Republicans on a Senate committee voted Friday to advance a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, after a procedural move allowed the ban to be revived after it was voted down last week.
The four Republicans on the Senate Judiciary A Committee voted unanimously to pass House Bill 648 to the Senate floor following a brief hearing. The panel’s three Democrats – Sens. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, Jay Luneau of Alexandria and Jimmy Harris of New Orleans – refused to attend the meeting, apparently in protest of the move to revive the bill. Fields said the bill got a full hearing and failed, and that it didn’t belong in the Judiciary A Committee.
The vote came after LGBTQ+ advocates got a rare win last week when the Senate Health & Welfare Committee voted 5-4 to kill the legislation, and the Republican chairman who cast the decisive vote, Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, received threats from the bill’s supporters.
The legislation is part of a wave of laws targeting LGBTQ+ people nationally, pushed by Republicans and national groups and boosted by conservative media. Louisiana has been slower than some other Republican-led states to adopt similar bills – Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has fought back against some efforts – but the proponents are finding more success this year.
The bill has not yet become law. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill, then the House will need to agree to an amendment made Friday that pushes back the effective date to Jan. 1, 2024. If that happens, the bill will go to Edwards’ desk, and if he vetoes it, lawmakers could convene a veto session to try to override the veto.
Want stories like this in your inbox? Sign up for the Inside Louisiana Politics newsletter
The bill would ban doctors from giving treatments such as puberty blockers, hormones or surgeries to people younger than 18. Such health care is exceedingly rare in Louisiana; just a few dozen minors received such care annually, according to a Louisiana Department of Health report reviewing Medicaid-enrolled youth. No gender-reassignment surgeries were performed on those included in the study. The federal Medicaid program provides care for about 69% of all minors in the state, state health officials have said.
After the Health & Welfare Committee killed the bill, the Senate voted 26-12 on Thursday to move it to the Judiciary A Committee, where it had an easier path. Senate President Page Cortez said this week that the move made sense because a lot of similar laws have been subject to lawsuits, and the Judiciary A Committee could sort out whether the bill “breaches some sort of law relative to parental rights, or to physician-patient confidentiality.”
The committee hearing didn’t feature such discussion. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, gave a brief synopsis of the civil remedies in the bill, which spelled out how long people had to file suit if a doctor violated the law.
Dozens of supporters and opponents filed cards to support or oppose the bill, but none chose to speak; Committee Chair Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City, said all testimony must be related to the civil action portion of the bill. Within minutes, the committee advanced it without objection. The Republicans approving the bill were Peacock and Sens. Jeremy Stine, R-Lake Charles; Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek; and Robert Mills, R-Minden.
Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates, said many of the advocates didn’t show up out of fear for their safety; she said she has been photographed and recorded by proponents of the bill at the State Capitol. She said the advocates opposing the bill heard the Democrats were sitting out in protest, and decided to join them by not testifying.
“It was a sham,” she said. “It was rigged. We knew what the vote would be.”
Asked about the criticism that the Senate was using procedural moves to revive a bill that was defeated in another committee, Peacock said a large majority of the Senate voted to move the bill to his committee.
“It did have a hearing – an over two-hour hearing – that Chairman Mills had in his committee,” he said. “This committee looked at the legal ramifications of it which this bill did have. Now we’re going to report this bill to the floor and the body can decide what they want to do.”
Leave a Reply