BATON ROUGE — In an emotional moment that drew a standing ovation from lawmakers, Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday introduced the family of Jacob Carter, a Washington state man murdered in the New Orleans French Quarter in January 2024, and used his story to make a forceful case for judicial reform as the 2026 legislative session got underway.
Carter was killed by a juvenile who had already been arrested with 14 guns and drugs before being released on electronic monitoring. The juvenile missed more than 400 required check-ins. The monitoring contract expired without the judge or district attorney taking action. When Carter's family filed complaints against the judges whose decisions put the juvenile back on the street, those complaints were dismissed without explanation.
"That is not justice," Landry told a joint session of the Legislature. "That's negligence masquerading as mercy."
Landry urged lawmakers to pursue rigorous judicial reform, calling the Orleans Parish court system broken and financially unsustainable. He noted the state 'spends more than twice as much on Orleans Parish courts as it does in Louisiana's largest parish, and foots 100% of the bill (for Orleans).'
The address, which kicked off the 2026 fiscal session, otherwise struck an optimistic tone, with Landry pointing to gains in education, business investment, insurance reform, and infrastructure as evidence that the state is on the right track and pressing lawmakers to keep moving.
On education, Landry highlighted Louisiana's 11-spot jump on the Nation's Report Card, the largest single-cycle leap in state history, and noted Louisiana is the only state to show a full recovery from COVID-era setbacks in both math and reading. He renewed his push to double funding for the LA GATOR scholarship program, which provides taxpayer dollars for private school tuition, and urged voters to support Amendment 3 on the May 16 ballot, which would give teachers a permanent pay raise while paying down debt in the state's teacher retirement system.
Landry also made a pointed case for realigning workforce funding, noting the state spends more than $300 million on the TOPS scholarship program while only $6 million goes toward vocational and technical education, despite 70% of the jobs Louisiana is currently creating not requiring a four-year degree. "Economic growth without workforce alignment leaves people behind," he said.
On the economy, Landry touted 124,000 new private sector jobs since he took office and said Louisiana is approaching $100 billion in announced investment, a figure that started as a $30 billion goal when he first took office. He also renewed his push to eventually eliminate the state income tax entirely.
Infrastructure was another highlight. Landry announced more than $765 million invested through the Louisiana Transportation Infrastructure Fund over the past two years and said the state will break ground next month on the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge replacement in Lake Charles, which he called one of the largest transportation projects in Louisiana history. He also proposed replacing the traditional vehicle inspection sticker with a $6 QR code that would give law enforcement instant access to vehicle registration information and eventually insurance coverage, calling the current system "annoying, inconvenient, and of little value."
Landry presented a $46.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2026-27, smaller than last year's $50 billion budget, and said it is built without one-time money, a habit he said had plagued previous administrations. He said the state has reduced total debt by $190 million and saved $117 million through refinancing.
He closed with a story about a man who got his house painted by cooperating with his neighbor and distributed T-shirts to lawmakers reading "Let's paint houses together."
"We can make our own demands and achieve nothing, or we can work together and achieve anything and everything," Landry said.
The 2026 regular session, which opened today, runs through June.
