Louisiana

Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers. Governor Jeff Landry signed the nation’s first classroom Ten Commandments mandate and backed the cancellation of the state’s largest coastal restoration project. He is also pushing a voucher expansion that his own Senate president wants scrapped.

The 2026 legislature faces a $113 million revenue shortfall. Teachers are getting pay cuts. Prison guards are getting raises. And 700,000 people on Medicaid are watching Congress decide whether to keep covering them.

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Redistricting

The Supreme Court case that narrowed the Voting Rights Act started here. On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s second Black-majority congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The ruling requires plaintiffs to prove intentional discrimination. Justice Kagan wrote in dissent that the decision “renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”

Louisiana lost the district a federal court had ordered drawn. Tennessee eliminated its only Black-majority district within 8 days of the ruling. Alabama’s map was vacated during active elections. Georgia called a special session.

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Criminal Justice

Governor Landry reversed bipartisan criminal justice reforms in a 2024 special session. He eliminated parole for anyone convicted after August 1, 2024, and required prisoners to serve 85% of their sentences before any good-behavior reduction.

The reforms he reversed had cut the nonviolent prison population by 55% and the overall population by 26% between 2017 and 2021. His proposed $798 million corrections budget for FY2026 represents a 9% increase. The legislature passed the bills in less than two weeks without typical cost debates.

85% minimum sentence that must be served under Landry’s new rules, up from 35%, effectively eliminating early release

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Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Classroom Law

HB 71 requires every Louisiana public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments on a poster at least 11x14 inches. Governor Landry signed it in 2024. Nine multifaith families sued.

The Fifth Circuit heard the case en banc in January 2026. On February 20, the court vacated the preliminary injunction on ripeness grounds. The ruling did not declare HB 71 constitutional. It said the challenge was premature because the law hadn’t been implemented yet.

In a February 26, 2026 letter, Landry told educators: “Schools shall now proceed with placing the posters in classrooms."

In January 2026, Landry said outside the courthouse, “You either read the Ten Commandments or your child is going to learn the criminal code.” Alanah Odoms of the ACLU of Louisiana called that remark “absurd” and “insulting.” Future lawsuits remain possible now that displays are going up and plaintiffs can show actual harm.

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Teacher Pay and Corrections Pay in the Budget

Constitutional Amendment 3 would have raised teacher pay by $2,250 and support worker pay by $1,125 in 2026-27. It failed by a wide margin on the May 16 ballot.

For the past three school years, the state paid $2,000 stipends to teachers and $1,000 to support workers, about $200 million a year. The budget lawmakers passed for 2026-27 left that money out. The Senate Finance Committee’s May 21 version of the budget added $18.6 million for prison guard raises.

Caroline Roemer of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools said, “The more we invest on the front end in people, then maybe we won’t need as much on the back end” for the prison system. Larry Carter of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers pointed to the $2.4 billion Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund as a way to extend stipends for another year. Lawmakers did not use it. The stipends came out of school funding instead.

On June 2, Governor Landry ordered $168 million moved out of the Minimum Foundation Program, the state’s K-12 funding formula, to pay the stipends again. The shift needed two-thirds of each chamber. The Senate approved it 37-1, and the House gave it 76 votes, six more than it needed. The money comes from what districts use for costs such as insurance and building maintenance. Under state school board rules adopted July 23, a district that gives its own raise can count it against the stipend and take a smaller cut.

The $168 million is $32 million less than past years, so fewer jobs qualify. About 12,200 positions that got a stipend last year do not qualify this year, according to the Louisiana Department of Education. They include almost 3,600 principals and other school administrators, about 5,550 therapists, counselors and other specialists, and more than 900 school nurses.

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Who Uses the GATOR Voucher Program

LA GATOR (Giving All True Opportunity to Rise) is Louisiana’s education savings account program. Year 1 funding: $43.5 million. Average per-student stipend: roughly $10,000.

75% of the 39,189 applicants were already attending private school

About 90% of GATOR participants previously received state vouchers through the older Louisiana Scholarship Program. Only about 700 families were new to the program. The state funded 5,600 students out of 35,000 eligible applicants.

Landry proposed doubling GATOR funding to $88 million. Senate President Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) blocked it. Henry told The Center Square, in a story the American Press republished: “I think GATOR as a whole just needs to be scrapped and you need to come up with a different system to help these kids out.” The Senate Finance Committee pulled expansion funding on May 8 after the Revenue Estimating Conference cut the general fund forecast by $104 million.

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Act 399 and Penalties for Interfering With Immigration Enforcement

SB 15 (now Act 399) creates state criminal penalties for interfering with federal immigration enforcement. Penalties range from six months in jail and a $1,000 fine up to 10 years in prison for public officials. Louisiana is the first state in the country to pass a law like this.

The ACLU sued on December 3, 2025, arguing the law criminalizes protected speech, including legal rights education. ISLA, a New Orleans-based organization, is the lead plaintiff. They stopped offering Know Your Rights workshops because of the law.

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The Canceled Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion

Louisiana has lost roughly 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s. That is an area the size of Delaware. At peak rates, the state loses a football field of coastal wetland every 34 minutes.

$3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, canceled by the state on July 17, 2025

The project was the centerpiece of Louisiana’s coastal restoration plan, funded by BP’s Deepwater Horizon settlement. The state coastal authority’s chairman, Gordon Dove, paused work in April 2025, and the state canceled it in July. Oyster Task Force chairman Mitch Jurisich credited Landry’s involvement. Landry and former Governor John Bel Edwards traded blame on social media.

The cancellation puts $1.5 billion in unspent federal funds at risk. Louisiana may also have to repay $618 million already spent.

The state’s 50-year, $50 billion coastal master plan depends on funding sources that run out in 2032. The Trump administration is trying to defund the BRIC program, which has provided $4.5 billion nationally for disaster mitigation.

A Plaquemines Parish jury ordered Chevron to pay $745 million in a coastal damage case. AG Liz Murrill says total exposure across 40+ coastal parish lawsuits is “definitely in the multi-billions.”

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700,000 People Are Projected to Lose Medicaid Coverage

Medicaid expansion covers more than 700,000 low-income adults in Louisiana. In 2023, 32% of the state’s population was enrolled. The federal “One Big Beautiful Bill” cuts roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years. Louisiana is among 12 states expected to absorb half of all rural Medicaid spending reductions.

The state cut ties with UnitedHealthcare on December 31, 2025, forcing 344,614 residents to find new Medicaid managed care plans. The Urban Institute estimates up to 132,000 Louisiana adults would lose Medicaid under the new federal work requirements. State officials project a lower number of 21,000. Either number represents people losing healthcare.

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What You Can Do in Louisiana

1. Check your voter registration. Louisiana’s next statewide elections are in 2027. Verify your status now at GeauxVote.com.

2. Know your Medicaid status. If you or someone you know is on Medicaid, check your renewal date and paperwork at healthy.la.gov. Missing a renewal notice is the most common way people lose coverage.

3. Attend your school board meeting. Ten Commandments displays, GATOR voucher impacts, and teacher pay cuts are all decided or implemented at the local level. Your district’s board sets the agenda. Show up.

4. Call your state legislator. The 2026 regular session adjourned June 1, so this is the time to ask for next year’s priorities. The capitol switchboard is 225-342-6945. Ask about teacher pay funding, GATOR accountability, and the coastal master plan timeline.

5. Document what you see. If your child’s school posts the Ten Commandments, if your Medicaid renewal gets denied, if your local organization stops offering immigration legal help, write it down. Dates, names, what happened. That documentation becomes evidence in future legal challenges.