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BATON ROUGE, LA | –This Thursday, August 12, from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., the Southern University Law Center (SULC) will partner with Louisiana Progress to present the first installment in a four-part webinar series on the 2021 Louisiana Legislative Session. The following three webinars will occur every two weeks, on Thursdays at noon. Anyone who is interested in attending can register at https://www.sulc.edu/form/632.

The first webinar will be moderated by SULC’s Alfreda Tillman Bester, Esq. Panelists will include State Representatives Jason Hughes and Matthew Willard; Davante Lewis, Director of Public Affairs and Outreach for the Louisiana Budget Project; Susan East Nelson, Executive Director of the Louisiana Partnership for Children & Families; Ashley Shelton, Founder, President, and CEO of the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice; Stephanie L. Willis, Esq., Policy Strategist at the ACLU of Louisiana; and Peter Robins-Brown, Policy & Advocacy Director at Louisiana Progress. This first session will provide a broad overview of the 2021 regular legislative and veto-override sessions, including discussion of the tax reform issues that will be on the October 3rd ballot and several controversial topics that dominated the political headlines in our state this year.

Subsequent sessions will focus on voting rights, criminal justice reform, education, women’s and workers’ rights, and more. The final webinar in the series is scheduled for Thursday, September 23, and will look ahead to the 2022 redistricting special session that will likely take place in February.

Every webinar session is free to the public, and will count for 1.5 hours of continuing legal education (CLE) credits or 1.5 hours of social worker CEUs.

“Too often, policies in Louisiana ignore our state’s most vulnerable populations,” according to Alfreda Tillman Bester, Special Counsel for Human Services at SULC, and leader of the law school’s Vulnerable Communities & Peoples Initiative (VCPI). “We hope that by providing education opportunities like these we can demystify the legislative process and help empower people to advocate for policies that center people over profits.”

“Far too few people in Louisiana are well informed about what is happening in our state’s capital,” said Melissa Flournoy, Board Chair of Louisiana Progress. “At Louisiana Progress we want to take citizens behind the curtain of power and show them what the issues are and how we can fix them. We are excited to bring together legislators, advocates, and citizens to focus on solutions to Louisiana’s problems.”

The full schedule of webinars is as follows:

• August 12: 2021 Louisiana Legislative Overview

• August 26: Civil Rights–Criminal Justice and Police Reform, and Voting Rights

• September 9: Healthy Families–Women & Children, Workers’ Rights, Education

• September 23: Looking Ahead to 2022: Redistricting Session & Regular Session

Who: Southern University Law Center, Louisiana Progress & National Association of Social Workers- Louisiana Chapter

What: Southern University Law Center, Louisiana Progress and the National Association of Social Workers- Louisiana Chapter partner to present a four-part webinar series on the Louisiana legislature, with panels featuring state legislators and advocates

When: August 12, 2021