Governor John Bel Edwards effectively dared the Louisiana legislature to override his veto of a constitutional carry bill last month. He probably thought it would hold up, since the legislature had never before come back into session to override a governor’s veto of a bill in the Crawfish and Gumbo State. But the legislature has called his bluff this time.
As the Associated Press is reporting . . .
The session — to open Tuesday and last up to five days — will make history as the first veto session ever held under the Louisiana Constitution enacted in 1974.
The constitution calls for a veto session to be scheduled automatically when a governor jettisons legislation. However, a majority vote of either the House or Senate can scrap the gathering, and lawmakers had canceled every veto session over nearly five decades.
But the Republican-led House and Senate are spurning that tradition this year. Neither chamber’s membership turned in enough ballots by the Thursday midnight deadline to stop this year’s session.
That’s a shame.
What are the odds that Louisiana will become the nation’s 22nd constitutional carry state? Pretty good, judging by the margins by which the bill passed in each house. The constitutional carry bill passed both the House (73-26) and the Senate (27-9) by veto-proof majorities.
However anything can still happen as lots of political pressure will be brought to bear on supporters of permitless carry to change their votes and allow the veto to stand. Watch this space.
