Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program declined by 2.5 million people in the first six months after the harmful federal megabill was signed last July. That’s according to new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The new law cuts SNAP by $187 billion over the next decade and imposes new, strict work reporting requirements and eligibility checks. CBPP’s team reports that SNAP participation could decline further as states grapple with the new law:
Starting in 2027, most states will have to pay between 5 and 15 percent of SNAP benefit costs, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars a year in many states. And the amount a state will have to pay will be based on current error rates, factoring in errors that states are making today. The magnitude of the cost shift and the urgency surrounding error rates may incentivize states to take drastic measures to reduce their payment error rates quickly and cut program costs, even if it means delaying or improperly denying benefits to eligible people.
Nearly 50,000 Louisianans lost their SNAP benefits between July and December. Many people have lost their food assistance because of paperwork issues, not because they are ineligible.
Legislature rejects Louisiana Voting Rights Act
The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee rejected a bill on Wednesday, along party lines, aimed at enshrining voting rights for all Louisianans regardless of race. Sen. Royce Duplessis’ Louisiana Voting Rights Act was in anticipation of a looming U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case that could eviscerate the federal Voting Rights Act. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Alyse Pfeil reports:
“Every Louisiana voter deserves a fair shot at the ballot box and an equal voice in their government,” [Duplessis] said. … Members of the GOP majority didn’t comment on the bill during the hearing. Afterwards, committee chairman Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, declined to comment on his opposition, except to say that Louisiana is involved in the voting case that’s pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The federal Voting Rights Act is meant to ensure that voting laws and procedures don’t discriminate against Black Americans:
A Supreme Court decision to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could affect the political power of Black and minority voters, said Ashley Shelton, president and CEO of the Power Coalition, a voting-rights advocacy groups backing Duplessis’s bill. “Their ability to elect a candidate of choice is what’s at stake right now,” she said. Shelton said SB365 would have put voting rights into state law and represented a commitment to fair and equitable elections.
Few states study tax gaps
Many states, including Louisiana, are facing budget deficits in upcoming years. States could look to tackle tax gaps – the difference between what is owed in taxes to the government and what is actually paid – to tackle fiscal shortfalls. But as Pew’s Josh Goodman explains, not many states study their own tax gaps:
In 2020 and 2021, Rob Warren, a retired IRS criminal investigation special agent who is now an assistant professor of accounting at Radford University in Virginia, contacted all states with income taxes asking whether they had ever estimated their tax gaps. His findings, published in a January 2025 article in Tax Notes, found that only eight states had done so since 1992. “The problem is that states are ignoring their tax gaps—wholesale ignoring,” Warren said in an interview.
Tackling tax gaps could provide states with needed revenue:
In Connecticut, a 2023 law required the state’s Department of Revenue Services to begin producing tax gap estimates. The first study under the requirement relied on a mix of audit data and other methods to estimate that the state had a nearly $3 billion net tax gap in 2022 on $24.1 billion in tax liability—a gap that is proportionally similar to the federal one. To put that amount into perspective: With that $3 billion, Connecticut could have paid nearly the entire state share of Medicaid benefits—and, in doing so, provided health insurance to more than 1 million residents.
Curbing citizen ballot initiatives
Several Republican-led state legislatures, annoyed with voters who’ve used their power to enact policies like expanding Medicaid and increasing the minimum wage, are moving to curb the use of citizen-led referendums. The New York Times’ Kate Zernike reports:
Twenty-four states give citizens the constitutional right to sponsor initiatives. Last year, legislatures in those states passed 51 bills restricting citizen ballot measures, according to the Fairness Project, which supports progressive initiatives. Between 2018 and 2023 they had passed, on average, 34 restrictive bills a year. This year, with legislatures still in session, the Fairness Project says it is tracking 76 potential restrictions
Some statehouses are subverting the will of voters even after ballot measures are successfully passed:
After 58 percent of Missouri voters approved a law establishing paid sick leave, the Missouri legislature passed its own law repealing it. In Nebraska, the legislature watered down a similar measure that 75 percent of voters had approved. The Missouri legislature has also placed a measure on the ballot in November that asks voters to reverse an initiative they passed in 2024 establishing a right to abortion; South Dakota lawmakers are trying to get voters to reverse a ballot initiative they passed to expand Medicaid.
Louisianans are barred from putting issues directly on the ballot, as constitutional amendments require two-thirds majority votes in the state House and Senate before going to voters. The Legislature has routinely shot down efforts to create a citizen referendum process, most recently in 2023.
Number of the Day
$29.39 – Increased per diem rate that will be paid to local correctional facilities that house state inmates beginning in fiscal year 2027-28, up from $26.39. (Source: Louisiana Illuminator)