LEGISLATIVE ACTION - With less than a week to go before Louisiana's Special Session ends, today's legislative action in Baton Rouge could be critical to the special session's success or failure. There was some movement towards progress yesterday as 3 separate bills are up for debate on the House floor today; they include renewing portions of the expiring 1 percent sales tax..ranging from a Third to a Half-Penny. A bill to keep .40 percent of the penny by Rep. Paula Davis (R-Baton Rouge) seems to have gotten the most support from the House Ways and Means Committee... as she explained her rationale for the number.
“It is my belief that .4 is the right number, and it's the right compromise," Davis explains.“I have Republican colleagues that are not happy with this bill, I know that there are Democrats that are not happy with this bill, so maybe this is the right bill."
Davis' bill would set the state sales tax rate at 4.4 percent for seven years and she defended her bill by pointing to the last special session, when efforts to pass a 1/3- and 1/2-percent extension failed. The measure is getting support from some Republicans in the House, including Speaker Taylor Barras (R-New Iberia). But it will take 70 votes to pass, which means Democrats will also need to support it too.
Those Democrats may include members of the Black Legislative Caucus whose members voted against Davis' bill in committee. Rep. Randal Gaines (D-LaPlace) is the head of the group, He says they're only willing to consider a half-cent renewal, because anything else is insufficient. "We are not going to support any measure that's not going to adequately fund state government," he said.
None of the three bills headed to the House Floor today are the Edwards administration-backed half-cent proposal and despite movement on the bills, nothing is certain in the conservative GOP-controlled House that has repeatedly rejected attempts to leverage sales taxes to address the fiscal cliff the state faces when more than $1 billion in temporary tax measures expire at the end of the month.
