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The first day of the Legislature’s regular session this past Monday kicked off a with a few reminders that politics never sleep. There were three early morning breakfast fundraisers benefitting seven different lawmakers beginning around 8 a.m., just four hours before the Legislature was to convene its regular session — and before a fundraising ban for legislators took hold for the next 60 days.
When the session finally started, and after the fundraising stopped, citizens who made the trek to the Capitol were greeted with many of the same COVID-19 safeguards they encountered last year. Masks and temperature checks were required for entrance, seating was distanced and groups were limited to 30 people. (If you’re planning to attend the session this year and want a view that’s better than the House and Senate floors, you’re out of luck. The Capitol’s observation deck is still closed.)
The opening of the regular session this week was much quieter than usual. Aside from the smaller crowds, Gov. John Bel Edwards opted to forgo his traditional speech to a joint meeting of the Legislature that typically takes place after lunch. Instead, Edwards gave a dinner-time speech on the football field at Southern University in Baton Rouge, to accommodate social distancing.
The speech sought to offer hope to those still troubled by coronavirus trends. “Like you, I want Mardi Gras parades to roll again. I want festivals to resume,” Edwards said, adding, “But I don’t want post-pandemic Louisiana to look completely like pre-pandemic Louisiana.”
While many Republican lawmakers watched the speech from an evening reception at the headquarters of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and Senate President Page Cortez attended Edwards’ gridiron oration.
Still, the decision to move the governor’s speech outside of the Capitol building underscores the growing divide between the Executive and Legislative branches.
Not to be outdone by Edwards, activists took to the Capitol steps before the session was convened to advocate for a new state Office on Women’s Health. When you want to get the shared attention of lawmakers, nothing does it better than bodies at the Capitol. Such events will probably be rare in the coming weeks. In fact, this session will be a true test for the sway (or lack thereof) of digital engagement.
Together Louisiana, for example, hosted a Zoom event Monday evening that several hundred people were expected to attend online. The group said its goal was to fight “corporate lobbyists and special interests.” You don’t hear that line a lot around the Capitol from engaged citizens and activist groups. Usually politicians and policies are the targets.
As for the session’s policy profile, just follow the money. The $36.6 billion state budget is in good shape in the short term and the Revenue Estimating Conference may even find more money for the state to spend over the next few weeks or so. The governor’s own legislative agenda leads off with budget priorities for education-related pay increases, boosting Go Grants, stabilizing education spending and fully funding senior centers. Should the REC recognize more money for the budget, the governor will also push for increased early childhood education funding and additional education-related pay.
The Legislature must also carve up $3.2 billion in federal stimulus funding, but lawmakers do not have to allocate the total amount in the regular session. They have until 2024 to assign the bucks.
If all of that wasn’t enough, lawmakers will debate income tax rates, sales tax issues, the franchise tax, inventory tax program, the fuel tax, severance taxes and a host of other revenue-enhancing proposals.       
That said, there’s much more to this session than money. Last year’s regular session was a wash due to COVID-19, so the 2021 regular session finds many lawmakers playing catchup while trying to keep up. With nearly 900 bills filed, there’s plenty on the agenda. 
Lawmakers will debate marijuana usage, changing the official state motto, police practices, sexual harassment reporting and non-compete agreements for physicians. They will also be charged with developing the state’s annual construction budget, devising a collection system for a massive oil-related settlement and voting on a bill that would basically allow everyone (minus the usual characters, like felons) to carry a gun.
There are proposals that would lay the groundwork for moving a casino to Slidell and establishing sports betting in Louisiana. Our classrooms, election structure, fishing license fees, water access, criminal justice system, and much, much more will be under the legislative microscope.
Right now this session has a little something for everyone. Let’s hope we can say the same thing when the session ends on June 10..
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.

NEW ORLEANS — A study led by Hui-Yi Lin, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics, and a team of researchers at LSU Health New Orleans Schools of Public Health and Medicine has found that adequate levels of four antioxidants may reduce infection with the strains of the human papillomavirus associated with cervical cancer development, according to an LSU Health news release. Findings are published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Although previous studies have suggested that the onset of HPV-related cancer development may be activated by oxidative stress, the association had not been clearly understood.
This study evaluated associations between 15 antioxidants and vaginal HPV infection status — no, low-risk and oncogenic/high-risk HPV — in 11,070 women aged 18-59 who participated in the 2003-16 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Study results showed that lower levels of serum albumin and four dietary antioxidants — vitamins A, B2, E and folate — were associated with a higher risk of HR-HPV infection. Albumin is the most bountiful circulating protein in plasma, and decreased serum albumin was found to be associated with increased systemic inflammation and impaired immune response. Based on the four dietary antioxidants, the researchers developed a nutritional antioxidant score.
“Our results showed that the women with the lowest quartile of the nutritional antioxidant score had a higher chance of both high-risk and low-risk HPV infection compared with the women with the highest quartile score after adjusting for other factors such as age, race, smoking, alcohol and the number of sexual partners in past 12 months,” notes the paper’s lead author Lin.
Human Papillomavirus is a well-known risk factor for cervical cancer, which is the fourth most common female cancer and contributed to 7.5% of cancer deaths for women worldwide in 2018. Certain HPV strains are more likely to trigger precursor events leading to cancer development.
These strains are called oncogenic or high-risk HPV strains. Almost all cervical cancers are directly linked to previous infection with one or more HR-HPV infections.
“Currently, there is no effective antiviral therapy to clear genital HPV infection,” adds Lin. “It is important to identify modifiable factors, such as antioxidants, associated with oncogenic HPV infection in order to prevent HPV carcinogenesis onset.”
Other members of the research team included Qiufan Fu, and Drs. Yu-Hsiang Kao, Tung-sung Tseng, Krzysztof Reiss, Jennifer E. Cameron, Martin J. Ronis, Navya Nair, and Michael E. Hagensee from LSU Health New Orleans, along with Dr. Joseph Su from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Hsiao-Man Chang from Emory University.
This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
The finding from the study are available at https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiab148/....
—LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans educates Louisiana’s health care professionals. LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine with branch campuses in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, the state’s only School of Dentistry, Louisiana’s only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Graduate Studies. LSU Health New Orleans faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research in a number of areas in a worldwide arena, the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise generates jobs and enormous economic impact.

A Tuesday afternoon downpour left standing water at Morgan City Junior High. A severe storm warning is in effect for St. Mary Parish until 6 p.m. Tuesday. The gauge at Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport near Patterson showed that just less than an inch of rain fell between noon and 3 p.m. East winds of 36 mph with gusts to 39 mph were reported 2-3 p.m.

The Daily Review/Diane Miller Fears

The Franklin Police Department is asking for assistance in locating Michael Morris Jr. '

Morris is wanted for terrorizing and attempted firsr-degree murder concerning a shooting that occurred Jan. 6 at the intersection of Anderson Street and Joseph Street.

If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Michael Morris, Jr., please contact the Franklin Police Department at 337-828-1716.