By: Nathaniel Dela-Pena

As I reflect on my work and Louisiana Progress’s work for the 2023 Louisiana legislative session, I believe this session has been grueling and difficult due to the increasing partisanship within the legislature. From unnecessarily vitriolic encounters between the right and left to a concerning fascination in joining the ongoing national culture wars, there are many reasons why one should look to the future with concern. 

However, I am proud to work with a team that has tried to overcome this gloomy political environment. While the bill I have spent time researching, House Bill 620, did not pass out of committee, I am proud that some of our most important bills have made it out of committee and made it to the governor’s desk.

As a fellow, I was responsible for dealing with the research of a potential cannabis tax bill, HB 620. This bill would have set up a tax system in the event the legislature ever legalizes adult-use marijuana in Louisiana. Starting in the fall of 2022, I researched all the states that have legalized recreational cannabis, looking at their taxation rates, taxation structures, which sectors states chose to invest the revenue from their cannabis tax, and the effectiveness of their taxes. And in the spring of 2023, I focused on the campaign aspect of the bill, trying to create talking points and highlighting the reasons we selected our proposed tax rate, tax structure, and division of projected revenue. 

Even though the bill I worked on did not pass, I believe that I have contributed, along with my other fellows and our partners in the advocacy community, to an ever-growing movement based on the fact that cannabis is a popular product that Louisiana can take advantage of through legalization and taxation.

I have now experienced three state legislative sessions. Each of the legislative sessions created a different feeling within all of us, but undoubtedly, the legislative session this year was different from my first two. I felt that the political environment within the Legislature became incredibly heated and vitriolic, imitating the national political environment. We can especially see that in the interactions between legislators. In the earlier weeks of the session, we saw Sen. Stewart Cathey and Sen. Regina Barrow almost get into a physical fight over a seemingly innocuous bill dealing with property tax revenue. Even members of the same party got riled up against one another. On the hectic last day of the session, Speaker Schexnayder was heckled by the conservative wing of the state house Republicans for rushing the passage of the final budget for the year, complaining that not enough time was given to legislators to peruse the bill’s contents.

Sadly, a significant number of legislators desperately pushed national agendas onto the affairs of our state, delving into the playbook of the far-right. Fear of “Others” played a major role in their quixotic attempt to return Louisiana to a nonexistent yet idealized version of our state they seem to have made up in their minds. They appear determined to create a Louisiana without minority communities that fits into their so-called “Christian nationalist” mindset.

It is concerning to see so many legislators tolerate this needless hatred for others and even endorse policies such as banning foreign citizens from countries deemed enemies of the U.S. by the State Department from buying property in Louisiana (Rep. Valarie Hodges’ HB 537). Let us not forget that many of the citizens from these countries fled to us for protection and to build for a better future. It is ridiculous to assume everyone from these countries holds loyalty to their former home, and it is concerningly reminiscent of the unjust government policies towards Japanese Americans during World War II.

While the political environment has grown even dimmer this year, I am even prouder of the accomplishments we have made in the legislature. For example, we have made it easier for people to expunge an arrest for simple marijuana possession from their records (Rep. Boyd’s HB 286), and we helped pass Sen. Royce Duplessis’s bill to automate criminal record expungements and lower the related fees (SB111).

In spite of the gloomy future, I am proud to have worked with the other fellows, the team at Louisiana Progress, and other advocacy organizations to fight for the most underrepresented people in this state. There’s a whole lot more work to be done, and I am excited to see what the folks here at Progress will do for the next legislative session.