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I hope that everyone has been well and has stayed healthy. As always, please feel free to reach out with comments or questions.  This email has a lot of information on the current redistricting session - I hope that it is informative.

If you want to catch up on what happened at the end of last year, all email updates can be found here.

Keep your eyes out for information for either a zoom or perhaps an in-person meeting in New Orleans soon about how to propose legislation, become an advocate, and engage in the legislative process, sponsored by me. More to come.

Mandie

The Louisiana Legislature began our once a decade redistricting session on February 1, and is set to finish by February 20. After the census every ten years, state and local governments redraw various political districts in order to account for any changes in the amount of people who live in these districts. New districts must also abide by federal requirements, as well as any local ones. Our legislature is redrawing lines this year for the following: (1) Louisiana's 6 congressional seats, (2) our state House, (3) our state Senate, (4) the state Public Service Commission, (5) the state BESE board, and (6) possibly, the Louisiana Supreme Court (we are not required by law to redraw the supreme court districts but we might).  

The legislature has a great website if you want more information on the redistricting process. If you want, for example, to see what the current House districts look like, you can click here. If you want to view a meeting or the House floor debating live, click here for the links. The legislature also has a great broadcast archive of meetings and floor debate going back many years. As always if you want to find a bill, you can look them up by author, text, committee, etc. I made a short video of how to do this.

There has been a lot of media attention in the past week on the process, mostly on the possibility that 2 of Louisiana's 6 Congressional districts - versus the current one - may be redrawn as majority minority or minority opportunity districts, as about one third of the residents of our state are Black. The New Orleans area senate seats are also causing some conflict. 

Late Friday, a proposed state House map was also filed by the Speaker. The proposed map for Orleans is included here - our delegation was involved in this process and all gave input. You will notice that Orleans Parish will gain one house seat (listed as "23") due to population increase, which slightly shrinks the rest of our districts. I think that the new boundaries for all of the districts, including 91, are appropriate. The House & Governmental Affairs Committee will hear testimony on this and other proposed maps this week, and the House may vote on these maps by the end of the week or early next week.

Follow #lalege on twitter for daily updates on the redistricting process. I was also on WWL radio last week with Tommy Tucker to discuss redistricting - listen in here.

Our "regular" legislative session begins March 14 and goes through June 6, 2022. If you are an advocate: now is the time to contact legislators with your bill ideas! I am working on quite a few ideas with advocates, and hope to have everything filed by early March. 

As you know, I have filed bills on:

We will also unfortunately again have to address bills related to CRT and anti-vax legislation this session.

If you would like for me to update neighbors on the legislature at your next neighborhood meeting, please send an email to [email protected].

The Broadmoor Improvement Association is hiring an executive director. We helped them with a community painting project on MLK Day.

The Louisiana Budget Project has recently updated their informative district fact sheets - here is the link for District 91. Our district of almost 51,815 residents is incredibly diverse in many ways: district 91 has a 30% overall poverty rate, yet 63% of people have at least some college or a university degree. 17,870 are on Medicaid, including 6,000 who benefit from Louisiana's Medicaid expansion. About 38% of Louisiana residents receive health care from Medicaid/CHIP.

The Orleans Parish School Board is seeking public input for their next superintendent. If you'd like to take part, there will be two virtual community sessions on February 9.

I wrote an op-ed recently with a fellow legislator from Texas in Facing South regarding reproductive challenges in our two states. One thing I am working on now is: what do we need to do in Louisiana to prepare for the possibility that Roe may be soon overturned? This is CRITICAL and I welcome your thoughts.

Former Judge Arthur Hunter has some viable ideas to address the recent extreme increase in crime in New Orleans.

Flood insurance rates are about to rise for many in Louisiana. We are hoping that our Congressional delegation can help address this at the federal level.

Louisiana has an ambitious climate change plan - which we hope to see happen (and funded). As a member of the Natural Resources Committee, I hope to work on this in the next couple of years.

Trafficking is a serious crime, but we should make sure that we do not sensationalize or exaggerate it, as that hurts victims even further.

The news link on my website is updated as articles post, and of course I post to Instagram and Twitter regularly.

The best glitter and beads and king cake to you and your family,

Rep. Mandie Landry

Louisiana House

District 91 - New Orleans