BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana lawmakers successfully squashed one of Governor John Bel Edwards’ vetoes during their override session. But despite having a Republican supermajority in both house and senate, they did not have the votes to override two other LGBTQ bills.
We’ve got more from the special session… in your breakdown.
The veto override session started and finished in one day.
Lawmakers could choose to bring up and potentially override any of the governor’s 25 vetoes from this legislative session.
But the major attention was on these three controversial bills affecting the LGBTQ community:
House Bill 466 would have banned any conversations on sexual orientation or gender identity in K-through-12 schools. A veto override failed and the bill is dead.
House Bill 81 would have limited names and pronouns used by teachers in school. There also were not enough votes to override this bill and it is dead.
But there was a successful override of the governor’s veto on House Bill 648, which means there will be a ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids in Louisiana.
Other states have passed similar bills, and they’ve faced lawsuits and court orders.
Governor John Bel Edwards released a long statement in response to the override, saying he expects the courts will throw out “this unconstitutional bill.”
The gender-affirming care bill was the only successful veto override of this session, which was finished in just about five hours.
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin was hoping for an override of HB 646, regarding the canvass of registered voters, but lawmakers failed to override the governor’s veto of that bill.
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