BATON ROUGE — Lawyers for Louisiana’s governor and attorney general sparred Tuesday over the scope of the elected officials’ authority and whether an executive order aimed at protecting rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in state government crossed a constitutional line.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is asking an appeals court to reinstate his April 2016 order banning discrimination in government and state contracts based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A district judge blocked enforcement in December in response to a lawsuit from Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican.
A three-judge panel of a Louisiana appeals court heard arguments Tuesday but did not immediately issue a decision.
The Edwards administration claims the order is consistent with directives issued by previous Louisiana governors, naming Edwin Edwards and Kathleen Blanco.
But John Bel Edwards’ order goes further than that issued by the two previous Democratic leaders. He added language protecting against discrimination based on gender identity, a provision that protects transgender people. Landry’s attorneys have said that term isn’t defined and could create legal problems and ambiguity for employers.
When Edwards issued his order last year, Landry blocked dozens of legal services contracts that contained the anti-discrimination language. After District Judge Todd Hernandez declared the order invalid, the LGBT protections were stripped from the contracts, and that impasse ended.
Edwards’ attorney, Matthew Block, said Hernandez “just got it wrong” when he ruled the Edwards order violated Louisiana’s constitutional separation of powers.
Hernandez agreed with Landry that Edwards’ order was executive overreach, unconstitutionally seeking to create state law and trying to circumvent Louisiana lawmakers who have refused to write such LGBT-rights protections into statute.
Landry’s lawyer, Elizabeth Murrill, said Edwards is claiming authority Louisiana’s governor isn’t granted in the state constitution, trying to enact hiring and contracting requirements for other elected officials in the government’s executive branch.
“There are a number of other statewide elected officials who are not under the direction of the governor, and you have seen in the briefs I think that the governor believes that they are,” Murrill said. “And that, I would submit to you, is a rewriting of the constitution.”
Edwards and Landry have clashed repeatedly since taking office in 2016. Landry is considered a possible challenger to Edwards in the 2019 governor’s race. Landry attended Tuesday’s court hearing, while Edwards was meeting with U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson in New Orleans.