louisiana

July 1, 2016 - This week the U.S. Supreme Court struck down two Texas laws that created significant barriers to women's reproductive freedom. The ruling immediately resulted in similar laws being scrapped in other states including Alabama and Mississippi, and more could fall.

April 29, 2016 - More than two decades ago, Louisiana created a tax exemption for horizontally drilled oil and gas wells that's still in place — and it's costing the cash-strapped state billions in revenues.

April 22, 2016 - A new analysis of state voting laws by the Brennan Center for Justice found that bills to expand access to the ballot box have outpaced those restricting voting for the fourth year in a row.

March 25, 2016 - A week after the Obama administration canceled plans to auction off an oil and gas lease in the Atlantic, an auction of 43 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico was disrupted by hundreds of protesters chanting, "Shut it down!" The winning bids came to just $156 million, the fourth-lowest total since 1983.

March 17, 2016 - As lawmakers across the South try to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities,” Florida organizers offer a model for how to defeat legislation that threatens to undermine local police-immigrant relations.

February 26, 2016 - With millions of Americans disqualified for good-paying jobs because of criminal pasts, a growing number of states and local governments across the South are joining the movement to end the practice of asking about convictions on job applications.

February 25, 2016 - The public defender system in the state with the nation's highest incarceration rate is teetering on the brink of insolvency while people sit in jails without lawyers.

February 9, 2016 - The Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw will use a $48 million grant won in the National Disaster Resilience Competition to relocate away from the rising Gulf of Mexico — and hopes to serve as a model for others facing catastrophic sea-level rise. Other grant winners include Tennessee, Virginia and New Orleans.

January 27, 2016 - As efforts intensify to keep fossil fuel reserves in the ground in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change, anti-drilling activists are planning to protest outside a March auction in New Orleans of more than 42 million acres of U.S. waters from Louisiana to Florida for new oil and gas development.