Louisiana lawmakers won’t call special session, constitutional convention in August

Louisiana lawmakers will not return in August for a constitutional convention or special session. (Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator).

Louisiana lawmakers won’t return to Baton Rouge in August to address tax and budget policy in a special session despite a last-minute push from Gov. Jeff Landry’s revenue secretary to do so, according to a handful of legislators interviewed this week.

Legislative leadership is expected to make a formal statement saying as much Thursday, but House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, told House members Wednesday about the decision not to hold a session.

“Based on my conversations with legislative leaders, there’s not going to be a special session in August,” said Sen. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, chair of the Senate committee that oversees tax policy.

While the August dates are out, lawmakers may still meet for a special session on insurance and tax policy later this year or in early 2025 before their regular session in April starts.

“I wouldn’t rule out something happening later this year,” said James Lee, spokesman for Louisiana Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson, who is leading efforts to overhaul the state’s tax system.  

Legislative leaders also plan to have a series of hearings on budget, taxes and insurance policy over the next few months to educate the public and newer lawmakers on the challenges the state faces, according to lawmakers familiar with the plan.

That approach appears similar to one DeVillier outlined two weeks ago in an interview with the Illuminator. The House speaker did not return phone calls made to his cellphone this week. 

Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, also declined to comment for this report.

“I don’t think having a good tax reform plan is going to happen overnight,” DeVillier said earlier this month.

“If we would come up with a package of bills that the members would like, we would go around the state visiting with different delegations and proposing what those bills are,” DeVillier said in the interview. 

There’s pressure to make sweeping changes to Louisiana’s tax system ahead of an automatic 0.45% state sales tax reduction next July. The tax cut is expected to throw Louisiana’s budget out of balance by hundreds of millions of dollars, and the governor wanted to make state constitutional changes in order to have more options to make up the revenue.

Nelson is also interested in simplifying the tax structure so Louisiana can raise its standing with national groups that rank states based on their tax structure. 

As revenue secretary, Nelson has proposed taxing more items and services that currently receive blanket exemptions in order to lower Louisiana’s tax rate, but not reduce government revenue drastically.

For example, Nelson has suggested that some services — such as landscaping, pet grooming and auto detailing — be subjected to the sales tax, in exchange for a lower rate overall. He has also said online streaming television services, such as Netflix accounts, should also be taxed. 

To what extent Landry backs Nelson’s plan remains unclear. Nelson works for Landry, but a few legislators involved in tax policy said the governor hasn’t personally pushed for Nelson’s proposals and didn’t lobby lawmakers to hold the special session Nelson proposed. 

Landry issued a statement saying he supports tax reform in general, but didn’t tell legislators he backed Nelson’s specific tax policies. 

If the governor was enthusiastic about a special session, Landry could call one himself without buy-in from the Legislature, but there’s also been no indication he intends to do so.

The governor’s office did not respond to questions Wednesday about whether he intended to call the Legislature back to Baton Rouge. 

Last spring, Landry had pushed legislators for a much broader and more ambitious state constitutional convention that was, at one point, expected to happen in August and address a broader set of issues. But the governor wasn’t able to get support in the Senate to go along with his proposal.

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