Too young to vote, Lucy Kincade helped pass a law

In July 2023, 15-year-old Central Catholic student Lucy Kincade asked the Morgan City Council to form a youth advisory council.
“There are a lot of things that could affect young people, and people don’t realize it,” Kincade said in a recent interview.
Nearly a year after her City Council appearance, and two years shy of voting age, she has now been part of a successful effort to pass a new law. That law tackles one of those issues that affect young people: social media advertising and data collection targeting minors.
The bill, HB 577, was authored by state Rep. Kim Carver, R-Mandeville, and pushed in the Senate by Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington.
The advocacy by Kincade and fellow members of the Louisiana Youth Advisory Council “made my job easy,” Carver said in a phone interview.
Extraordinarily in divisive political times, HB 577 sailed through House and Senate committees and floor passage without a single no vote.
Now Kincade, who wants to follow high school with political science and law degrees, talks about running for office. Carver joked that state Rep. Vincent St. Blanc, who represents St. Mary Parish in the House, had better watch out.
Kincade is the daughter of Steve and Mindy Kincade of Morgan City. Her parents follow politics, she said.
“They’ve never really hidden politics from me,” Kincade said. “I’ve always been interested in politics.”
Last year, she applied to the Senate Civic Education Committee for one of the 31 places on the Louisiana Youth Advisory Council. She was chosen from among 250 applicants and became the council’s vice president.
The council went to work on the social media issue, which touched the members familiar with what have come to be described as the mental health impacts: cyberbullying, anxiety over body image, depression and worse.
“Every single person on that council knew somebody who committed suicide,” Kincade said.
They found an ally in Carver, the father of teenage and pre-teen daughters.
“I said, ‘There is an absolute desire for a bill’ because of people like my wife and me wringing our hands over social media,” Carver said.
The first step was to take on the advertising aimed at people under 18, and the efforts to collect information about them through sites such as TikTok, X, Snapchat and YouTube.
Carver pointed to a study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health estimating that social media platforms derived about $11 billion in advertising targeting people under 18 in 2022 alone.
So the legislators and the young people went to work.
“We were involved every step of the way,” Kincade said. “We were at every meeting.”
Their work included committee testimony that, according to Carver, was dramatic and effective.
Legislators are used to hearing testimony from people like trade association heads, Carver said.
“To have these well-spoken young people come to the table and tell their stories — you could have heard a pin drop.”
On June 18, Gov. Jeff Landry signed HB 577 into law at an event attended by the youth council members.
“These are real issues,” Carver said. “These are definitely issues. And we need their help.”