Regular session ends June 28; 1,000-plus bills left to consider
by JOHN HILL - The Daily Advertiser (excerpt)

BATON ROUGE - Like college students cramming for finals at the end of the semester, the Louisiana Legislature will be working late evenings against a June 28 constitutional deadline for the regular session.

Anything not enacted by both houses by 6 p.m. that day will be dead.

At the halfway point at the end of May, only five bills had been enacted. After two weeks, some 124 bills, less than one-tenth of the 1,336 bills filed when the Legislature convened April 30, have been sent to the governor.

"If you look at where things stand with the important pieces of legislation, a lot of them have a long way to go," said Barry Erwin, president of the Council for A Better Louisiana.

This year's session is limited mainly to fiscal issues. With $3 billion in accumulated surpluses and increase revenues on the table, a lot of work has been going on - mostly behind the scenes - to decide how to spend the money.

With all the negotiations private, no one yet knows how the money is going to be spent or what taxes are going to be cut,

For example, the senators on the finance panel talked privately for days about amendments. When the Senate Finance Committee convened Friday, the panel was in session for less than a half hour before adopting 546 amendments.