that's the reason why.
I don't think that's the basis for the veto.

(01:06:16):
No, it may be.
And what does it hurt?
You can codify in statutory law, constitutional provisions, and there was nothing,absolutely nothing wrong with the bill.
There was not one Republican who voted against this bill in either house, unanimously.
Yeah, not one person.
one person exactly, 99-0, 39-0.

(01:06:37):
And all it says is, Governor Landrieu, okay, you can continue to make the appointments tothis powerful board, Port of Orleans, but we're gonna require Senate approval and
oversight, ratification of your appointments.
That's it.
And I guarantee you that Senator Bowie probably had an experience there that maybe alarmedhim about a process whereby someone got on that board and he wants to have...

(01:07:01):
Exercise oversight.
It's a perfectly appropriate legislative function.
We've been screaming about legislative oversight every opportunity we get.
This would have been a great opportunity for Governor Landry to say, you know what, thisis a powerful board.
I get it.
I understand.
And the executive does need to be held in check as a matter of constitutional principle.

(01:07:23):
Not that I'm, of course, going to do anything that's motivated only by politics.
Not that I'm going to put my own man or woman on there.
No.
But as a matter of principle, think legislative oversight's a good thing, and we lookforward to working with the Senate to get some good appointees there.
That would have done a great, great service to himself in showing that he has some respectfor the Constitution, but no, he vetoed it.

(01:07:45):
You know, this was something, this was just low-hanging fruit, Danielle.
If he's trying to rehabilitate his conservative base, reassure us that he hasconstitutional sensibilities, this would have been something he could have done.
to help in that, but I guess he's just blind or he thinks he's completely untouchable.
I'm not sure.

(01:08:05):
But if I had been sitting in his shoes, I absolutely would have made it known that Isigned this bill because I believe in the balance of powers in Louisiana.
Yeah, but it was his first veto.
But it was his first veto.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just not not just from a purely political calculus.

(01:08:28):
I just think it was a really, really dumb move.
Yeah, yeah.
And John in the chat clarified his previous comment saying that the next governor might beeven worse.
So that's always a possibility.
I pray that it won't happen.
Let's hope not John.
Yeah.
All right.
Next up on the continuing theme of consolidation of gubernatorial power, Senate bill 214by Senator Royce Du Plessis.

(01:08:54):
He was trying to make the commissioner of insurance and a governor appointed positioninstead of a statewide election.
This made it out of the Senate and governmental affairs committee, but it never managed tomake it to the floor for a vote because
of vigorous opposition from the grassroots.
Absolutely.

(01:09:14):
We had a very strong call to action on this.
Hundreds and hundreds of emails and calls went to the Senate.
Yeah, and you're right, Danielle, this would have made the commissioner of insurance aposition appointed by the governor.
Why the commissioner of insurance, by the way?
Did they just like put a bunch of offices in a hat and they just pulled out thecommissioner of insurance?

(01:09:36):
Why not any other position?
Why not the secretary of state?
Why the commissioner of insurance?
But the point is we don't believe that any of those positions should be appointed.
They should all be subject to statewide vote.
And fortunately, 214 died on the vine in the Senate.
uh Never, never got called, right?
Correct.

(01:09:56):
All right.
Well, let's move on to an adjacent topic, I guess, uh matters that would involve theConstitution.
The first one is House Bill 471 by Representative Cathy Edmonston.
ah This was a proposed constitutional amendment that would have changed the process foramending the Constitution.

(01:10:19):
She drafted this bill in response to the out
over the treachery of March 29th proposed constitutional amendment that we so vigorouslyand strongly and loudly and continually opposed that would have been proposed
constitutional amendment number two, which failed miserably and was a huge embarrassmentto both the legislature and the governor.

(01:10:40):
uh Her bill, Chris, would have made it so that there was just a single object brought fora vote, right?
Exactly.
And you're exactly right, Danielle.
This was brought on the heels of the debacle of constitutional amendment two that failedso miserably.
65, 66 % of Louisiana citizens voted against it because nobody knew what it said.

(01:11:05):
Nobody had any clue what was actually in the bill.
There were multiple issues on the ballot, most of which were either misleading in terms ofwhat they represented or just downright false.
And people were angry and misinformed about that.
And this constitutional amendment by Representative Edmonston would have required that anyconstitutional amendment presented to the people focus only on one object, on one issue.

(01:11:34):
And if you want to do another constitutional amendment later, do it.
But you can't have multiple objects, multiple unrelated issues on the same ballot.
trying to amend uh multiple constitutional provisions.
She just can't do it.
Kathy Edmonston, we talked to her about this and she ended up pulling the bill back,Danielle, because she said after speaking to Julie Emerson and a lot of other legislators,

(01:11:59):
I don't think we're going to have any problem in the future about this occurring again.
And if it looks like it may, then I'll bring the bill back again.
But it looks like they've been beaten back so bad, maybe we don't need the bill.
And I said, well, you I understand, you know, your thoughts on it.
It'd be nice to bring it anyway and get it, you know, get it passed.

(01:12:20):
you know, she, Kathy Edmondson is of the opinion that we're not going to have this kind ofcalamity occur again in the state.
So, but I think she needs to bring it next year.
I think she does too and I'll ask her about it tonight.
This is just a short commercial, but tonight there will be a meeting uh like a legislativereadout with Representative Kathy Edmonston, Representative Beryl Omade, Senator Mike

(01:12:46):
Facey and Chris will all be on the panel and I'll be moderating that panel.
It's a We the People, Buy You Community.
If you are interested in attending,
You can do that by going to WTP by you dot org.
Look at our events calendar.
You'll see it right there.
You can reserve a seat.
They have the time and location information there, but it's at six thirty tonight in Homa.

(01:13:09):
So anyone who's interested in joining us come and you can have your questions asked andanswered ah just in person this evening.
It'll be a great meeting.
Yeah, it should be on Facebook Live as well.
Yeah.
All right.
House Bill 586 by Representative Dixon McMaken.

(01:13:30):
He tried to bring back, resurrect that constitutional convention bill and it didn't reallymove very far.
He didn't move the bill until the last two weeks of session.
I think maybe that was a Hail Mary attempt.
It got voted out of House and Governmental Affairs, but it didn't make it past that.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, Danielle, you and I have talked about the issue regarding the ConstitutionalConvention.

(01:13:54):
uh If we know that the citizens are going to have primary control over the process, we'rea government of bind for the people.
If we understand how these delegates are going to be chosen uh and what the actualobjective of the convention is or objectives are, then I would all...
be all for a constitutional convention as a matter of principle.

(01:14:17):
I think it would be a good thing because as you've said, there are a lot of things thatneed to be purged from our constitution that don't belong there.
And there are lot of things ah that, a number of things that should be further solidifiedin the constitution that go to our fundamental freedoms and rights.
So yeah, but as long, until we know what that process is going to be, I would much rather,and I feel much safer with them simply

(01:14:42):
submitting amendment by amendment through the legislature to go to the people that theycan make a vote on if that's how we have to do it.
Yeah, and I'll go a step further than that, Chris.
I agree with you in principle, but I will be extremely opposed, passionately opposed, uhincessantly and continually opposed to a constitutional convention until I am convinced

(01:15:08):
that our elections are corrected, until our elections are fixed and we know that thelegislators who are there are there with our best interests at heart.
that the delegates who are there have to listen to us and that the voice of the people atthe end of the day when the new constitution is submitted to the people for a vote, that
we can trust the outcome of that vote.

(01:15:31):
If and until that happens, I will oppose a constitutional convention at every single turn.
Yeah, until you're convinced that our electoral process actually uh results in realaccountability when people vote and is a true and accurate reflection of the collective

(01:15:58):
will of a majority of voters.
And until that occurs and you're convinced of that,
then you're going to be opposed to any kind of constitutional convention.
very strongly opposed.
Immovably opposed.
Immovably opposed.
Well, I know when Danielle Walker doesn't want to be moved, believe me, you ain't going tobe moved.

(01:16:20):
That's right.
You might have to pick me up and move me, but I'm not going to move of my own free will.
All right.
Okay.
Next up topic of ethics and transparency, which our legislature sometimes appears to havesome difficulty with House Bill 81 by representative Doty Horton.
This would have provided criminal liability for violations of open meeting laws.

(01:16:43):
And Chris, I believe I'm going to have to scratch back to uh the archive of my memoryhere.
But right before the legislative session happened, there was a meeting that was viewed asit was a Doge meeting viewed as having been closed ah when it should have been in the view
of many citizens open to the public for scrutiny.

(01:17:07):
was not.
I believe, I mean, I don't know this for certain.
could have been a mere coincidence.
I don't believe in that many coincidences, uh perhaps Representative Horton brought thisin response to the public outcry about that closed meeting, but it didn't make it very
far.
She withdrew it before there was a hearing for it in committee.

(01:17:30):
Yeah, I suspect that the bill did have something to do with that uh rather secretive Dogemeeting that occurred because there was some significant outcry over that.
That was at a time when Louisiana citizens were actually at least marginally hopeful thatDoge would accomplish some meaningful things.
Governor Landry had just announced to the head of it, the czar, he had announced who uhthe legislative members would be, and people were pretty hopeful, I think, at that time

(01:17:57):
that there would be some significant progress made.
And so whenever they had that meeting and it was closed to the public, people were veryupset about it.
And I think Dodie Horton was motivated, at least in part, to bring this bill as a resultof that fiasco.
Now, of course, Danielle, not directly related to Representative Horton's bill.
We know now that the whole Doge effort was either a colossal exercise in incompetence orjust a deliberate ruse.

(01:18:26):
I'm not sure which one.
because, but one thing we do know is that there has been no progress made with regard toDoge.
When's the last time you read about it in the paper?
When's the last time you got any kind of report about Louisiana Doge?
I have been seeing there is a Louisiana Doge X page and I have been seeing some littleupdates here and there on that.

(01:18:47):
So you need to follow them.
Yeah, I don't know that it's uh the most meaningful things.
I don't know that it's going to pay for the things that we should have and not, you know,and cut out the things that we shouldn't.
But I do believe there seems to be some movement there.
Okay, well then I will certainly give you the benefit of the doubt on that.

(01:19:07):
Do you have any idea if Treasurer Fleming has been included in the process yet?
He did, didn't he, I thought he messaged to say that his office had been outreached to,remember?
Yeah, yeah, let me.
to hear that.
And so look, I'm all for it, then we're behind it, but we need to see some concretemeasurable progress, some results.

(01:19:29):
Yeah, let me see if I can find the uh Louisiana Doge account.
Yeah, Louisiana Department of Government Efficiency.
Yeah, I'll look, I'll share my screen here so y'all can see.
ah All right, let me see.
me know whenever they announce that they are going to invite a comprehensive, multi-levelaudit of every public agency in Louisiana by a third-party forensic auditor unaffiliated

(01:20:00):
with the state of Louisiana.
That would be something that would tell me they mean business.
Yeah, well, I'm not sure how much business they mean, but the last update was ah on June10th.
says Louisiana Doge worked with LDH, LLA to identify additional verifications of LouisianaMedicaid recipient deaths.

(01:20:20):
The findings three to $4 million will be saved by identifying death sooner.
ah They should do the same for elections.
They should do the same for elections.
We're taking action to implement these ongoing checks starting June.
30th.
So yeah, this one and then May 19th was the last one before that.
says, thank you, Governor Landry and Louisiana Department of Health, Secretary BruceGreenstein, Mike Waggisback with LA Legis Auditor and Louisiana OMB for highlighting the

(01:20:53):
great work Louisiana Doge team is doing to save Louisiana's money.
The finding $75 million a year on Medicaid for people who don't live in Louisiana.
Imagine that.
I'll go ahead and say the same thing.
Please go ahead and do the same audits for our voter rolls whenever you're doing that.

(01:21:14):
I mean, come on, ah
% absolutely.
know, uh that's important.
But look, I mean, you've just given me a reason to have uh some additional hope here thatmaybe they will.
But I just don't see how, Danielle, you're going to be able to go forward and really dowhat's necessary without a uh thorough and complete forensic audit of every agency in our

(01:21:44):
state in terms of
how the money's being spent, where it's going.
I'm not talking about the fox guarding the hen house.
I'm not talking about people who work for the agencies.
I'm not talking about self-regulating.
I'm talking about someone like Elon Musk or someone associated with him or someonesimilarly situated to come in here that's got no hat in the ring in this state at all,

(01:22:06):
nothing to gain or lose, and objectively auditing our spending in every state agency inLouisiana.
And I think we have to have it.
Look what they found on the federal level.
You don't think that that sort of thing exists here.
I guarantee it does.
I guarantee it does and I'm not convinced that a meaningful audit or review of ourexpenditures is going to happen until our elections are fixed.

(01:22:31):
That's true.
That's true.
It's like, in the back of your mind, it's like you always seem to have the suspicion, moreso than me because it doesn't occur to me that often.
But in the back of your mind, seems like somewhere in the back of their minds, they thinkthat the elections are rigged in my favor.

(01:22:54):
And no matter what I do, I'm really not going to ultimately have to be held accountablefor it because of
the elections in the way they're structured.
Maybe that's, is that what you're thinking?
I mean, they can't prove me otherwise, you know?
And I'm not saying that every elected official wasn't rightfully elected.
I'm just saying we can't prove that they were.

(01:23:16):
And the burden of proof is not on me.
It's on our government.
Well, that's true.
Absolutely.
100 % true.
In fact, there's plenty of evidence to believe that even if the elections were notexploited through the algorithms, through the manipulation within the computers and all

(01:23:38):
the rest of it, certainly they're vulnerable to that.
That's one thing we can say categorically, that they are vulnerable to it.
say that categorically and we can say ultra categorically that our voter rolls are dirtierthan the dirt that covers the graves of the people that are voting.
Yeah.
Well, she testified in committee a year or two ago that there's admitted that there's 260or 280,000 people on our voter rolls who don't belong there.

(01:24:07):
And we haven't heard anything of it.
Randy Russ thinks that there's five or 600,000 actually on our voter rolls who don'tbelong there.
Where are the updates on removing these people from Louisiana's voter rolls and cleaningthe rolls up?
Where are they?
Well, maybe Representative Willard will bring a bill next year that will force that issue.

(01:24:29):
We'll see.
One can hope.
All right.
Next up on the ethics front House Bill 160 by Representative Kelly Dickerson.
This was a transparency bill.
This was a bill that we attempted that was attempted last year and you can remind me whoit was who brought it last year Chris.
ah But
Owen.

(01:24:49):
It was Chukwala and that's right.
um Talk a little bit about what this bill would have done and some of the uh concerns thatwere uh ultimately resolved or assuaged, but it still didn't make it.
Imagine you're a Louisiana citizen, Danielle, maybe you're a public official, maybe youwork for the government in Louisiana, maybe you're just a regular, ordinary Louisiana

(01:25:12):
citizen who has an advocacy group or a political action committee or whatever.
And you get an ethics complaint alleging serious allegations against you, a certified maleat your house one day.
And you're like, wow, this is something else.
It alarms your family, it upsets your...
equilibrium in your house, it sets you back, you got to go hire a lawyer, it stresses youout, serious allegations.

(01:25:37):
With one caveat, you never get to find out who's bringing the accusation against you.
You never get to find out the identity of the person accusing you.
What country do you think you would be in if you didn't know?
You certainly wouldn't think that you were sitting in a house that you own in the UnitedStates of America, because that's something that is so fundamentally wrong.

(01:25:59):
The reason why right now, when you bring an ethics complaint against somebody with theethics board, the reason why you don't have to disclose your identity at all as an accuser
is because it's a matter of public policy in Louisiana that they don't want the accuser tobe deterred from filing legitimate complaints against powerful people because they get

(01:26:20):
retaliated against.
They get punished for it.
And that was the original reason for making this anonymous.
But
This bill, HB 160, says, look, there's got to be a better way to do this.
So what we're going to do, we're going to make it to where the person who's bringing anaccusation has to disclose to an accused who they are so they can defend the charge, so

(01:26:43):
they can let the ethics board know about the credibility of the person bringing the chargeah and tell them everything that they may need to know that's relevant to the
complainant's credibility.
Hugely important, but...
We're also going to put some very strong whistleblower protections in the bill, verystrong, that prohibit someone who is accused from retaliating against a complainant in any

(01:27:10):
way, or form.
So that was the balance that was struck by Representative Dickerson in her bill.
And it was a good bill that ended up getting into the Senate ah and died on the Senatefloor because it was not
called by Cameron Henry.
And I think that's disgraceful.

(01:27:30):
This is one of the two or three bills that I will live with for a long time.
And I'm never, I'm never going to let this die because as a constitutional conservativewho believes in core rights, basic constitutional rights, I just think it's unfathomable
that a person accused of what is a quasi criminal act, which very close would never duringthe course of a formal investigation get to find out who's accusing them.

(01:27:56):
I think that is wrong.
And as a matter of principle, my position is that if you don't have the guts to put yourname on a complaint that you think is meritorious and that needs to be filed to the ethics
board, then maybe you shouldn't be filing it.
Well, it certainly disrupts the person's life, right?

(01:28:17):
The accused life, because I can guarantee you the newspaper is going to pick it up.
so and so has an ethics investigation.
That has to disrupt your ability to conduct business, right?
I mean, these representatives, for instance, are part-time uh legislators.

(01:28:37):
know, they can't subsist, most of them, on $26,000 a year.
They're not doing this, ah you know, this, I mean, I'm not going to say they're not doingit for the money, but I'll say that this is the money, the salary is certainly not ah
what's going to cover them for the year.
They have to have a job.

(01:28:58):
Many of them have to have jobs if they're not retired or ah something else.
So many of them are business owners.
And wouldn't you, if you started hearing that so and so may be an unethical person,
Maybe you would take your business elsewhere.
Maybe you don't want to be associated with them.
Well, if they can't even defend themselves properly, that's putting them in a uhdefenseless position.

(01:29:25):
Absolutely.
There's no question about it.
It does.
you know, this bill about Representative Dickerson was born out of her own personal,really a heartbreaking experience that she had because she had this exact same thing
happen to her.
And ultimately, she was able to show that it was completely meritless, in part because shewas able to provide information to the ethics board about the credibility of this idiot ah

(01:29:51):
that filed this complaint against her.
And so it was just, so that was the reason why the bill was brought.
I want to remind the listeners, Danielle, and I know that don't get mad at me for doingthis, but you're going to say it anyway.
this is yet another reason why I believe Senator Greg Miller has to go.

(01:30:12):
Senator Greg Miller should no longer be serving in the state Senate in Louisiana.
And this is one of the reasons because he was the one of the ones who voted against thisbill.
in the Senate committee.
He and Mike Reese, if I'm not mistaken.
And his whole basis was this will have a chilling effect on people bringing ethicscomplaints.

(01:30:34):
That was it.
And so, sorry, but Senator Miller, I'm not going to be forgetting about this vote.
No, Comrade Miller continues his shenanigans.
I'll mention also, Chris, it passed the House 88 to 7.
The only Republican voting against it was my representative, Jessica Domaine, who I'vealso started calling Jessica Eminent Domaine because of her votes in favor of industry

(01:31:00):
over constituents' property rights.
ah Paula Davis, Stephanie Hilferty, Polly Thomas, and Mark Wright were all convenientlyabsent for this vote.
Yeah, but the only no vote was eminent domain.
Correct.
And she voted for, she voted against it in committee last year, right, Chris, when youtestified in favor of it.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:31:21):
And recall that we had an exchange with her and the reason why she said she was votingagainst it in committee was because she didn't like me.
Is that the kind of statesman that you want serving on a powerful committee in the statelegislature who's going to base her decisions on how she votes on a critical piece of

(01:31:45):
legislation, on whether she likes somebody who's advocating for it or not?
I mean, to me, I was like, are you really saying this?
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
oh
said, by the way, she has not crossed me one single time this session anywhere.
And I've been in front of committee she's been on multiple times.
So ah I think she understands that she's not gonna be crossing swords with us.

(01:32:12):
She's gonna vote the wrong way, of course.
will vote the wrong way you can count on that.
Okay, House Bill 216 by Representative Steven Jackson.
This bill did have a little bit of contention around it.
This was to broadcast and record all meetings of the Board of Ethics.
I guess there were some fair objections about privacy for certain matters that would bediscussed, but it passed the House 87 to 13 and the Senate 34 to 1.

(01:32:43):
Yeah.
And I think that the Republicans who voted against it, in fairness to them, Danielle,there is language in the bill that excludes from public broadcasting and public disclosure
any matters that are handled in executive session by definition and investigations beforethe conclusion about whether to bring formal charges have been reached.

(01:33:07):
both of those things would be exempt from the requirement of broadcasting.
I think there were some Republicans who didn't think that went far enough and they hadsome privacy concerns.
I'm frankly leaning, you and I have supported the bill leaning pretty heavily in favor oftransparency, ah particularly in light of the provisions that do make those exceptions.

(01:33:29):
So I think it's a good bill.
And by the way, Danielle, Representative Jackson, speaking of bills that were bornorganically,
ah This was born out of his own experience with the ethics board.
Jackson has had a very, very uh contentious relationship with the Louisiana ethics boardgoing back years ah and has said publicly some very, very disparaging things about the

(01:33:58):
ethics board because he feels like the way they treated him was not right.
ah And it's a public record.
You can go back and find the articles and so forth.
He has had a very difficult time with the ethics board.
And what did he do?
He just didn't sit there.
He brought a bill that will at least ostensibly bring greater transparency to the ethicsboard.

(01:34:20):
uh good for Representative Jackson.
Yeah, and maybe we can count on him to bring Representative Dickerson's bill next year.
And maybe so, and you know what?
He would be the one to do it, I bet, wouldn't he?
Yeah, awesome.
Well, the last bill to round out our session today is Senate Bill 229 by Senator BlakeMiguez.

(01:34:43):
This is one we haven't talked about this session, but I think given the context of today'sconversation, it is worth mentioning and worth highlighting.
This bill would have provided it would have been called the Louisiana First TransparencyInvesting and Reporting Act of 2025 had it passed.

(01:35:04):
The bill was uh going to require registration of foreign agents at the state level, thereporting of gifts, and would have required the Board of Regents to inspect and audit its
institutions.
It would have prohibited the state or political subdivisions from purchasing, acquiring,leasing, or accepting as a gift or loan any drone or computer hardware from China.

(01:35:29):
This would have gone a long way to protect our state.
This would have gone a long way to protect the funds of our state, the integrity of ourpolitical officials, the integrity of our elections.
Unfortunately, it was voluntarily deferred in the Senate Commerce Committee.
I don't think we've gotten any word from Senator Miguez on how the objections to thatshaped up.

(01:35:52):
I haven't seen anything come across from him yet, Chris.
Not yet.
We have a message out to him about it, and maybe there's an explanation for it, but itcertainly seemed like a clean bill, Danielle, and one that really had some teeth in it.
Yeah, it would have made some sweeping, uh highly ethical changes to the way our state isrun.

(01:36:13):
And next time uh we come on, hopefully we'll have some information about that bill wecould talk about.
Yeah, perfect.
Well, that rounds us out for today.
uh Next week, we have the remaining two wrap up episodes.
ah Let me see what they're about, Chris.

(01:36:35):
already, you know, there's so many bills.
Let me see what's on the docket.
So our next one will be about, we're going to cover the topics of state sovereignty,illegal immigrants, budget reform.
DEI and merit-based hiring and criminal justice.
That will be on Tuesday and then on Thursday we will cover the remainder of uh the topicswhich include health freedom, MAHA, parental rights, abortion, personal liberties, DOTD,

(01:37:09):
insurance rates and tort reform and that should round us out unless we come up withsomething else.
Are you sure that's enough, Danielle?
Are you sure that's enough?
Yeah.
Yeah.
always start out thinking we can do this in two episodes and then at Mushroom.
So we'll have four um and we'll be meeting you back here at 10 o'clock on Tuesday tocontinue this conversation.

(01:37:34):
Yeah, and it's always fun, Danielle, to work with you.
And I just want to encourage our listeners, when you're, when we're going through thesebills and we're naming the names of the Republicans who voted for and against certain
things, keep the name, make sure you know who your Senator is and who your representativeis, and be listening for their names.

(01:37:54):
Because sometimes what they did was good and sometimes it wasn't.
And you need to know so that you can share with your family and your friends.
Look what, you know how he voted or she voted on this and that informs you when you go tothe polls to vote for reelection.
That's a huge part of what we do is spread information so that voters can make an informedchoice when they go vote.

(01:38:16):
ah And that's how the democratic process works.
And that's what we're doing here.
Also, you know, Danielle, you agree?
yeah, I agree.
And apologies for running over you, but I want to pick up on that and just remind thelisteners that if there are any groups in in your area that are interested in drilling
down a little bit more on how your local representatives or senators voted, reach out tous.

(01:38:40):
We'd be happy to come and talk to you.
We we it's so important to get this information out.
This is exactly how Chris and I met because he came to Homa and was telling.
how our local representatives, specifically Tanner McGee at that time, ah how hisself-reporting and his voting was very divergent.
And Chris, you brought the receipts.

(01:39:02):
You brought the receipts on that and that's how this was all born.
So um who knows what might come of bringing us to your local organization, but we'd be sohappy and honored to come and speak with you all.
Absolutely.
I would love to please reach out to us.
I'd love to come talk to your group.
Who knows, Danielle, maybe we could do a maybe we could do a show one evening there.

(01:39:25):
I'd love it if we could periodically go do our do our broadcast, you know, somewhere else.
I think it'd be cool to do it.
Yeah, do it live somewhere else.
But but I also want to encourage people to support, donate to and subscribe to the stateof freedom.
I'm thrilled to death about where we're going and how fast we're getting there.
You know, Danielle, I just put it up yesterday.
ah I didn't get to say it.

(01:39:46):
Maybe I did say it last show, but we were in the latest feed spot.
We're number two now, two in the state of Louisiana political podcasts ahead of peoplewho've been doing this far longer than us.
That's number two.
And so I'm just thrilled to death and encouraged by our increasing scope and reachspreading the voice of liberty in a way on which we will never compromise.

(01:40:11):
So subscribe, share, support the state of freedom and donate.
and also LaCag because we are leveling the playing field in the legislature and we'remaking sure that we hold these these rhinos accountable when they run for reelection.
Hugely important.
And we need your support.
No special interest donations.
We made that decision a long time ago.

(01:40:32):
Only ordinary, regular citizens across the state.
So we love y'all more than you know.
That's right.
All right.
Well, God bless you, Chris.
Thank you for all of your work digging into these bills and holding these officials tocount ah in the legislature and out.
And we will be talking to you all on Tuesday.

(01:40:54):
God bless.

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