LA Republican who advocated sterilization of the poor loses legislative leadership position

Rep. Ray LaBruzzo (R-Eugenics) has been booted from his position of leadership in the Louisiana state legislature.

LaBruzzo was vice chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee. He ignited a national controversy in September when he proposed paying poor women to have their tubes tied. He also recommended tax incentives to encourage college-educated, higher-income Louisianans to have more children.

"It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist,' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard part is to sit down and think of some solutions."

The Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives, backed by the Jindal administration, sat down and thought of a solution: take away LaBruzzo's leadership role on the committee.

In making the change, House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, said the Legislature "will undertake the enormous and difficult task of reforming health care in Louisiana in the next several months. Some of the comments made by Rep. LaBruzzo recently have impeded his abilities to help lead critical health-care reform and be an effective member of our leadership team."

LaBruzzo did not return a call for comment.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is working with state and federal agencies on a new health care plan that must in part be steered through the Legislature, had been openly critical of LaBruzzo's suggestion.

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Monday's decision was a serious setback to the 38-year-old representative. He had already been branded as a lawmaker with a knack for proposing bills with little chance of becoming law, either because of their controversial nature or because they were proposed without apparent forethought.

Louisiana lawmakers ban non-existent abortion procedure

Striking a defiant blow against reproductive health for women, the Louisiana legislature has outlawed the little-used procedure that anti-choice activists have labeled "partial-birth abortion."

The measure uses the same words to describe the little-used late-term abortion procedure as does a federal law, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld April 18. Like the federal law, the bill does not include an exception to protect a woman’s health, only allowing the procedure in life-threatening situations.

The difference is that Louisiana’s bill would make it a state crime for a doctor to violate the ban, subject to a fine and one to 10 years in prison.

Governor Kathleen Blanco, an anti-abortion Democrat, has not indicated whether she will sign the bill or not. She has the option of allowing it to become law without her signature.

Teacher-Student Sex

Consensual sex between students over the age of 16 and their teachers would become illegal in Louisiana under a law passed by the state legislative committee. It is not illegal under current law.

The House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee approved a substitute bill for Geymann’s House Bill 586 without objection, sending it next to the full House.

[Rep. Brett Geymann] and Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston, combined their two similar bills and weakened the proposed first-offense penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor, with up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

A second offense would be one to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

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The bill defines an educator as a teacher, coach, administrator, paraprofessional, teacher aide or student aide at a public or private high school.

Downs said he would have liked to have included bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodial workers, but there were concerns the bill would receive less support.

“So if I’m a teacher, and I fall in love with a high school student,” Rep. Ernest Wooten, R-Belle Chasse said sarcastically, “then I have to quit and start driving a bus.”

So in addition to being willing, finally, to join the rest of the nation in banning cockfighting, Louisiana is also ready to outlaw sex between school teachers and their teenaged students. Better late than never, I guess.