By almost any measure, Louisiana lawmakers took up some weighty issues during the 2021 legislative session. The fact that they weren’t able to accomplish everything to the degree some had hoped at the outset, doesn’t diminish the fact that there were some major accomplishments this year. Even though this was a “fiscal” session of the […]

The story of Buddy Roemer is the story of many who fight for reform. One of passionately embracing policies to make the state better, but running head first into the obstacles of the political status quo. Though he served just one tumultuous term as governor, he made a real difference for Louisiana. History should remember […]

The governor has outlined his plan for spending the first half of a $3.2 billion windfall that will be coming to the state through the federal American Rescue Plan. Recently, members of the House of Representatives have offered up their ideas, too. No final decisions have been made, but there is one notion that continues […]

The major fiscal story of this “fiscal” session of the Legislature has been tax reform. Those bills got off to a fast start and are still in play. But another potentially big issue that had been on the backburner earlier began to move this week. That one deals with transportation and infrastructure. In the months […]

They call this a fiscal session and that was certainly apparent in the first week of the 2021 legislative session. The Legislature’s two tax-writing committees held five meetings between them and advanced a handful of the major tax reform bills of the session. Bills that CABL is watching closely include: HB 199 by House Speaker […]

The legislative session starts this week and it’s a fiscal session in more ways than one. Not only is it that every-other-year session where the focus is mostly on money matters, but it’s one where lawmakers will try to sort out a plan for spending a windfall of federal covid-relief dollars. The combination of those […]

It’s almost hard to comprehend, but from April of 2020 to today the federal government has earmarked roughly $4.6 billion to K-12 education in Louisiana as a response to the COVID pandemic. That’s a lot of cash. Much of it is going to cover or reimburse real-world expenses directly related to the coronavirus. We don’t […]

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners, PAR, and the Committee of 100, on a full legislative agenda. Prior to the session we are highlighting some of the issues we will be focusing on. This time, we look at state fiscal policies.  In 2019, RESET […]

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners PAR and the Committee of 100 on a full legislative agenda. Prior to the session we are highlighting some of the issues we will be focusing on. Here’s a look at higher education. The good news for higher […]

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners PAR and the Committee of 100 on a full legislative agenda. Prior to the session, we are highlighting some of the issues we will be focusing on. This week we look at K-12 education. There may not be […]

Last week Governor John Bel Edwards unveiled his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. Thanks to another injection of federal dollars, the budget actually shows some growth over the prior year. That amounts to some good news for public education. The increase in revenues the budget envisions is modest – about $186 million in […]

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners PAR and the Committee of 100 on a full legislative agenda. Over the next few weeks, we will highlight some of the issues we will be focusing on, and we begin with early education. There is good news […]

The Tax Foundation, an independent national tax policy organization, recently released a new report on individual income taxes. Its study found that Louisiana’s top income tax rate is higher than what you see in most of the southern and regional states we compete with for jobs. That doesn’t sound encouraging, but as is often the […]

A new publication from the Public Affairs Research Council is one every person interested in Louisiana government should read. Louisiana Constitutional Reform: An Enduring Fiscal Framework takes a comprehensive look under the hood of our constitution and suggests ways to make it better. As the Louisiana Legislature prepares to embark on a legislative session where […]

The Louisiana Department of Education recently released a new roadmap for the future of public education. It includes a list of six major goals, a framework of priorities that reflect the department’s values, and accompanying data that highlight the urgency with which we must work to address Louisiana’s education needs. The summary is only ten […]

This week CABL recognized the achievements of Louisiana Public Broadcasting President & CEO Beth Courtney by presenting her with its fifth annual Robert B. Hamm Award for Distinguished Public Service. The presentation was made virtually at CABL’s  58th Annual Meeting and Conference. The award was inaugurated five years ago in honor of the late CABL […]

The Council for A Better Louisiana (CABL) has elected Tyron Picard of Lafayette to a second term as Chairman of the Board of the organization for 2021. He will lead CABL’s Board of Directors along with a slate of officers from across Louisiana steering the organization in its 59th year of operation. “I am humbled […]

As 2020 draws to a close, we would like to offer our sincere thanks to our members, supporters, sponsors, and friends who make CABL’s work possible. We would particularly like to thank our Champion and Visionary Sponsors who have been tremendous supporters of our mission for a better Louisiana. Despite the impact of COVID-19 on […]

The good news is that the situation doesn’t seem to be serious yet, but the fact is coronavirus cases in Louisiana schools are starting to tick upward in some areas and schools and districts are responding. In most cases the outbreaks are isolated, but it is changing how instruction is being delivered in a number […]

It’s probably more than an irony that the huge voter turnout in Louisiana for last month’s presidential election will likely be followed by a dismal showing at the polls on Saturday. That’s unfortunate because democracy works best when more people participate. The presidential election on November 3 shattered records in Louisiana. Close to a million […]

Early voting for the December 5 runoff election starts tomorrow and continues through November 28. And just when you thought you had voted on all of the constitutional amendments, guess what, there’s one more to take a look at it. Beyond that, there are several notable local and regional runoffs and a big contest to […]

The delivery of education in our schools has changed significantly as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, and the approaches school districts around the state are taking varies in many instances, as well. To help citizens better understand what individual districts are doing CABL has developed a series of school district-level profiles which help reveal […]

Tomorrow is Election Day, and by all accounts Louisiana voters have a strong interest in the outcome. It might seem that interest is more intense this year – and certainly the shattering of early voting records tends to reinforce that idea – but in recent years, voters have consistently turned out in high numbers when […]

There has been much discussion about whether the second special session of the year was needed and, perhaps, even more about what it actually accomplished. That could likely be debated for days. But lawmakers did make some positive steps in several areas, even though much of the session was dominated by a single issue: how […]

In this most unusual of years, let us not forget to do one of our most normal, civic of duties: VOTE.  In Louisiana, early voting for the November 3rd election begins tomorrow, Friday, October 16. It will continue everyday (except Sundays) through October 27. Voters have a full ballot this year: President, U.S. Senator, U.S. […]

This year, besides voting for U.S. president, one U.S. senator, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, various judges and local officials, and the future of sports betting, voters will also have to decide the fate of seven constitutional amendments. While that is nowhere near the record, it is a significant number. Though the amendment […]

Back in 1995, Mike Foster seemed an unlikely candidate making a long-shot bid to lead the state of Louisiana. To most people, he was a big unknown. But he surprised all the “experts” and emerged from a field that included former-governor Buddy Roemer, and future U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, to become a two-term governor who […]

On September 10, Governor John Bel Edwards authorized the state to move into Phase 3 reopening in Louisiana’s continuing response to COVID-19. While that had a significant effect on what many businesses could do in offering services to the public, perhaps nowhere was the impact more profound than in public education. CABL has reviewed school […]

There had been talk of a special session in the fall since early summer, but as recently as a week or so ago, it didn’t seem to be on the immediate horizon. But over the weekend the chatter began picking up and by Monday, the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House had […]

Alumni of CABL’s Leadership Louisiana program are always in the middle of major issues, events, and happenings in Louisiana. That’s true once again in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. It’s unfortunate, but also uplifting. Louisiana happens to be a disaster-prone state, or at least it feels that way to all of us who live here. […]

It seems particularly ironic that just shy of the 15th anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an even more powerful storm named Laura rammed through the southwest Louisiana coast bringing with it hundreds of miles of devastation. It’s a reminder of how vulnerable we are, but it also showcases many of our strengths. The silver […]

As students return to school for both elementary and secondary classes and higher education, we all know the settings will be much different than any time before. The COVID crisis has led to a wide variety of approaches to instruction that are unprecedented, to say the least. One thing most of them will have in […]

It was discouraging to see that Louisiana’s high school graduation rate fell slightly in 2019 compared to the previous year. The drop wasn’t huge – 1.3 percentage points – and our graduation rate remains above 80-percent, which is a milestone Louisiana cracked for only the first time in 2018. But it sends a message that […]

For months we have shown support for the essential workers who have been at the frontline of protecting us or keeping our economy running during the COVID-19 crisis. Whether it’s health care workers, grocery clerks, or those who help transport people and goods, there have been various efforts to show public appreciation to people with […]

On any given day when you open the home page of the Washington Post, readers are greeted with a graphic that should give every citizen in Louisiana pause. It’s a chart that shows the five states with the highest daily reported cases of COVID-19 on a per capita basis. Over the course of the last […]

There is suddenly a lot of discussion going on at the national level about the reopening of schools in the fall. While it’s gotten a good deal of media attention, it may be something of a moot point since those kinds of decisions are typically made at the state or local level. Here in Louisiana, […]

In many ways, this special session was always going to be about two major issues: 1) passing a budget for the new fiscal year, and 2) passing legislation to change civil litigation laws, or “tort reform,” as it’s often called. And throw in some efforts to add, extend, and sweeten various tax credit and incentive […]

This is an extraordinary time. For the last few months people across the state and across the country have been struggling to cope with the spread of the COVID virus. In the midst of that, events from places far from Louisiana have forced us all to confront the issue of racial injustice in ways that […]

Going into the 2020 Legislative Session there were thoughts it would be a fairly significant one for education at all levels. Those hopes were dashed rather quickly with the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Now that the session has ended, it might not have gone totally as expected, but there were some positive outcomes to […]

The COVID-19 crisis has dashed Louisiana’s economy, crippled many businesses, and disrupted the lives of every citizen of our state. It has also had a significant impact on all aspects of education. There are many things education and school leaders are doing to address the issues facing our students in this unprecedented time. CABL has […]

The COVID-19 crisis has dashed Louisiana’s economy, crippled many businesses, and disrupted the lives of every citizen of our state. It has also had a significant impact on all aspects of education. There are many things education and school leaders are doing to address the issues facing our students in this unprecedented time. CABL has […]

The COVID-19 crisis has dashed Louisiana’s economy, crippled many businesses, and disrupted the lives of every citizen of our state. It has also had a significant impact on all aspects of education. There are many things education and school leaders are doing to address the issues facing our students in this unprecedented time. CABL has […]

More than six weeks after the governor ordered school closures across the state in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of education in Louisiana is far from clear. While Governor Edwards emphasized that instruction during the closure should continue, it is virtually impossible to know to what degree that is happening and how much […]

For almost 60 years CABL’s mission has been to focus on issues in the public interest with a single goal in mind: to make Louisiana a better place for all of its citizens. We have been able to do that, only because of the generous support of hundreds of individuals, businesses, and private foundations that […]

“Government watchdogs look to refocus Louisiana’s campaign conversation with RESET proposals.” (The Advocate) “Reform groups prepare to RESET Louisiana’s long-term priorities.” (Gambit) “Tired of being 50th? RESET Louisiana sets path out of cellar.” (USA Today Network) In many ways, the headlines say it all. RESET Louisiana is a nonpartisan election initiative of CABL, the Public […]

On behalf of CABL we would like to thank you for your service to our state. We know that these have been difficult times over the last several years as you have tried to enact budget and fiscal policies to move Louisiana in a positive direction. We appreciate your efforts. Unfortunately, it appears we will […]

This year there are three constitutional amendments on the October 14 ballot. CABL has researched and analyzed the amendments and offers our recommendations to voters. Don’t forget, early voting runs from September 30 – October 7. Amendment # 1 Property Tax Exemption for Construction Materials This amendment provides an exemption from local property taxes for […]

With the 2017 legislative session and all its turmoil behind us, it is fair, yet unfortunate, to say Louisiana missed an opportunity to turn an important corner and move our state forward. For close to a decade Louisiana has been battling a structural budget deficit which has led to three credit downgrades, deep reductions in […]

There was basically only one thing lawmakers really had to do during the 2017 legislative session. They had to pass the budgets that fund the state’s operations and construction projects. There were also some things they really needed to do, such as avoid the coming fiscal cliff, fix our broken tax structure, and begin to […]

The Council for A Better Louisiana has invited five candidates to participate in the upcoming U.S. Senate debate sponsored by CABL and broadcast statewide by Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

The recent floods in south Louisiana have been devastating to tens of thousands of people. Among those hit hard are many thousands of educators and parents of school-age kids.

During this time of crisis in Louisiana, CABL would like to share the following flood recovery documents.

Louisiana Lawmakers opened their marathon series of legislative sessions on Valentine’s Day. Now, approaching the Fourth of July, they have finally gone home.

In 2010 when Louisiana adopted a set of academic standards in English and math no one even noticed. At the time they were called Common Core and developed by a consortium of states, including Louisiana, and no one seemed to care.