Legislative Branch

Rules and Powers

Each house guages the qualifications and elections of its members; it determines its rules of procedure, (but they may not be inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution). Each house may punish its members for disorderly conduct or contempt. It may also expel a member with concurrence of two-thirds of its elected members, requiring a new election for the vacant seat.

Subpoena Power; Contempt

Each house may compel the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production. They may also order the production of written materials, commonly used for debating bills before the legislature, before any committee thereof, or before joint committees of the houses and may punish those in willful disobedience of its orders for contempt.

Officers

Each house chooses its own officers: President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives. The legislature also chooses clerical officers, the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate, each of whom may administer oaths.

Privileges and Immunities

A member of the legislature has immunity from arrest, except for felony charges, during his attendance at sessions and committee meetings of his house and while going to and from them. Legislative members cannot be held for questioning based on their speech in the legislature.

Conflicts of Interest

Legislative office is a public trust, and every effort to realize personal gain through official conduct is a violation of that trust. The legislature has a code of ethics prohibiting conflict between public duty and private interests.

House Chamber, State Capitol, Baton Rouge House Chamber, State Capitol

Senate Chamber, State Capitol, Baton Rouge Senate Chamber, State Capitol

Passage of Bills

The legislature enacts laws only by introducing them in a legislative session for debate and passage by vote. They propose constitutional amendments by a joint resolution introduced during a legislative session. Constitutional ammendments are processed through the houses similar to a bill. Action on any proposed law is taken only in an open, public meeting.

Three Readings

Each bill must be read at least by title on three separate days in each house. No bill can be considered for final passage unless a committee has held a public hearing and reported back to the legislature on the bill.

Amendments

Bills cannot be ammended so much that the original concept behind the bill is changed. Ammendments are voted upon and require a simple majority vote. Once an ammendment to a bill is added in one house and it is passed on to the other, the particular ammendment may not be voted upon or debated in the other house.

Majority Vote; Record Vote

A simple majority of the members elected to each house of the legislature successfully passes a bill from the legislature onto the desk of the governor. A vote can also be taken on any other matter within the legislature upon the request of one-fifth of the elected members of one house.

Reconsideration of Rejected Bills

No bill rejected by the legislature in a particular session may be re-introduced during the same session without the a majority vote of the members elected to that house which previously voted against it.

Local and Special Laws

Local or special laws (those outside the normal practice of the legislature) must be posted publicly for at least thirty days prior to introduction of the bill.

The legislature is generally not allowed to pass local or special laws in these cases:

1. Legislating the conduct of elections, including polling places.
2. Changing the names of persons; authorizing changes in the legal status of individuals or personal property.
3. Concerning any civil or criminal actions, including changing the venue in civil or criminal cases, or regulating the practice or jurisdiction of any court, or providing or changing methods for the collection of debt.
4. Authorizing roadway construction, except for the erection of bridges crossing streams which form boundaries between this and any other state.
5. Exempting property from taxation or penalties, including interference with the tax assessor's duties.
6. Regulating labor, trade, manufacturing, or agriculture; fixing the rate of interest.
7. Creating, ammending, or granting special privledge to private corporations.
8. Regulating or funding the management or construction of parish and city public schools.
9. Legalizing unauthorized or invalid acts of any officer, employee, or agent of the state, its agencies, or political subdivisions.
10. Defining any crime.
11. Indirectly enacting special or local laws by partial repeal or suspension of a general law.
    

Effective Date of Laws

All laws enacted during a regular session of the legislature take effect on August fifteenth of the year in which the regular session is held. All laws enacted during an extraordinary session of the legislature take effect on the sixtieth day after final adjournment of the extraordinary session in which they were enacted. All laws are published prior to passage in the official journal of the state. However, any bill may specify an earlier or later effective date.

Suspension of Laws

Only the legislature may suspend a law, and then only by at least the same majority vote it was passed with. Except for gubernatorial veto and time limitations for introduction, laws must be suspended according to the same procedures and formalities required for enactment of that law. Every resolution suspending a law specifies the period of suspension, which cannot extend beyond the sixtieth day after final adjournment of the next year's regular session.