HHS Secretary RFK Jr. falsely claimed measles vaccine was never fully safety tested
Statement: It's 'all true' that the measles vaccine wanes quickly, was never fully safety tested and contains fetal debris.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s comments about the measles vaccine briefly took center stage during his May 14 Senate testimony.
Kennedy appeared before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to discuss Health and Human Services' 2026 budget, and senators questioned him about the 2025 measles outbreak that has killed three people, including two children.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., questioned Kennedy's statements about the measles vaccine.
"You have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine," Murphy said. "You told the public that the vaccine wanes very quickly. You went on the 'Dr. Phil' show and said that the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there's fetal debris in the measles vaccine."
Kennedy answered, "All true. All true."
Murphy tried to point to Kennedy's remarks from his testimony earlier the same day, but Kennedy interrupted:
Murphy: "This morning, in front of — "
Kennedy: "Do you want me to lie to the public?"
Murphy: "That's not — None of that is true."
Kennedy: "Of course it's true."
Before becoming the nation's top public health official, Kennedy notched two decades of work as a leader in the antivaccine movement.
Kennedy's inaccurate statements mischaracterize how the measles vaccine is made, how it was tested and how it works. Infectious disease and vaccine experts told PolitiFact that the two-dose MMR vaccine provides lifelong protection; that scientists safety tested it before it was approved for use; and that it does not contain human fetal cells or whole fetal DNA.
We contacted HHS and received no response.
In early April, Kennedy told CBS News that measles persists because the vaccine's effectiveness decreases fast. "We're always going to have measles, no matter what happens, because the vaccine wanes very quickly," he said.
That's inaccurate, vaccine experts said.
The measles vaccine is part of a combination vaccine known as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or the MMR vaccine. It also can include the varicella vaccine, called the MMRV vaccine.
Two infectious disease doctors and a vaccinology professor told PolitiFact that when people receive the measles vaccine's recommended two doses, it provides strong, long-lasting protection against measles infection.
"You will have about a 97% chance of being protected and that protection will extend lifelong," said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
That matches what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — an agency Kennedy oversees — says about the measles vaccine's efficacy.
The MMR's measles vaccine "provides one of our most remarkably durable and long-lasting protective vaccine-induced antibodies," said Patsy Stinchfield, a retired pediatric nurse practitioner and the immediate past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Measles antibodies might decrease over time, but that doesn't mean a person's vaccine-induced protection against measles infection is waning, experts said.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said that to be protected against disease, "all you need is immunological memory cells," Offit said. When you're exposed to the virus, there's plenty of time for those memory cells to become activated and trigger the immune system to make measles antibodies, he said.
For other diseases covered by the MMR vaccine, the protection can wane over time, said Paulo Verardi, a University of Connecticut virology and vaccinology professor. That's true of mumps immunity, for example, so people who got vaccinated as children might be less protected from infection as adults, he said. But the measles vaccine doesn't have that issue, he said.
"It is rare for someone who has been vaccinated to get measles, and if they do, it is usually a mild case," Verardi said. "Most outbreaks happen not because the vaccine wears off quickly, but because not enough people are vaccinated."
During a town hall hosted by TV personality Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, Kennedy said, "The measles vaccine works," and said HHS recommends vaccination against measles. But there are "problems" with the vaccine, Kennedy added.
"The problem is — it's really with the mumps portion of the vaccine and the combination — and it was never safety tested," he said.
"That combination was never safety tested, and people just assumed that, you know, if the three separate vaccines were safe, then when you combined them they would be safe. But we now know there's some viral interference."
Varardi said U.S. regulators approved the first combined MMR vaccine in 1971 "after extensive clinical testing to make sure it was safe and worked well."
Kennedy also often talks about testing vaccines against placebos — inactive substances that provide no protection against disease — and HHS recently announced potential changes to vaccine testing that would require placebo testing.
When the MMR vaccine was combined, research had shown that each of the components was safe and effective individually, and it isn't always ethical to test them against placebos that would leave test subjects unprotected from infection, Offit said.
Fortunately, Offit said, we have "about 50 years of data" on the billions of doses of the MMR vaccine that have been administered.
Schaffner said scientists continue to monitor the MMR vaccine's safety. Ongoing vaccine safety surveillance is important to catch extremely rare side effects.
A Finland MMR vaccine study found that 5.3 in every 100,000 people vaccinated experienced serious adverse reactions. A 2021 study found that among 12,032 vaccinated people, four people reported serious vaccine-related events.
During an April 30 News Nation interview, Kennedy said some people "have religious objections to the vaccination, because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles, so they don't want to take it."
The MMR vaccine contains weakened live viruses, and viruses must be grown in cells.
The measles and mumps viruses are grown in chicken embryo cells and the rubella virus is grown in human fetal cells, which first came from an elective abortion performed in the early 1960s and have been replicated in labs and used to manufacture vaccines for decades.
Before it becomes a vaccine component, the virus is extracted from the cells where it is grown and then it is weakened and treated with an enzyme that fragments any remaining DNA, Offit said.
So, does the MMR vaccine contain "fetal debris," fetal cells or whole fetal DNA? No, said Offit and Varardi.
Whatever DNA is present from the original cell line used to grow the virus likely could be measured in picograms, "meaning trillionths of a gram," Offit said.
The origin of the cells used to grow the virus has historically sparked religious concerns. Religious leaders including the Catholic Pontifical Academy for Life concluded that it is both morally permissible and responsible to use the vaccine, the Catholic News Agency reported.
Kennedy told Murphy that it's "all true" that the measles vaccine wanes quickly, was never fully tested for safety and contains fetal debris.
Scientists say the measles vaccine offers lifelong protection that is 97% effective at preventing the virus. Scientists tested the MMR vaccine before it was approved for use and perform ongoing safety surveillance research; studies show that serious adverse effects are rare.
Finally, the MMR vaccine may contain trace amounts of fragmented DNA, but it does not contain whole fetal cells or fetal DNA.
We rate Kennedy's statement False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
PBS News, WATCH: RFK Jr. defends his questioning of measles vaccine while saying he recommends it, May 14, 2025
Interview with Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, May 15, 2025
Interview with Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, May 15, 2025
Email interview with Paulo Verardi, virology and vaccinology professor at the University of Connecticut, May 15, 2025
Email interview with Patsy Stinchfield, a retired pediatric nurse practitioner and the immediate past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, May 16, 2025
Dr. Phil Primetime on YouTube, Inside RFK Jr.'s Health Agenda 100 Days In | Dr. Phil Primetime, April 30, 2025
Medical News Today, Fact check: How long does protection from the measles vaccines last? April 16, 2025
CBS News, Watch: RFK Jr.'s first network TV interview as HHS secretary, April 9, 2025
Reuters, US Health secretary Kennedy revives misleading claims of 'fetal debris' in measles shots, May 1, 2025
Health, Fact Check: Does the MMR Vaccine Really Contain 'Aborted Fetus Debris'? May 2, 2025
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Vaccine Ingredients: Fetal Cells, accessed May 15, 2025
New York, RFK Jr. Claims the MMR Vaccine Contains 'Aborted Fetus Debris,' May 1, 2025
CIDRAP, Texas announces second measles death in unvaccinated child, April 7, 2025
NBC News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. falsely claims measles vaccine protection 'wanes very quickly,' April 11, 2025
The Guardian, RFK Jr and health agency falsely claim MMR vaccine includes 'aborted fetus debris,' May 1, 2025
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Measles Vaccine Recommendations, accessed May 16, 2025
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Alert Network, Expanding Measles Outbreak in the United States and Guidance for the Upcoming Travel Season, March 7, 2025
Medpage Today, Here's How We Know Vaccines Are Safe and Effective, May 15, 2025
Science News, HHS says new vaccines should be tested against placebos. They already are, May 14, 2025
News Nation YouTube channel, RFK Jr.: Measles cases in US not as bad as in other countries | CUOMO Town Hall: Trump's First 100 D, April 30, 2025
The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Serious adverse events after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination during a fourteen-year prospective follow-up, December 2000
The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Evaluation of the Safety and Immunogenicity of M-M-RII (Combination Measles-mumps-rubella Vaccine), November 2021
Cleveland Clinic, MMR Vaccine, accessed May 16, 2025
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About the Vaccine MMR and MMRV Vaccine Composition and Dosage, accessed May 16, 2025
Catholic News Agency, What does the Catholic Church teach about vaccines? May 6, 2019
The Reporter Lansdale Pennsylvania, Merck Vaccine Tests Completed, Dec. 17, 1971
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: RFK Jr. falsely claimed measles vaccine was never fully safety tested
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
America might finally make childbirth free
is a policy correspondent for Vox covering social policy. She focuses on housing, schools, homelessness, child care, and abortion rights, and has been reporting on these issues for more than a decade. As politicians grapple with declining birth rates, the financial burden of giving birth in America — where privately insured families face out-of-pocket costs of nearly $3,000 on average — has captured widespread attention. Last month, when news broke that the Trump administration was considering $5,000 baby bonuses for new parents, comedian Taylor Tomlinson captured the national frustration: 'That's like spritzing a volcano with a water gun.' A recent viral TikTok showing one mother's $44,000 hospital bill shocked viewers worldwide, underscoring the uniquely brutal pressures facing American families. Now, a rare bipartisan solution could directly address at least the problem of expensive childbirth. The Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act, introduced in the Senate last week, would require private insurance companies to fully cover all childbirth-related expenses — from prenatal care and ultrasounds to delivery, postpartum care, and mental health treatment — without any co-pays or deductibles. (Medicaid, which insures roughly 41 percent of American births, already covers these costs.) The bill was introduced by Republican Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS) and Josh Hawley (MO), and Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (VA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY). A companion bipartisan version is expected in the House soon, with Democratic Rep. Jared Golden (ME) among the forthcoming cosponsors. Perhaps most striking are the bill's endorsees: organizations that typically find themselves on opposite sides of reproductive health debates. Supporters include the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Association, and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, alongside prominent anti-abortion groups including Americans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Students for Life, and Live Action. While the White House has not yet weighed in, Vice President JD Vance championed the idea during his Senate tenure. He publicly called the free childbirth proposal 'interesting' in January 2023, and his office had been preparing bipartisan legislation on the issue last year before being tapped to join the Trump campaign. Notably, Vance's former Senate staffer Robert Orr, who led the childbirth bill initiative, now works for Hawley. Some abortion rights advocacy groups, too, have expressed approval. Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director at Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, told me her organization 'proudly supports' the bill. Dorianne Mason, the director of health equity at the National Women's Law Center, said they are 'encouraged' to see the bipartisan effort. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Action Fund said the group is still reviewing the bill but 'generally supports legislation to make the cost of maternal health care and parenting more affordable.' Reproductive Freedom For All declined to comment. While questions remain about whether eliminating childbirth costs would actually boost birth rates or reduce abortions — as various supporters hope — there's little doubt it would provide crucial relief to families who have already chosen to have children. The unlikely alliance behind the bill traces back to an unexpected source: a journalist's challenge to the anti-abortion movement. How the free childbirth bill would work The Affordable Care Act already requires insurers to cover essential health benefits, like birth control and cancer screenings, at no cost to patients. This new bill would expand the list of essential health benefits to include prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, and require these services also to be free. The costs would be paid by insurance companies and modest increases in premiums for the 178 million people primarily covered by private plans. On average, premiums would go up by approximately $30 annually, according to an analysis from the Niskanen Center think Mansell, the Niskanen policy analyst who ran the cost modeling, told me he thinks this proposal is the simplest way, on an administrative level, to make birth free. The trade-off, though, is instability: employer-sponsored coverage can disappear just when families need it most, since people often lose their jobs during pregnancy. The bill started with a challenge to the anti-abortion movement The bill to cover childbirth costs under private health insurance has an unusual origin story compared to most pieces of legislation in Washington, DC, and reflects evolving factions within the anti-abortion movement. In early July 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Elizabeth Bruenig, a staff writer at the Atlantic, published a piece urging the anti-abortion movement to take up the cause of making birth free. 'It's time the pro-life movement chose life,' Bruenig, who identifies as pro-life but opposes criminal bans on abortion, wrote. She recommended expanding Medicare to cover the costs, just as Medicare was expanded to cover dialysis and kidney transplants in the early 1970s. Her article cited examples of staggering medical bills, such as one couple charged $10,000 for delivering in Texas and another $24,000 in Indiana. The piece made waves within an anti-abortion movement that was grasping for its next move after the Supreme Court struck down Roe. 'She was really challenging the pro-lifers on this issue, and we found the idea super interesting,' said Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America. Catherine Glenn Foster, then the president and CEO of Americans United for Life, responded a week after publication, praising Bruenig's piece and adding, 'Making birth free should be table stakes as a political matter. I'll work to advance this.' Democrats for Life and Americans United for Life teamed up, and in January 2023 the two organizations released a white paper, fleshing out the 'Make Birth Free' policy in more detail. The authors thanked Bruenig in the acknowledgements for pushing them to take on the idea, and it was this white paper that caught the eye of Vance in the Senate. John Mize, who succeeded Glenn Foster as CEO of Americans United for Life in January 2024, said the Bruenig article arrived at exactly the right moment. He acknowledges his movement 'missed the mark' by being so singularly focused on banning abortion for so many years. 'I think there's been a little bit of paradigm shift in some of the movement — not by all, by any means — but certainly by some parts' to better support women and families. He pointed to the Blueprint for Life coalition which launched in June 2024 to promote more holistic family policies, and he noted that some anti-abortion groups are newly advocating for policies like expanding the Child Tax Credit and paid family leave. Still, many leading anti-abortion advocates and lawmakers have been leading the push to cut federal spending on programs like child care, food assistance, and maternal health care. The Heritage Foundation called the original proposal to make childbirth costs free an 'unjust wealth transfer' and others protested the risk of more 'socialism' in health care as too great. When Bruenig's piece was originally published, she faced fierce pushback from the left. Critics felt the article was insensitive, implicitly endorsing the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe, and offering 'fanfic' for a right-wing movement historically opposed to a robust welfare state. Political science professor Scott Lemieux called the piece 'cringe' and 'embarrassing' and 'deluded.' Others said she was pitching 'forced birth but make it free.' The left-wing backlash ultimately prompted Bruenig to quit Twitter. Bruenig says she never expected much uptake on the idea, but is encouraged by recent changes. 'For the last 10 years or more I have contended that the best way to deal with abortion is on the demand side, by creating a welfare system that gives people an honest choice,' she told me. 'There's been, for better or worse, a shift in the way Republicans are thinking about these kinds of in the center, and I'm very impressed to see some uptake on the idea.'She says she's not surprised there was criticism, but was writing for 'people who are persuadable when it comes to what the pro-life movement should be about.' She added that she embraces the 'pro-life' label despite opposing abortion bans because 'I don't think the pro-ban people should get to decide what counts as pro-life policy or philosophy.' The political road ahead Bill supporters are cautiously hopeful about the road ahead for the legislation. The timing reflects converging forces that have created an unusual window for bipartisan family policy. President Donald Trump's election, combined with growing concerns about declining birth rates, has coincided with a shift among some conservatives toward more proactive family policies. Meanwhile, Democrats see an opportunity to advance maternal health goals. The legislation also benefits from political cover on both sides. Republicans can champion it as pro-family policy that potentially reduces abortions, while Democrats can support it as expanding health care access. Crucially, because it doesn't require new government spending but instead redistributes costs through the existing private insurance system, it sidesteps typical fights over federal budget increases. But challenges remain. The upcoming reconciliation process will test whether Republicans prioritize fiscal restraint or family policy when forced to choose. And while Vance previously supported the free birth idea, the administration faces pressure from fiscal conservatives who view any insurance mandates as market interference. Not all conservatives will be thrilled at the idea of tinkering with the Affordable Care Act or facing accusations of supporting socialized medicine. Bill supporters hope the momentum for pronatalist policies might help to combat those kinds of criticisms, though other conservatives have pointed to falling birth rates in places with single-payer health care, the legislation has attracted support from heavyweight conservative intellectuals. Yuval Levin, the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a policy brief earlier this year urging Congress to embrace making childbirth free, even if it doesn't affect birth rates. 'Substantively and symbolically, bringing the out-of-pocket health care costs of childbirth to zero is an ambitious but achievable starting point for the next generation of pro-family policies,' he Brown, a family policy analyst at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center tells me he thinks it's 'the right instinct' to share the costs of parenting more broadly across society, though he hopes it does not 'distract from more broad-based efforts to help parents' such as a larger Child Tax Credit. Mize, of Americans United for Life, has been in 'the planning phases' of working with the White House on family policy. He thinks once the reconciliation bill is done, Republicans and Democrats could either retreat to their camps ahead of the midterms or decide to work together on achievable wins. 'You could see level-headed people say, 'Hey, this is one opportunity for us to put a feather in our cap and say that we're working on a bipartisan basis with our constituents,'' he said.A Senate staffer working on the bill, who requested anonymity to more candidly discuss their plans, said their intention is to move the bill through normal order and attach it to a must-pass legislative package. Both Hawley and Kaine sit on the Senate HELP committee, which holds jurisdiction over the bill. Rep. Golden, who is working on preparing the House version, said they're hoping to introduce their bill within the next week or two.'While some debates over what that should look like can be complicated or contentious, this idea is simple and powerful: Pregnancy and childbirth are normal parts of family life,' he told Vox. 'So, insurance companies should treat it like the routine care it is and cover the cost, not stick people with huge medical bills. That's the kind of simple, commonsense reform that anyone can get behind. '
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The piece of the Mass. budget that passes all understanding
If there's one thing that's true about politics, it's that voters rarely care about how legislation gets done as long as it gets done in a relatively timely fashion, doesn't cost the Earth and manages to make their little corner of creation a tiny bit better. That's particularly true during budget season on Beacon Hill, which has now officially entered that precarious stage where, if things are going to go wrong, they are going to go wrong in the most gloriously spectacular way possible. Here's why: The competing $61 billion-ish budget plans approved by the majority-Democrat state House and state Senate, respectively, along with the $62 billion iteration offered by Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, all increase state spending from the year before. The $61.5 billion budget the Senate approved last week, for instance, comes in $70.3 million less than the budget approved by the House, and $568.1 million less than the spending plan that Healey sent to lawmakers earlier this year. Senate lawmakers nonetheless ladled on $81.1 million in new spending before they took their vote, according to an analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Senate lawmakers also set up difficult policy fights with the House on liquor license and vocational school reform and health care matters, Axios Boston noted. Thus, there is a high likelihood that things could go screaming off the rails. Then there's this. The Senate plunged forward with its version of the fiscal blueprint for the new fiscal year that starts July 1 by assuming that the $16 billion in federal funding that provides the undercarriage for their budget plan is still going to be there for them. Ditto for the House and Healey. That's despite some deeply ominous sabre-rattling from Washington. Though Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Michael Rodriques, D-1st Bristol/Plymouth, has warned 'all bets are off' if Congress moves ahead, as expected, with deep cuts to Medicaid. At first glance, this is kind of like splashing out for that lease on the Rolls-Royce, expecting you'll have the cash to cover it, and then hoping for the best if you don't. The pro-business Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance was decidedly not amused by that tactic, also noting that senators added tens of millions of new spending, even as they sounded the alarm about 'uncertainty' from Washington, D.C. And spending will likely grow even more once the House and Senate cut a deal on the final budget sometime later next month or early July, the think-tank observed. 'There's simply no credibility left for lawmakers who talk about fiscal uncertainty while voting for the largest budget in state history,' Paul D. Craney, the group's spokesperson, said in a statement. If lawmakers were 'serious about economic uncertainty, they would have tightened the belt, not let it out,' Craney continued. He's not wrong. Just this week, Healey and Democratic U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey were in Revere sounding the alarm about looming GOP cuts to Medicaid on Capitol Hill. Read More: A 'historic battle': Mass pols protest Medicaid cuts in 'Big Beautiful Bill' | John L. Micek Michael Curry, the president & CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, has warned that MassHealth, as Medicaid is known in the Bay State, bluntly said the program would be 'unsustainable without the federal partnership, the federal funds.' That's about as clear a warning shot as lawmakers are going to get. MassHealth is among the biggest fixed costs in the state budget. And federal cuts will mean higher costs and a strain on the state's health care system, Curry told Commonwealth Beacon last week. Still, the Legislature — as a public institution — has a flexibility that private employers and families balancing their checkbooks don't have, Jerold Duquette, a Central Connecticut State University political science professor who tracks Bay State politics, said. And that's the ability to pass supplemental budgets and access the state's multi-billion dollar Rainy Day Fund — even if top budget writers have said the latter option is currently off the table. So while planning a budget where a large chunk of funding may disappear seems irrational, 'what they are doing is rational,' Duquette said 'The reason we think it's irrational is because they're politicians,' Duquette said. 'Why would you make the assumption that you're going to lose an effort to keep the money? This is not kicking the can. It's the exactly rational thing to do.' Lawmakers have until midnight on June 30 to get a deal on a new budget. They haven't hit that deadline in years, though Rodriques repeatedly has told reporters that he's optimistic that they will this year. It requires the same kind of suspension of disbelief that Duquette's analysis demands. But if Beacon Hill is anything, it's stubbornly rational in its irrationality. So who knows? A 'historic battle': Mass pols protest Medicaid cuts in 'Big Beautiful Bill' | John L. Micek Mass. Rep. Trahan's 'Les Miz' moment on Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' | Bay State Briefing Mass. budget debate points to a subtle but seismic shift on Beacon Hill | John L. Micek Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Defying Landry, Louisiana lawmakers reject giving him more control over licensing boards
Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, left, greets Gov. Jeff Landry as Landry leaves the House Chamber with his son, JT Landry, right, after speaking on opening day of legislative session, Monday, April 14, 2025, at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate-Pool) In defiance of Gov. Jeff Landry, a Louisiana Senate committee rejected a proposal to give him more authority over appointees to 32 government boards and commissions, nearly half of which help regulate health care providers. The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 4-3 against House Bill 603 Wednesday that would have allowed the governor to appoint members to state licensing boards without input from others. Currently, the governor has to pick these board members from lists of nominees provided by trade associations and industry leaders in the applicable field. Landry was seeking more authority over boards ranging from those that regulate certified public accountants, plumbers and engineers to ones overseeing nurses, dentists and physical therapists. The number of appointees Landry would have selected varied from group to group. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The legislation's author, Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, said the current appointment system is problematic because it lets professional trade groups pick their own regulators. 'The thought was to protect the consumer,' McMakin said at a public hearing this week. Sen. Greg Miller, R-Norco, backed McMakin's bill and shared his concerns about the current structure of the boards. 'The people who are supposed to be regulated are actually the ones doing the regulating,' Miller said. The bill closely resembles law changes Landry got approved last year that have already consolidated the governor's power over state appointees. State lawmakers gave Landry the ability to appoint the chairs of 150 state boards and commissions directly instead of relying on the boards to pick their own leaders. These boards include the 32 Landry hoped to gain more control over through McMakin's bill. Legislators also made changes in 2024 to the board of the Louisiana Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority to give the governor more say-so on members of that panel. The legislature also permitted the governor more power over appointees to the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Landry now gets to pick his appointees directly instead of having to choose from lists of nominees from Louisiana's private college and university leaders. On Wednesday, Senate committee members indicated the governor's previous power grabs made them wary of handing Landry more authority. 'Don't you think that the way the bill is .. strips away the voice of the particular industry to offer up potential nominees?' asked Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, who voted against McMakin's legislation. 'It makes it, in a sense, purely political.' 'This kind of gives even more power to an already powerful executive branch,' Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, said. 'I have grave concerns about it.' McMakin said safeguards already in place make sure the governor selects qualified board members. The governor's appointees have to meet certain standards to serve, such as holding an occupational license in the field they would have to regulate. The governor's appointees also do not make up the majority of any of the licensing boards in his bill, McMakin said. Sen. Larry Selders, D-Baton Rouge, remained unconvinced that the governor should be given more authority. 'Where is the protection? Last year, we gave the governor the authority to appoint the chairmen. Now, we are giving the governor the authority to put two or three people – or various numbers – on different committees. And so when is it going to change again next year?' Selders said, before voting against the legislation. Despite the legislation failing, McMakin said the governor's office could find a way to revive it before the legislature ends its session June 12. 'The bill is not dead,' he said in an interview. Legislators have shown less tolerance for growing the governor's authority, however. A constitutional amendment aimed at giving the governor two at-large appointees to the five-member Public Service Commission failed to get off the ground earlier this spring. Landry's push to give him more sway over appointees to a New Orleans-area flood protection agency board has also died this session. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
