Doug Mouton / Eyewitness News
BATON ROUGE - Lawmakers are trying to come up with enough votes to override Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to scrap their cigarette tax extension.
Jindal said he considered the four-cent extension to be a new tax and vetoed the bill.
Overriding is rare. The last time it happened was 18 years ago in 1993, overriding a decision from Gov. Edwin Edwards.
The vote could occur Wednesday but it is not definite.
House Speaker Jim Tucker supports the override and worked the room Tuesday in an attempt to garner support.
The vote is expected to be extremely close in the House.
The question now is which chamber will override first – the House or the Senate.
The bill originally passed overwhelmingly in each. But, an override is about a lot more than the original bill.
“All the sudden the issue is, are you going to override the sitting governor of the state of Louisiana and most of the time the legislature is not going to want to do that,” said Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Covington).
The bill is a renewal of a four-cent tobacco tax that Bogalusa Rep. Harold Ritchie authored.
“It’s not about the tobacco tax anymore. It’s about the governor interjecting himself. You know he has the right to veto it. But, I mean a lot of the folks are scared to override the governor’s veto,” Donahue said.
Only two states have a lower cigarette tax than Louisiana. If the veto holds, cigarettes will get even cheaper here.
“When you raise the price of cigarettes, you reduce smoking,” said Andrew Muhl, of the American Cancer Society, which rallied Tuesday morning in Baton Rouge.
The society wants the veto overridden and they said they have support for higher cigarette taxes across the board.
“We have the support of the public and we have the support of the legislature. The only one who’s on the wrong side of this issue right now is the governor,” said Muhl.
Jindal said that because this tax renewal has a sunset date (a date when it ends) he considers this a new tax and that’s why he vetoed it. Overriding that veto has become one of the session’s biggest fights.
“Right now trying to get a vote against the governor for a tax in an election year is very difficult. It’s really sad cause at the end of the day the Louisiana tax payer is left with another hole to fill if it doesn’t pass,” said Rep Juan LaFonta (D-New Orleans).
Override or not the cigarette tax will be collected this year. But, if the governor’s veto holds and the cigarette tax is lowered, a larger budget hole will be created for next year.
