Policy Advocacy

At Louisiana Progress, we identify real problems, develop effective solutions, and successfully advocate to turn those solutions into systemic change. We focus on issues that disproportionately harm lower income communities, including:

• Clean air, energy & water

• Decriminalizing poverty

• Economic opportunity for formerly incarcerated people

• Good government

• Labor rights

• Marijuana reform

• Reducing predatory debt-collection practices

• Reducing government dependence on fines & fees

• Campaign finance transparency

Our Policy Victories

Since 2021, we have led or co-led campaigns to pass more than 20 bills in the state legislature. Those policy victories, including bill sponsors and key advocacy partners, include:

• House Bill 165 (2024) by Rep. Delisha Boyd

• Remove incarceration as a possible penalty for possession of marijuana paraphernalia

• Partner organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 544 (2024) by Rep. Delisha Boyd

• Require more transparency and accountability at the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA)

• Increase worker and rider voice and power in RTA governance

• Partner organization: Louisiana AFL-CIO

• House Bill 954 (2024) by Rep. Shaun Mena

• Remove the vague, undefined term “moral turpitude” from the list of reasons someone can be denied an occupational license

• Partner organization: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana

• House Bill 89 (2023) by Rep. Denise Marcelle

  • Require the Louisiana State Police to collect and publish traffic stop data 

• House Bill 286 (2023) by Rep. Delisha Boyd

• Make it easier and cheaper for people with first-time convictions for simple marijuana possession to expunge those arrests from their records 

• Partner organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 447 (2023) by Rep. Vincent Pierre 

• Require agencies that refer debt to ODR to provide more data/transparency 

• Partner Organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana 

• House Bill 286 (2023) by Rep. Delisha Boyd

• Make it easier and cheaper for people with first-time convictions for simple marijuana possession to expunge those arrests from their records 

• Partner organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 129 (2022) by Rep. Richard Nelson 

  • Creates a 180-day grace period when someone misses a court date before the Office of Motor Vehicles can suspend their driver’s license, allowing them time to rectify their legal situation without automatically losing driving privileges.

  • Partner organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Louisiana Appleseed

• House Bill 188 (2022) by Rep. Debbie Villio 

  • Requires digital political ads to adhere to the same disclosure and honesty rules as all other types of political ads (radio, TV, newspaper)

• House Bill 629 (2022) by Rep. Marcus Bryant 

  • Bars law enforcement from using marijuana odor as a pretext for searching someone’s home without a warrant. 

  • Partner Organization: Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 639 (2022) by Rep. Thomas Pressly 

  • Allows people with criminal records to ask an occupational licensing board if their record disqualifies them from obtaining a license before they begin their educational and/or licensure process, provides for individual consideration of applicants, and sets up a framework that licensing boards can use to determine if a person’s conviction is related to the profession in which they are seeking a license. 

  • Partner organizations: Right on Crime, Pelican Institute, Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Louisiana Budget Project, Americans for Prosperity–Louisiana

• House Bill 726 (2022) by Rep. Rodney Lyons 

  • Outlaws debt-based incarceration, aka debtors’ prisons, in Louisiana. 

  • Partner organizations: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, Southern Poverty Law Center 

• House Bill 729 (2022) by Rep. Royce Duplessis 

  • Limits when media outlets can publish mugshots and require them to include a disclaimer that people are innocent until proven guilty when they do publish those mugshots. It also gives people who haven’t been convicted of a crime, but whose mugshots have been published by extortive publications that often publish mugshots for sensationalism and ad revenue, the right to request that their mugshot be removed, and provides them with a cause of action to sue if those publications don’t comply with the request. 

  • Partner organization: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana

• House Bill 746 (2022) by Rep. Royce Duplessis 

  • Sets common-sense limits on the amount of time juveniles can be put in solitary confinement while in the custody of Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice.

  • Lead organizations: Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, Voice of the Experienced, Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana 

• House Bill 775 (2022) by Rep. Cedric Glover 

  • Legalizes marijuana paraphernalia for medical marijuana patients. 

  • Partner Organization: Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 988 (2022) by Rep. Mandie Landry 

  • Establishes workplace protections for certain state workers who have medical marijuana recommendations. 

  • Partner Organization: Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 652 (2021) by Rep. Cedric Glover 

  • Decriminalizes simple marijuana possession of 14 grams or less, with a new maximum penalty of $100 and/or a court summons, without the possibility of incarceration.

  • Partner Organization: Marijuana Policy Project

We also played a supporting role in helping to pass the following bills:

• House Bill 683 (2024) by Rep. Chuck Owen

• Reform debt creation and collection practices at the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV)

• Partner organization: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana 

• Senate Bill 111(2023) by Sen Royce Duplessis

  • Reform Louisiana’s criminal record expungement procedures

  • Lead organization: Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana 

• House Bill 568 (2023) by Rep. Tammy Phelps

• Create a 5-day grace period the first time someone’s auto insurance lapses before they are assessed OMV fines 

• Senate Concurrent Resolution 45 (2023) by Sen. Mark Abraham

• Create a committee to study judicial discretion for sentencing people convicted of accessory to 2nd-degree murder (they are currently automatically given life without parole)

• Lead organizations: Louisiana Parole Project, Together Louisiana, The Sentencing Project

• House Bill 137 (2022) by Rep. Joseph Marino 

  • Decriminalizes marijuana possession for out-of-state medical marijuana patients who are visiting Louisiana. 

  • Partner organization: Marijuana Policy Project

• House Bill 248 (2022) by Rep. Matthew Willard 

  • Removes Robert E. Lee Day and Confederate Memorial Day from the list of state holidays.

  • Partner organization: Southern Poverty Law Center

• House Bill 553 (2022) by Rep. Scott McKnight 

  • Reduces barriers people with criminal records face when trying to find work in the medical marijuana industry.