By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief
We’ve reached the midpoint of the legislative session, with so many proposals still hanging in the balance.
People shop for groceries at a Walmart store in Ohio. New research suggests SNAP work requirements won’t enhance employment and will push more people off of food assistance. (Marty Schladen/OCJ)
By Kevin Hardy
As states enact stricter work requirements for the federal food stamp program, a new analysis suggests those requirements won’t enhance employment and will push more people off of food assistance. The researchers conducted a review of studies on work requirements and concluded that “the best evidence shows they do not increase employment. Moreover, this research finds work requirements cause a large decrease in participation in SNAP.”
A Pearl River map turtle sits on a beach along the Bogue Chitto River at Walker’s Bridge Water Park in southern Mississippi in September 2024. (Elise Plunk/LAI)
By Elise Plunk
A little-known turtle found only in Louisiana and Mississippi now has a slow but steady proposed plan from the federal government to save its species. The Pearl River map turtle, named for the intricate, map-like details on its blue and yellow skin, earned Endangered Species Act protection in 2024 after 14 years of efforts to protect the species from habitat loss, poaching and controversial flood control projects.
The Louisiana House of Representatives, photographed Feb. 2, 2022. (Greg LaRose/LAI)
By Greg LaRose
It remains to be seen whether Louisiana lawmakers this year will call for a constitutional convention, but some of the parameters for what the process would look like are advancing in the legislature. A proposal that has advanced to the House floor would determine how delegates for the convention would be chosen, and it sets the bar for voter approval of a revised state charter.
By Garrett Hazelwood, Floodlight
A dozen federal judges have presided over some of the most consequential environmental lawsuits in Louisiana history despite having investments in or business connections to the petrochemical companies being sued, an investigation by Floodlight, WWNO/WRKF and Type Investigations has found.
COMMENTARY
By Andrea Hagan
State leaders continue to run the same play and expect a different result. Our head coach’s playbook reeks of insanity. If this were a sports team, we would fire the coach and their whole staff. But we’re not playing football, basketball or baseball. This is people’s lives we are talking about.
D.C. DIGEST
NEWS FROM THE STATES
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