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“It’s so dangerous,” said Rep. Mandie Landry. This past legislative session, she introduced a House bill designed to make it illegal to deceive voters with false impersonations or false depictions of political candidates through deepfakes.

"This is being done for optics," she said. "Even conservatives know that having the death penalty on the books is very expensive, and that it is not a deterrent. This money should be put towards teaching incarcerated people job skills so that they don't return to prison." 

“As someone who grew up on the West Bank when we still had tolls, this thrills the kid in me!” said State Representative Mandie Landry.

The Louisiana state house member Mandie Landry, a New Orleans Democrat, said she believed the clergy abuse scandal-related correspondence between Benson’s sports teams and the church “calls into question other decisions they make as an organization”.

“This is disgusting,” said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. “As a New Orleans resident, taxpayer and Catholic, it doesn’t make any sense to me why the Saints would go to these lengths to protect grown men who raped children. All of them should have been just as horrified at the allegations.”

State Representative Mandie Landry is joined by The Advocate's Mark Ballard to discuss the recent terrorist attack on Bourbon Street.

“This is not a choice”

Representative Mandie Landry wants a state law that would require a more uniform policy that all coroner's offices would have to follow when it comes to notifying families of their loved ones.

State Representative Mandie Landry also joined Jim to talk about the recently completed legislative session. Landry is skeptical the state is in a better business to grow the economy after "moving money around."

For example, if a statewide business court was established, lawsuits such as those brought by local parishes against oil and gas interests could end up in a statewide business court controlled by judges who don’t live where the coastal damage took place, said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. 

“Honestly, this is all being decided by men behind doors, like everything has happened here for a long time. And the rest of us here, little bits of information here and there. It does seem like there’s a huge amount of discord behind the scene and among parties and House and Senate members,” said Rep. Landry.

“I think pretty much everyone thinks this is too much in too little time and too fast and that there could be huge repercussions,” said Democratic Rep. Mandie Landry, who has been one of the most vocal opponents of the tax package.

Voting against were two New Orleans Democrats: Reps. Mandie Landry and Matthew Willard.

“These are new taxes. We are now raising taxes,” Landry said. “We’re just moving things around. I just think this hearing is an example of us not understanding much of what’s going on” 

“These are new taxes. I’m not paying them right now. This is a tax on fixing the window, the fence, all these things. So we’re raising taxes,” said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans.

“Pest control, fixing the A/C, various plumbing, security system, fixing my fence, broken window, grass, had to paint a wall, shingles on the roof. Those are going to be additional expenses in my budget with taxes on them,” Landry explained.

“So we’re supposed to vote on cutting the budget by about a billion dollars a year without roughly knowing now how we’re going to plug it?” Landry questioned.

Rep. Mandie Landry, also a New Orleans Democrat, expressed her concern, implying that this repeal would unfairly favor non-Louisiana corporations at the expense of local-owned businesses.

What makes the cost for you at home hard to figure out is that in the bill there is an exemption for remodeling or ‘capital improvements’; meaning if you had to fix your roof and windows, the remodeling would be tax exempt. However, if you just had to do a simple repair, that would be taxed, leaving the business owner to do the math. This was a big concern today for House Democrat Representative Mandie Landry.

Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, said she doesn’t think people are leaving because of the state’s tax structure.

The Louisiana House Democratic Caucus tweeted out its support for the position of Willard and Rep. Landry, ignoring the yes vote of the other four 

The administration says the overall net effect would generate a small budget surplus, but that view has been contested by two Democrats from New Orleans — Rep. Mandie Landry and Rep. Matthew Willard — and by Jan Moller, director of Invest in Louisiana, a Baton Rouge nonprofit that favors a progressive tax system. They worry that the net effect of the changes would be budget deficits.

Rep. Mandie Landry cautioned, “It’s propaganda to tell people taxes are going down because your income tax may go down but corporate taxes are going down by a lot, and we’re raising taxes in other places to do this.”

"I thought Republicans didn't want to [add new taxes]," Landry remarked, voicing Democratic concerns that the plan could raise costs for consumers without clear benefits.

The proposed changes are a part of House Bill 2, sponsored by Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, which cleared the House Ways & Means Committee on Sunday. It received opposition from New Orleans Reps. Matt Willard and Mandie Landry, both Democrats.

“This is a big ask.  To make such a huge cut without knowing what we’re going to add to it.”

State Rep. Mandie Landry (D-New Orleans) posed the question, “Where is this hole going to be plugged from?”

“The people I know in New Orleans are either going to have to leave, or they’re going to have to go back to the service industry,” said Landry, who is not related to the governor.

“Religion in the classroom seems like it was decided a long time ago,” said Landry. “It’s definitely promoting religion period and promoting Christianity and not everyone, not every kid, subscribed to those religions.”

But State Representative Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, has doubts. “Five regular sessions, this is going to create jobs and this is going to bring people here, and this is going to do this, that and the other, and I haven’t seen it. So how is this different? Have you researched it and not just look at North Carolina, which like I said took a decade. This is a hard sell.”