Rep. Ventrella’s “1,000 hour hair-only license bill” goes down in flames but, in the process, demonstrates Gov. Landry is a charlatan and exposes the hypocrisy of him, House Speaker DeVillier, and Rep. Mike Johnson.

On May 8, 2024, Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Pineville), urged on by Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier (R-New Iberia), who lobbied House Members hard to kill HB-930 by State Rep. Lauren Ventrella, signals his “no” vote with a thumbs down signal directly to DeVillier.

In a recent feature, we stressed just how resolute Gov. Jeff Landry’s recent Cosmetology Board appointees have been in defeating HB-930 sponsored by State Rep. Lauren Ventrella (R-Greenwell Springs).  The bill would have created a new “hair only” license which students could obtain in a “mere” 1,000 hours rather than the current 1,500 hours required for a full-blown cosmetology license.  That cosmetology license includes being able to provide nail and facial services which many students indicate they have no intention whatsoever to provide.  In short, they just want to perform hair salon services.

On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, those newly-appointed Cosmetology Board Members, in concert with one holdover Member from the Edwards administration, Jill Hebert, who was so livid about a similar measure last year that she called upon the then-Chairman of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC), Edwin Neill, to “immediately resign,” succeeded in defeating Ventrella’s bill.  We’ll provide more details on that defeat shortly.

In the defeat of Ventrella’s bill, Louisiana citizens obtained a genuine appreciation for the utter hypocrisy of Gov. Landry, House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, and Representative Mike Johnson.  Beyond that hypocrisy, the defeat of Ventrella’s bill cast a very bright spotlight on Landry’s charlatan nature.

In our prior feature on Ventrella’s bill, we stressed the fact that Landry’s Cosmetology Board Members, “apparently did not get the memo” regarding Landry’s bold proclamation on March 7, 2024 at the Pelican Institute’s Solutions Summit at which Landry committed to eliminate many of Louisiana’s overly-burdensome occupational licensing requirements such as the added 500 hours to obtain a full-blown cosmetology license when plenty of students simply want to attend school for 1,000 hours (as they can do in Texas for a full-blown cosmetology license) and obtain a “hair-only” license!

With the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that Landry leaned heavily upon Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier (R-New Iberia) to kill Ventrella’s bill on the House Floor, we can easily draft the following hypothetical email that Landry could have easily drafted and distributed to his new Cosmetology Board Members:

To:  Newly Appointed Members of the LSBC

From:  Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry

Subject:  Dispelling Fears of My Statements About Occupational Licensing Before the Pelican Institute at its Solutions Summit of Yesterday, March 7, 2024

Date:  March 8, 2024

Members:

By now you have likely heard that yesterday, March 7, 2024,  I committed to about 300 or so attendees at the Pelican Institute’s annual Solutions Summit that I would reduce or eliminate overly-burdensome barriers to entry entailing occupational licenses in Louisiana, and I stated that doing so would enable more Louisiana citizens to go to work, pay taxes, and reduce their school debt burdens.

I just want to reassure you that my comments yesterday were nothing more than the typical horse manure that any Republican Governor would have to make when speaking before an audience like that!  Nothing more.  Pure and simple!

I am writing to reassure you that, just as I did for the eight years during which I served as your Attorney General, I have your back!  In fact, during my tenure as AG, it was me, Jeff Landry, who steadfastly enriched law firms in Louisiana as they defended legal attacks against your turf such as The Institute for Justice’s lawsuit against the LSBC regarding hair braiding in Louisiana.  That litigation is now in its fifth year, and as AG, I stood by all of you then, and I stand by all of you now as Governor!

Also, please don’t forget that it was me, acting as Attorney General Jeff Landry, who devised a protection plan to shield Louisiana Boards and Commission members from personal liability.  You can bet the LSBC Members appreciate my efforts on that and, you can take it to the bank that the Members of the State Board of Veterinary Medicine appreciate it as the Pelican Institute (yes the same group before which I spoke yesterday) actually sued that Board recently over the denials of two veterinarian licenses.

Getting back to you all, surely you recall Kevin Martin, right?  He is a cosmetology instructor at the public W. D. Smith Career Academy against whom that pesky blogger, Robert Burns, accumulated enough evidence against that, not only did he (Burns)  convince KLFY (Channel 10 in Lafayette) to air a feature openly asking me what I would do about the situation, but he also managed to convince Lafayette parish DA Keith Stutes to refer the matter to me for criminal prosecution.  I’m sure that you all will recall that my office announced (as reflected on that KLFY feature I link above) that we at the AG’s Office would be, “opening a criminal investigation into the matter.”

What we didn’t tell KLFY, Burns, or anyone else is that we closed that criminal investigation only minutes after KLFY’s camera crew left!  My statements of criminal investigation fall under the category of more horse manure that you just have to spread sometimes when a television station seeks comment.  What happened in the end?  As I stress to you throughout this email correspondence, I had your back then!  Not only did we not open any criminal investigation, but then-Gov. John Bel Edwards subsequently appointed Martin to the LSBC!  Now I ask you, is that not the epitome of having your back?

Also, you see, Burns and other pesky reporters rely upon public records to be able to cause me and others problems such as the Kevin Martin situation outlined above.  That’s why it was me, Gov. Jeff Landry, who went to bat so hard to shield virtually everyone from being able to get any kind of public records.  Can you imagine how much easier all of your lives and mine and other State government officials’ lives would be if I only didn’t have people like Burns, Scott Sternberg, Chris Nakamoto, Lee Zurik, and others with those darn records?!  I’m fuming mad at all of them for blocking my diligent efforts on those public records, and Burns had the unmitigated gall to recruit my own cousin, Billy Broussard (and several others), to testify against the bill I was pushing!  Burns even referenced me as a, “used car lemon who needs to be returned to the car lot.”

Now, just like last year, you’re going to learn of a bill to do like Texas has done and reduce the number of classroom hours for obtaining a cosmetology license from 1,500 to 1,000.

Even if the bill’s sponsor agrees to make that lowered 1,000-hour requirement applicable for “hair only,” and even if she stresses that what would be removed from the cosmetology license requirements would entail nails and facials, I have your back!

In fact, I want to personally assure you that House Speaker Phillip DeVillier will lobby House Members to kill the bill on the House Floor!  You have my personal assurance of that!

Further, State Rep. Mike Johnson, who introduced me at the Pelican Institute’s Solutions Summit, has assured me that he will go out of his way to make it known that he opposes the bill!

Look, let’s not kid ourselves.  I know your concerns!  I know Louisiana Cosmetology schools entail big-time money!  In fact, I remember reading on Sound Off Louisiana where Gov. Edwards’ former LSBC Chairman, Edwin Neill, Jr., had to sue his financial savior!  What a read that was as I read where Neill couldn’t even get credit and was experiencing a “cash shortage.”

So, look, I know how crucial it is for cosmetology schools to keep generating bundles of cash for operations and, if those bundles of cash must come from members on the lower end of the economic spectrum, that’s just the way it is!

Look, I know you guys have hired a big-time lobbyist, Ryan Haynie, and I know he doesn’t come cheap.  At the end of the day, money flow from lobbyists is all we really care about at the Legislature, and you all have done your jobs in that regard, so trust me that, when I tell you that I’ve got your back, I mean it!

Now, I know what you’re wondering:  How can I defy my own comments to the Pelican Institute and other similar groups and ensure that I’ve got your backs and not risk losing an election?  That’s a very good question, and let me provide the secret formula we, as SOCIAL conservative Republicans, have utilized for a long time.

Here’s what we do:  We whip Louisiana Christian Conservative Republican voters into a frenzy by flooding the Legislature with social legislation such as making abortion-inducting pills a controlled dangerous substance (hey, we made national news on that one!), concealed carry legislation, trans bathroom legislation, pronoun use in public schools, “don’t say gay” bills, posting the Ten Commandments in schools, and even immigration legislation and many, many others.  As a first-year Governor, I flooded the Legislature with just such legislation.

Is that legislation important?  Yes, but not only for the purpose of imposing the Christian values that I and many of my supporters champion, but perhaps the far more important reason for such legislation is that it helps greatly to cause voters to essentially take their eye off the ball when it comes to initiatives such as the ones which have been filed entailing your turf, the cosmetology school industry, in Louisiana!  It’s an utterly brilliant pattern that we’ve successfully used year in and year out!

Now, there is one guy who figured our formula for success out, and his name is Stephen Waugespack, but everyone calls him “Wags.”  As the President of LABI, in voicing the frustration of many of his business member organizations, Wags was known to say, “Look, just being pro life and pro gun is not enough!”  Darn good thing we were able to keep him down in the polls via a crowded GOP field, huh?

It gets worse though!  Do you realize that a sitting U. S. Congressman, Garret Graves, actually had the unmitigated gall to endorse Wags over me?!  Well, I took care of him, didn’t I?  Yep.  Going to redistrict him right out of office and replace him with State Sen. Cleo Fields!  Now there’s a man in whom all Louisiana voters can be proud.  By God, he helped suppress black voter turnout and thereby ensured I won in the primary!

That’s why, when a few disgruntled folk like State Sen. Alan Seabaugh sued over the map myself and Sen. Fields favored and actually won at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, I wasted no time calling up AG Liz Murill (she basically ran the office the whole time I was AG while I hung out at the hunting camps and entertained legislators) to file an emergency writ to stay the Fifth Circuit’s Order.  You see who ultimately won, huh?  So, when I tell anybody that, “I’ve got your back,” I mean I’ve got your back!  In that instance, it was State Sen. Cleo Fields, and Seabaugh can just live with Fields being his U. S. Congressman at least for a while!

So, I just wanted to take this opportunity to ensure everyone in the cosmetology school industry that you all know just how strongly I have your back and that you can let the comments I made at the Pelican Institute’s Solutions Summit yesterday go in one ear and out the other.  As I indicated above, that’s just the typical horse manure you have to say to those folk!  After all, attendees paid $100 – $150 each to attend, so I can’t get up there and say I’m going to block initiatives they back, can I?  No, I can’t, but you have my word that it is your back that I have and not their backs nor those fighting to make a living in Louisiana (those folk have no money to buy influence and, heck, by their own admissions, they’re in debt up to their eyeballs)!  So, by God, Texas is 1,000 hours, so let them move to Texas and pursue a cosmetology career over there!

So, there’s the hypothetical (though, as far as we’re concerned, it may as well be authentic) email Landry may as well have sent to the cosmetology schools in Louisiana.

Now, let’s drill down for that hypocrisy as we wrap up this feature.

First, as Gov. Landry referenced in his “hypothetical email” above, Johnson wanted to make triple-darn-sure everyone knew he voted to kill the bill on the House Floor.  Though we’ve illustrated that fact by the still photo for this feature showing him giving House Speaker Phillip DeVillier the thumbs down symbol to communicate clearly his opposition to the bill, let’s go ahead and give him his 41-seconds of fame to let him demonstrate that, just like a second-grader wanting to make sure the teacher knows he did his assignment, Johnson made sure everybody viewing knew of his opposition.  Furthermore, he appeared to stare directly at the vote tally very intensely trying to ascertain the bill’s fate.  Here’s that 41 seconds of fame for Rep. Mike Johnson:

 May 8, 2024:  Rep. Johnson makes sure everyone sees his “no” vote and then stares at the tally board assessing the bill’s fate.

Okay.  Now on to House Speaker Phillip DeVillier’s off-the-charts hypocrisy!  The day before DeVillier and Johnson voted against the bill (at the direct behest of Gov. Landry), DeViller gave a presentation in support of Landry’s call for a Constitutional Convention that would put any televangelist to shame.  We have captured three minutes of this award-winning televangelistic performance; however, we will also provide a link  for the approximate 9-minute entirety of his performance in case anyone would care to watch it.  Here we go:

 May 7, 2024:  Louisiana House Speaker DeVillier gets an Academy Award for his televangelistic message encouraging his colleagues to vote in favor of Landry’s Constitutional Convention.  Please be aware that your audio IS WORKING during the first nine (9) seconds as Televangelist DeVillier seeks guidance from God.  CLICK HERE for DeVillier’s performance in its entirety.

Can anybody believe the hypocrisy of the above video?  He talks about 50,000 school age children (public and private) moving out of Louisiana then, on the very next day, he votes against a bill that would have helped level the playing field for Texas vs. Louisiana and thereby sent a direct message of, “keep going to Texas!”  That has got to be the absolute epitome of hypocrisy!

Also, this whole tearful display of “missing Cooper’s tennis matches to be here,” is absurd!  The reality is that these guys (and ladies) congregate at some of the finest restaurants and are whined and dined by lobbyists like most Louisiana citizens can only dream of.  DeVillier and all the other Louisiana Legislators are never going to give those opportunities up!  They relish the meals and such too much!  Even if DeVillier’s arguments are true, however, nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to run for the office; furthermore, if all the commemorative proclamations (we’re surprised there hasn’t been a “Louisiana Grasshopper Day of Recognition”) were eliminated, these folks could be out in about half the time!

Now, despite Gov. Landry, Speaker DeVillier, and Representative Johnson’s best efforts to kill the bill, it passed out of the House (see Johnson video above) by a margin of 60-38.

Now, on to the Louisiana Senate where we not only want to stress the bill being killed in the Senate Commerce Committee by a Motion to Involuntarily defer by Sen. Mark Abraham (R-Lake Charles), but we want to demonstrate via brief videos the utterly despicable comments made by Abraham and one other opponent of the bill (we’ll get to her shortly) regarding Jeremy Aydell, who is a highly successful businessman owning 16 Sports Clips locations throughout Louisiana and who also is a CPA holding a Master’s Degree in accounting from LSU (full disclosure:  Burns is also an inactive CPA).

We want to begin by reminding everyone that it was Sen. Abraham (though then a State Representative) who then-Americans for Prosperity’s Executive Director, John Kay (who now serves as Senior Policy Advisor to Landry), first inducted into AFP’s “Taker’s Dozen.”   Here’s a screen-shot just in case the preceding link is deactivated:

So, in the following video, Abraham falsely accuses Aydell of, “probably paying lower” thus causing “high turnover” at his Sports Clips shops.  Once Aydell authoritatively shot Abraham’s false claim down (just watch how he does so!), Abraham was forced to go “off script” (because, trust us, he’d been provided with accusatory material against Aydell prior to the Senate Commerce Committee hearing), and resorted to a completely nonsensical argument that Aydell should abandon direct employment of cosmetologists and providing strong benefit packages like health care, 401K, etc., in favor of an independent contractor model.  We are NOT kidding, folks!  Just watch it for yourself:

 May 22, 2024:  Sen. Abraham falsely accuses Aydell of underpaying his employees then, when confronted with the fact Aydell provides 401K benefits, health care, and other benefits, Abraham is forced to go “off script” and resort to the utterly nonsensical argument that Aydell should abandon providing such benefits and adopt an independent contractor approach.

We watched the above video repeatedly before uploading it because we wanted to make sure we heard Abraham correctly, and we did!  So, Abraham is the very sort of legislator that Landry, DeVillier, and Johnson have aligned themselves with in opposing Ventrella’s bill.  Presumably, Americans for Prosperity’s admonitions about Abraham (remember, he was the first inductee into AFP’s “Taker’s Dozen”) are now meaningless to Landry et. al.

What is also frustrating about Abraham’s commentary is that he, along with many other legislators, have repeatedly (and we do mean repeatedly) ignored Rep. Ventrella’s repeated instances of emphasizing that the hours reduction entails nails and facials and NOT hair!  Obviously, these legislators, along with Gov. Landry, have selective hearing or else they don’t want to counter Ventrella’s argument (most likely because they know they can’t).  Of course, the reality is, as expressed in Landry’s “hypothetical email,” they don’t care!  It’s a simple case of “follow the money,” and the cosmetology schools flood lobbyists (one in particular) to drown out everyone else, the strength of arguments notwithstanding.

Now, as bad as Abraham’s “arguments” against Aydell were, they can’t remotely compete with what we’re about to present by one of the bill’s opponents, Lynn Glaze.  In fact, Glaze’s comments, which we believe are, at best, reckless, and at worst, blatantly slanderous, constitute something we had reservations about even presenting because they are simply not even worth dignifying.  Nevertheless, just to demonstrate how ruthless and malicious the attacks against Aydell have become, we have made an editorial decision that we are presenting her commentary, as reckless (and likely slanderous) as we assess that commentary to be.

Before we do that, however, we want to stress that we very much like State Sen. Beth Mizell (R-Franklinton).  Her only fault, to us at least, is that she’s simply too nice.  Mizell serves as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and, based on her opening remarks as Glaze begins to speak, we have to believe Mizell was forewarned that Glaze’s commentary would likely veer way off from the bill.  If she was forewarned, Glaze lived up to the forewarning and then some and, being honest, we believe Mizell really should have shut the following garbage down.  With that forewarning of our own, here are highlights of Glaze’s personal attacks on Aydell:

5/22/24:  Glaze engages in reckless (and likely slanderous) commentary about Aydell.

Beyond the absurd comments about Aydell, Glaze also references someone receiving hair care service on Friday and dying two days later.  She also then expects sympathy because of a Texas school owner who, at least according to her, committed suicide after Texas reduced its hours to 1,000 because he couldn’t keep his school afloat!  What an utterly asinine argument!  So, unless the government mandates this extra 500 hours, he can’t make it!  Well, that’s the way the free enterprise system works; furthermore, if the owner of that school was that mentally unstable, students and instructors of that school are lucky he didn’t come into the school in a blaze of glory and take a bunch of them out with him.  Hopefully anyone can see why we said Glaze’s commentary isn’t worth dignifying.

Nevertheless, that is the nature of the folk with whom Landry has aligned himself in defeating this bill in direct contradiction to his commitment to attendees on March 7, 2024 at the Pelican Institute’s Solution Summit!  Glaze wraps it up by saying Aydell should, “move away from Louisiana.”  In our opinion, with charlatans like Jeff Landry and hypocrites like Mike Johnson and Speaker DeVillier running the show, maybe Glaze’s admonition to Aydell applies equally to all of the rest of us!

Finally, with the obvious hypocrisy and deceit Landry and others have demonstrated above, they’re soon (presumably) going to ask us to vote in favor of an overhaul of Louisiana’s Constitution based on a hurried and haphazard “Convention” Landry is pushing.

We can only speak for ourselves, but we don’t feel, after watching Landry’s words on March 7, 2024 and his contradictory actions thereafter, that we can trust anything that comes out of his mouth!  Not one word!

Thus, right now, we are a “hard no” on whatever alterations this group wants to make to the existing Louisiana Constitution when it comes time to cast our votes on the matter in November, and we’ve explained exactly why above, with DeVillier’s televangelistic performance outlined above solidifying our decision more than anything else on the matter!

 

 

Phillip Fetterman calls BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson on the carpet for alleged attempt to “run out the clock” and avoid his question on efficiency, which he nevertheless posed after the meeting.

Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC) member Phillip Fetterman (right closest to camera) prepares to ask BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson several questions after the BRPC meeting of April 22, 2024 after Fetterman first chided Wilson for “running out the clock” on questions and not calling upon him during his presentation.

On April 22, 2024, BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson appeared before the BRPC.

Attendance was sparse to say the least.  In fact, let’s spend a mere 28 seconds to illustrate just how sparse attendance was:

 April 22, 2022:  Opening moments of BRPC meeting at which BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson’s spoke.

Normally, BRPC guests are guided to keep their presentations to around 20 minutes and leave the remaining 20-25 minutes for questions from the media and/or BRPC members.

Well, as we will present shortly, Wilson admitted, perhaps jokingly, perhaps not, that his goal was to leave only one minute for questions.  In other words, he wanted to essentially run out the clock.

As it turned out, he left a mere nine (9) minutes for questions, and let’s take a look at one of the BRPC members, Remi Delouche, being called upon and posing the most absolute-ultimate softball question imaginable:

 Delouche poses the ultimate softball question of Wilson, who then responds.

In sharp contrast to Delouche, Phillip Fetterman sought to ask a much more “hardball” question of Wilson.  In fact, Fetterman called Wilson on the carpet for intentionally “running out the clock” and avoiding him being able to pose his question during Wilson’s presentation.

After the meeting, we filmed Fetterman first calling Wilson on the carpet for not calling upon him and pointing out how inexcusable that was given such a sparse crowd.

As if Delouche hadn’t already been an unpaid cheerleader for Wilson, he (Delouche) impolitely answered one of Fetterman’s question on behalf of Wilson, thus making it easy for Wilson to merely concur as he began his answer.  Here’s that video:

 Fetterman calls Wilson on the carpet for “running out the clock,” after which he poses a couple of questions, one of which was impolitely answered by Delouche on Wilson’s behalf, thus necessitating a mere concurrence on Wilson’s part as he began to provide his answer.

We normally upload the entirety of a speaker’s presentation when we publish a feature on it, but this time we’re just going to provide this link for LPB’s video of the entire presentation.   We note it had 88 hits at the time of our publication.

We commend Fetterman for calling Wilson out entailing not conforming with the guidance that every speaker is given at BRPC regarding permitting a reasonable period for Q & A.  Yes, it is guidance, but blatantly indicating a desire to “leave one minute” on the clock and, in reality, leaving less than half the timeframe speakers are asked to provide doesn’t fit our definition of conformity, nor do we find Wilson’s commentary about leaving “one minute” for Q & A humorous.

Gov. Landry’s Cosmetology Board Members defiantly vow to defeat Rep. Ventrella’s bill calling for decrease in licensure hours from 1,500 to 1,000.

Cosmetologists attending the May 6, 2024 meeting of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology express their extreme displeasure with HB-930, which would reduce the number of hours required for a cosmetology license from 1,500 to 1,000.

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UPDATE:  5/7/24 @ 5:34 p.m. 

Rep. Ventrella returned HB-930 to the calendar with notice given that it will be brought back up for debate on Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

UPDATE:  5/8/24 @ 4:32 p.m.  Rep. Ventrella, after a bombardment of opposition from self-interested cosmetology schools, was forced to offer an amendment which called for a “hair design only” license at 1,000 hours.  That bill did pass 60-39.  CLICK HERE  to see how each Representative voted. Ah, what the heck!  Let’s present the vote as an embedded photo now:

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We have previously mentioned on this blog that we observed Gov. Jeff Landry, on March 7, 2024, serve as the keynote speaker for The Pelican Institute’s Solution Summit.  We stressed just how impressed we were with Landry’s ability to connect with a wide swath of Louisiana voters in making himself seem to be nothing more than an “ordinary Joe” who caught a few breaks in life and wound up Governor.

During his presentation, which lasted no more than about 16-20 minutes at most, Landry stressed his key initiatives both for the then-upcoming Legislative Session as well as for his term as Governor as a whole.

One point Landry drove home hard was that Louisiana is a state licensing too many occupations and also imposing too many restrictions and barriers for those possessing strong ambition and seeking to work in Louisiana.

We can only say that his six newly-appointed Cosmetology Board Members apparently did not get the memo entailing Landry’s impressive speech!  Sound Off Louisiana‘s founder, Robert Burns, has attended both meetings (April 1, 2024 and May 6, 2024) that have been convened since Landry completely replaced the entire Board with the exception of one Member, Jill Hebert.

Burns, who has monitored that Board for nine years beginning when he received a flood of complaints from Vietnamese manicurists, has openly stated that, “this particular group of appointees is the most anti-business group I’ve seen yet.  In fact, they are so bad in that regard that I really wish we could bring back John Bel Edwards’ members.”

Sound Off Louisiana site visitors may recall that, last year, there was a bill filed to reduce the number of hours required for licensure from 1,500 to 1,000; however, that bill sought to tie the reduction to an accompanying 60 percent increase in licensing fees overnight.  We make no apologizes for absolutely lampooning then-Gubernatorial candidate Richard Nelson for cavalierly voting in favor of the license fee increase.  Nelson has landed on his feet as Louisiana’s Revenue Secretary and, should he pursue being Governor again down the road, we trust he’ll make it clear that his vote on raising the licensing fee was a huge mistake.

We called the tying of the two measures together nothing short of “blackmail” for which we again make no apologizes whatsoever and stand by our stand that, if accompanied by a license fee increase, we wholeheartedly stand against the reduction in licensure hours.  Quite frankly, the Louisiana Cosmetology Board has demonstrated an extreme propensity to block free enterprise initiatives such as its absurd licensure requirement for hair braiding (for which it has spent an ungodly amount of money in legal fees fighting in court) and shutting down creative ideas such a mobile salon designed to assist female residents in nursing homes with being able to easily and conveniently have their hair done.  To provide them with yet more revenue to engage in further such acts should abjectly disqualify any public office holder from being reelected (or seeking higher office as was the case with Nelson) in our humble opinion!

Fortunately, it’s 2024, and State Rep. Lauren Ventrella (R-Greenwell Springs) has sponsored HB-930 which is a repeat of 2023’s efforts to reduce the licensure hours from 1,500 to 1,000 but this time without any accompanying increase in licensure fees (again, what we unapologetically call “blackmail”).

Ventrella presented her bill before the House Commerce Committee on April 22, 2024, and we have to say it was our first exposure to her, and we were blown away!  She goes straight to the heart of the matter, does not mince her words, and is, at least in our opinion, a very effective and dynamic presenter and speaker!  At this time, let’s take a look at six minutes of highlights from both her presentation and that of Jeremy Aydell, who is a highly successful businessman owning 16 Sports Clips locations throughout Louisiana and who also is a CPA holding a Master’s Degree in accounting from LSU (full disclosure:  Burns is also an inactive CPA).  Here’s what they had to say in presenting this year’s bill:

4/22/24:  Highlights of Ventrella and Aydell’s presentation of HB-930.

We want to again stress just how impressed we are with Rep. Ventrella’s performance on the video above!  We will also point out that, as both Ventrella and Aydell stress, students incur massive debt to attend school for this protracted period.  They make references to graduates being loaded down with an average of $16,000 of debt; further, later in the video, Ventrella stressed that her own legislative assistant, who strongly supports the bill, indicated that she personally was loaded down with $27,000 in debt upon graduation from Cosmetology School.  Also, Aydell pointed out that tuition often runs, “from $20,000 to $30,000 to attend Louisiana Cosmetology schools.”

Aydell also stressed what economics professors refer to as “opportunity costs,” which is the foregone income from being in school so long.  Economics professors often reference “opportunity costs” of attending college itself, and that “opportunity cost” is what the student could have earned in the workforce if attending college had been foregone.  If those funds that would have been earned working were instead invested at a reasonably safe rate of return and then those cumulative earnings are combined with the debt often incurred to attend college, the true final cost of attending college is utterly staggering.  Aydell superbly applied the same concept of “opportunity costs” to the added four months of earnings that these students lose out on by being left out of the workforce just to obtain the additional 500 hours required for licensure.

We also want to stress that Aydell was lampooned (we believe very unfairly as he is seeking nothing more than obtaining well-qualified workers to employ and expand and generate revenue and taxes from those employees) last year for his mere expressing of support for the reduction in hours.

Now, as we indicated, we attended both Cosmetology Board meetings since Gov. Landry completely overhauled the prior Board in replacing six (6) of its seven (7) Members.  The second such meeting was yesterday, Monday, May 6, 2024, and let’s just say Landry’s appointees apparently did not get the memo of his presentation on March 7, 2024 to make Louisiana a more business friendly state because they made it known in no uncertain terms that they do not support any reduction whatsoever in the 1,500 hours presently required for a license!  None!

Now, Board Members, and particularly Executive Director Steve Young, had sharp words of criticism for Louisiana House Commerce Committee Chairman Daryl Deshotel (R-Marksville) in asserting that he did not provide them equal opportunity to speak at the hearing.  In short, they felt they were given the shaft.  Young led the criticism of Deshotel, which we find ironic given that, when Young was seated at the witness table and Deshotel asked if he had anything he would like to say, Young responded with, “No.”

Now, we don’t believe anyone should get the shaft and be stifled, so to speak.  Accordingly, we now present an unedited 16-minute video clip of Board Members and audience members stating their steadfast resolve to adamantly oppose Ventrella’s bill and ensure its defeat.  Here is that 16-minute unedited video:

5/6/24:  Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology Members and audience members express their stern opposition to Ventrella’s bill.

Now, there’s one thing we feel compelled to point out.  At the April 1, 2024 Board Meeting, one small school owner expressed concern that students were going to Texas, getting licensed, and then seeking a license in Louisiana through reciprocity!  Gee, what a creative way to get around the 500 extra hours!  Here’s that question being posed and the response provided by the Board, which we think is absolutely priceless!

 4/1/24:  A small school owner expresses concern over prospective students going to Texas, getting licensed (via Texas’ 1,000 hour requirement) then returning to Louisiana to get licensed through reciprocity.

The following states have already reduced the required number of hours for a cosmetology license to 1,000:  Texas, New York, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island.  Further, Virginia’s licensure requirement will drop to 1,000 hours effective January 1, 2025.

We will soon know if Louisiana takes the next step toward joining these other states, which experts tell us represent 45 percent of all licensed cosmetologists, as Ventrella’s bill is scheduled for floor debate later today (Tuesday, May 7, 2024).  While we are publishing this feature prior to that debate, we will update it after the debate concludes and provide a link for the votes cast by members of Louisiana’s House of Representatives.