Looks like Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards is preparing to beat a full retreat, then declare victory of sorts.
SB 44 by Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell is set to force him into this mode. The bill, now headed to his desk, mirrors laws enacted in over a dozen states, prohibiting biological males from competing in scholastic and collegiate sports designated for females only. It differs little from a version last year that Edwards vetoed which the Senate, but not the House in a vote essentially echoing party divisions, voted to override.
MacAoidh laid out some pretty good reasons why that won’t happen again in the House, where last year representatives who voted for the bill then turned against it on the override consideration will not replicate that behavior this year if Edwards dares cast a veto, by and large. Add to this that earlier this year Edwards already suffered humiliation with an overturned veto that put the state’s congressional districts in place for the next decade, and it looks less and less likely he will bleed more power as a symbolic sacrifice to his party’s and ideology’s imperative of normalizing transgenderism for all everywhere.