ABOVE: Gov. John Bel Edwards. Photo via Edwards’ Facebook page.
Louisiana lawmakers failed to override Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto last month of a bill that would have barred trans girls and women from participating on athletic teams or in sporting events designated for girls or women at elementary, secondary and postsecondary schools.
The measure, Senate Bill 156 was authored by Sen. Beth Mizell titled the the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.” In the governor’s eyes, it “was a solution in search of a problem that simply does not exist in Louisiana.”
“As I have said repeatedly when asked about this bill, discrimination is not a Louisiana value, and this bill was a solution in search of a problem that simply does not exist in Louisiana,” the Democrat continued. “Even the author of the bill acknowledged throughout the legislative session that there wasn’t a single case where this was an issue.
The Republican majority state House chamber failed to override the governor’s veto after voting 68-30 to override it, according to the state legislature’s website.
The vote narrowly missed the 70-vote threshold needed in the lower chamber to override the veto.
Two-thirds of both the House and Senate must vote to override a governor’s veto, according to the local Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate.
The governor reacted to the news that his veto withstood Republican efforts to overturn it in a press conference.
Edwards noted that in his view he had “rejected a play” that had no place in Louisiana.
“I would rather the headlines going out from today be that Louisiana did what was right and best. We rejected a play out of a national playbook that just had no place in Louisiana. That bill wasn’t crafted for our state, I mean go read it and look at the arguments that were made. None of that applies here,” Edwards said.
He further said that the bill was “mean” because it targets “the most emotionally fragile children in the state of Louisiana.”
“We have to be better than that,” Edwards said. “We have to be better than that.”
