The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S state of Louisiana. The Louisiana state legislature is a bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate. The officers of each house of the Legislature are elected at the beginning of each term to serve for four-year terms. The powers and privileges of the legislature are laid out in Article III of the Constitution of Louisiana. The legislature meets in Louisiana’s state capital, Baton Rouge. The Governor of Louisiana carries the power of the line-item veto. However, the legislature has the constitutional power to override a gubernatorial veto by an overriding vote of two-thirds from each house.
General regular sessions of the Louisiana State Legislature are held in even-numbered years. Restricted regular sessions are held in odd-numbered years. The constitution also allows for extraordinary or special sessions, emergency sessions, veto sessions and the organizational sessions.
According to Section 3 of Article III, the number of members of each chamber of the legislature is set by state law, which means the number of senators and representatives can be changed over time, but in no case can there be more than 39 senators or 105 representatives.
The boundaries of legislative districts should be re-drawn every ten years in order to maintain proportional representation in each of the districts. Re-apportionment should take place by the end of the year following the year in which the state’s population is reported to the President of the United States for each decennial federal census.
The Louisiana Senate is the upper house of the state legislature of Louisiana. The Louisiana Senate elects its presiding officer, the president of the Senate, from among its membership though the position is traditionally recommended by the Governor.
The Louisiana House of Representatives is the lower house in the Louisiana State Legislature. The House is composed of 105 Representatives, each of whom represents approximately 42,500 people (2000 figures). Members serve four-year terms with a term limit of three terms (12 years). The Louisiana House of Representatives is one of the five state legislative lower houses that has a four-year term, as opposed to the more common two-year term. The Speaker of the House presides over the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House is traditionally recommended by the Governor of Louisiana to the body In addition to presiding over the body, the Speaker controls the flow of legislation and committee assignments. The House of Representatives also elects a Speaker pro tempore to preside in the absence of the Speaker.
