WE ARE

From the moment you walk into LABI, you are reminded of its unwavering commitment to free enterprise I know those principles will enable Louisiana to be a better place, not just for our manufacturing business and growth, but for the attraction, retainment, and growth of all business and talent.

Baton Rouge General is committed to providing care to our communities, but our success relies on the success of the people we serve LABI’s free enterprise advocacy and member collaboration creates an environment for economic growth in both our community and our state, allowing us to continue to grow the services we provide for the people of Louisiana.

Lipsey’s is a proud and longtime partner with LABI. Our relationship ensures that we have a voice of leadership in the business and industry sector LABI’s strong membership encourages economic development for all Louisiana businesses locally, nationally, and worldwide

I most appreciate LABI’s proactiveness. Many industry groups spend their time and energy focused on the negative, fighting mostly rearguard actions. LABI gets involved early, when there is still a chance to treat conversations and policy making as opportunities, not just problems to defend against.

LABI has been a great ambassador for our industry and fights to make Louisiana better for business. Without LABI, we would not have gotten tax reform done Having LABI fight every day levels the playing field for all businesses in Louisiana!

LABI is truly the glue between business and government. For a small business like ours, it is comforting to know that the team at LABI is not only looking after our needs, but the needs of all Louisiana-based businesses. We are truly blessed as a business community to have this organization in our state

We believe LABI is a valuable strategic partner because they give us space and opportunity to have our voices heard regarding critical like ours.

LABI plays a crucial role for Louisiana businesses, both large and small. Its influence in the legislative process is powerful and essential to helping ensure sound public policy and strong economic growth for our state and entire business community

It is important that businesspeople engage at all levels of government to promote good policy and oppose bad policy. LABI is the ‘one stop shop’ for all of the above As a business owner, I cannot go to every meeting and attend every committee hearing. But I can through LABI, and still have a seat at the table LABI has an established track record in areas such as tort reform, tax reform, education policy, workforce development, election results, judicial reform, the list goes on…It all supports the fact that LABI is not only the largest business lobby group

LABI is smart, proactive and sensible. LABI stands not just for business but also building a better Louisiana. LABI stands for big and small businesses alike. I am a proud supporter of LABI and encourage fellow business owners to invest. It is money well spent. One of my business mentors always said, “get into politics or get out of business”. Never has that rang true until I become a business owner. LABI is the advocate businesses need in the political world.

ON AN ORDINARY Louisiana afternoon in an ordinary Louisiana town, dignitaries and officials mark an extraordinary milestone in their community’s story. Photographs are taken, ceremonial gestures are made, lives are changed. This single gathering celebrates five hundred households and a half dozen businesses that are now connected to high-speed, affordable internet service – a service found shockingly sparse just three years ago, when families and employees across the state found themselves attempting to learn or earn from home during a pandemic.

The ceremony is repeated and repeated across the state as efforts to expand broadband access progress at a national pace-setting clip. By the end of 2024, 80,000 addresses will be hooked up.

“It’s a political unicorn,” says Veneeth Iyengar, executive director of ConnectLA, the state’s Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity, speaking of the rare alignment between the governor, legislature and local officials, the agreement between north and south Louisiana, urban and rural communities and the speed at which such a significant problem-solving effort is being implemented.

“We signed 75 grant agreements with private companies by November 21st of 2022,” says Iyengar. “What’s encouraging is that companies are moving a lot faster than government, the private sector, moving a lot faster than the agreements that we’ve signed. So the grant agreements will say, ‘oh, we’ll build in two years,’ but they’re moving on average, 16 months faster.”

Iyengar says Louisiana has become a leader nationally in how the state has developed and implemented a plan to expand broadband access, and much like that high-speed internet–it’s catapulting communities forward.

“To go from policy to execution has not taken decades and decades and decades,” he says. “In this case, when Rep. Daryl Deshotel and Sen. Beth Mizell crafted the legislation that the governor signed into law in 2020 to create the office, to go from the creation of the office to creating a grant program to then seeing results, it’s four years, from a policy to execution. That’s pretty efficient.”

And there’s more–this game-changing endeavor comes at no cost to the state’s general fund. Zero. It’s all federal, some $2.2 billion from four funding sources spanning two presidencies. That comes with its own strong set of political opinions, but the bottom line is not only does this project meet a dire need, advance opportunity and generate workforce development and economic activity–it didn’t force any tough budget battles or steep cuts and sacrifices in Baton Rouge.

This may indeed be the rarest political unicorn Louisiana will see. But can we force another?

We certainly have other needs, a rather lengthy public policy to-do list. Can Louisiana get this rare political and policy alignment in place to pull off this kind of game changer again?

LABI President and CEO Stephen Waguespack says yes, and that particularly right now, the opportunity is limitless.

“I truly think that 2023 will go down as one of the most pivotal years in Louisiana’s history,” he says, “but the challenge for all of us is will we pivot in the right direction or the wrong direction?”

Waguespack says three factors make 2023 the critical “gut check” moment for Louisiana–a national trend of workforce mobility that has families and investors looking south, a major election year ushering in new regimes and problem-solvers at multiple levels, and the need for a sink-or-swim game plan that ties the two together.

“We know, going into this year, that we are in the middle of a national reckoning where the South is booming,” he says. “This is an era where southern state economies are growing by leaps and bounds, and they’re doing it because families and businesses and individuals are leaving high-tax, oppressive, overly regulatory states like California and New York and Illinois and they’re moving south. We’re seeing skylines in Nashville and Houston and throughout Florida and the Carolinas go up and expand.”

But we’re not seeing that here. When families and investors compare opportunities, he says, there are obvious barriers to choosing Louisiana. Our property and auto insurance are high. Our educational rankings are low, and choice is a challenge. Our tax system is complex.

But the 2023 election cycle will usher in new leaders in a position to take on each of these deficiencies. The governor’s mansion is fair game. We’ll have a new attorney general. The insurance commissioner’s race will be competitive. The next wave of term limits is falling like dominoes in the legislature. And BESE, the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, will see more than half its members replaced – three due to term limits and three gubernatorial appointees likely swapped out.

Regardless of who is elected, state government WILL be profoundly changed after this fall’s ballots are counted. And trends point to a single party owning the outcome.

“The Republicans will hold the reins like never before,” says Dr. Albert Samuels, Southern University’s Political Science and History department head. And not just a majority–in the case of the state legislature, a powerful majority that can control outcomes and hold off vetoes.

“It’s really astonishing to think about this,” he says, putting it into perspective. “In 1991, which really wasn’t that long ago, there was one Republican elected statewide; Fox McKeithen. And now, in 2023 the Republicans have a clean sweep. Whatever bills or policy comes out of this, you know, the Republicans now own it.”

But are they talking about opportunity and claiming this responsibility as they take first steps on the campaign trail?

Barry Erwin, President of the Council for A Better Louisiana says not yet, but look to this spring’s legislative session for signs. A fiscal session, this shorter, limited session restricts each legislator to filing only five non-fiscal bills, and he predicts a tarot card assortment of signals being sent.

“To me you’ll see a full wide range of discussion because it’s an election year,” he says. “On the one hand, you’ve got a lot of freshmen legislators who are running for the first time as incumbents. They haven’t ever done that before. So how are they going to react? Are they going to be bold and say, ‘It’s election year, this is my last chance before the election, I want to do something bold or at least put out some bold ideas?’ Or cautious because they don’t want to rock any boats?”

On the other hand, he says, are the term-limited legacy-builders, in a key position of seniority, influence and experience to take on Louisiana’s big challenges. “This is their last bite at the apple and sort of the question is, do they want to try and do some something substantive this last go round? I do think you may have some that are kind of seeing the time slip away and say, ‘this is my last chance to do something in some areas that I’ve been maybe working on for some time, maybe I’ll have a big push to try and do that or do whatever I can as a last accomplishment in this area that’s important to me?’”

Erwin says the other conversation to watch is among BESE members and candidates, with significant unfinished business setting the tone for this fall’s campaign chatter on major issues like accountability, measuring growth and career and technical training paths. He agrees public education is one of the main areas to address, along with infrastructure, insurance and our tax system, but says even these election-year conversations can have an impact.

“I don’t think these are issues we can fix overnight,” he says. “But I do think what we can do, during this period, is begin to send messages that we are addressing those things. I think sometimes the messaging is almost as powerful as the actual getting it done. If we send a message that, on at least a number of these things, we recognize them, we are working on them, and we’re going to fix them. I think that helps a lot right there because you feel better about moving into a state where they’ve got challenges but, look, they’re working on them and they’re looking at solution-oriented responses.”

Waguespack believes it’s time to intentionally curate that conversation.

“The challenge is there’s no clear vision for where the state’s going to go,” he says. “Even right now when you talk to candidates and others, it’s still a little unclear. What is the direction the state wants to go? What is the direction the leaders are going to go? So it’s imperative that we put together a game plan for this state.”

To that end, LABI has embarked on a strategic planning journey called “LA23,” a bold initiative to position Louisiana as an economic leader in the South by 2030, crafted through extensive research and a vetting process with a broad array of stakeholders. The idea is to first define those key issues stifling opportunity for businesses and families, set a vision for what improving those issues looks like, offer policy guidance for how to achieve those outcomes and get it into the conversation of the people who will be in a position to implement the plan as they seek election.

In other words, creating the statewide alignment needed to summon another political unicorn. Because implementing bold moves will take that rare alignment, especially if it’s an eight-year process.

“What we’re trying to do with LA23 is identify both the deficiencies and the opportunities, and then the actions to get you there,” says Ted Abernathy, managing partner of Economic Leadership LLC, and lead project consultant for LA23. “This is what strategic planning is all about. Where are you, where do you want to be and what does it take to get you from here to there?”

Identifying those actions is the energizing process getting underway this spring, seizing the historic opportunity for course correction and guiding next steps, and keeping those steps pointed in the same direction. But first, baby steps–identifying the actions Louisiana must take.

“Where do you want to be? What are your expectations for your state? What is acceptable to you?” asks Abernathy. “And if we can identify where that is, then the only question is to identify what types of specific actions, investment, strategies or legislation it will take to get you from where you are to where you want to be. And that’s all built on a presumption that where you are isn’t good enough.”

For now, says Waguespack, where we are is at a hopeful precipice; the crossroads of necessity, opportunity and aspiration.

“We need to spend the next decade doing whatever it takes to join the ranks of the states in the South that are booming to get on that top pedestal with states like Texas, Georgia and Florida and claim what is rightfully ours,” says Waguespack, “which is at the top tier of southern states benefiting from an economic expansion into this region. We have the resources to be there, we have the workforce and the people and the culture to be there and 2023 is giving us the opportunity to put an elected official roster together that understands this mission, appreciates this game plan and is determined to see it to fruition.” 

LA23, which will serve as a roadmap for Louisiana’s future, will be released in late summer or early fall of this year and will be featured in the fall issue of 5th & Main magazine.

It’s bold. It’s aggressive. And it’s personal. It’s the future of Louisiana. And if you live here, work here and are engaged in our communities, then you want to see Louisiana thrive just as much as we do. That’s why LABI is spearheading an initiative called LA23 to position our state as a top-tier economic leader in the South by the year 2030.

LA23 is a collaborative, data-driven process in the works now that will serve as a road map for Louisiana’s new leadership elected in the fall to drive our future for the next decade. In February, LABI hosted its first round of regional listening sessions to garner feedback on top issues from areas around the state. We heard from business and community leaders on the concern for education and workforce development, the impact of crime, and the struggle over the tax structure among other issues. This process of gathering qualitative data will help shape the scope of the project. Experts will then be consulted to do a deep dive on each major issue to create best practices for Louisiana’s future.

“We’re asking each region ‘What do you have in terms of strengths and weaknesses? What are the most critical concerns in your area?’,” says Stephen Waguespack, president and CEO of LABI. “This is not a ‘recover from tragedy’ plan like Louisiana has been so used to doing. We are not playing defense. We are playing offense.”

The cohesive plan, created by regional and national experts, will be revealed in the fall issue of 5th & Main magazine and will be part of a regional LA23 roadshow taking place in the third and fourth quarter of 2023. This next election cycle will prove to be a significant one, with many new men and women taking office. LA23 will include all the data and the best practices needed as well as the tracking necessary to insure future growth for years to come.

“Opportunity is at hand and coincides with a critical election year,” says Waguespack. “With your help, your investment and your involvement, we all have the opportunity to write a new script for Louisiana through LA23.”

Turn the page for more LA23 details.