State Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, has filed a bill that would, among other things, bar lawmakers from giving their annual Tulane University scholarships to relatives of any elected officials in the state.

The bill, filed Tuesday, would put in place restrictions starting with with the 2015-16 academic year.

The Tulane scholarship program dates back to the 1880s. It lets each state lawmaker give one student annually a scholarship to the private university, an award worth more than $43,000 a year.

In the past, political or personal ties were often a ticket to getting the valuable grants. While each lawmaker awards his Tulane scholarship to one student a year, many give theirs to the same recipient for four consecutive years, making the gift one of the most lucrative perks controlled by the part-time legislators.

Historically, the program tended to benefit children of legislators and other connected insiders. In some cases, legislators gave themselves the scholarships. When the excesses of the program were publicized in the mid-1990s, many Louisianians were outraged, and some reforms were enacted.

New rules passed at the time barred legislators from giving scholarships to direct family members, but not to relatives of other politicians.

Last fall, a joint investigation by The New Orleans Advocate and WWL-TV revealed state Rep. Harold Ritchie, D-Bogalusa, was doing just that. He has given his scholarship for the past two years to a son of 22nd Judicial District Attorney Walter Reed.

When this news surfaced, cries for change rang out, with some wanting the program disbanded altogether.

Claitor’s bill would prohibit lawmakers from getting campaign donations from scholarship recipients or recipients’ relatives, and it would require a preference for scholarships be given to children of military service members or law enforcement killed on active duty.

The proposal also would require Tulane University to publish the names of the recipients.

We urge local lawmakers to support this bill when the legislative session begins in March. We also urge lawmakers to develop a better way of getting information about the scholarships to local schools and students, to develop a better criteria for selection and to utilize local school officials to determine who best would benefit from a Tulane education.