Sarah Gamard/Manship School News Service
After news broke that U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot in the hip early Wednesday morning while practicing in a Virginia park for a charity baseball game later this week, the Louisiana Legislature and governor began their day gathered in prayer in the Capitol Rotunda.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, Sen. President John Alario, R-Westwego, and House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, led prayer for a Louisiana House members, who retired last night expecting to dedicate their day to a handful of fiscal bills.
The House convened just prior to noon, two and a half hours behind the scheduled start.
“It is just alarming that we have to continue to gather like this,” Barras said, referrring the Orlando Pulse shooting that prompted a similar prayer circle at the legislature one year ago.
“It has to stop,” Alario said about the regularity of attacks in the country.
The attending politicians, many of whom know Scalise personally, also prayed for the congressional aide and two Capitol police officers who were injured in the shooting, as well as Scalise’s chief of staff Charles Henry whose brother, Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, was on his way to Washington D.C., to be with his uninjured older sibling.
Henry, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee that moved the latest draft of the state operating budget for next fiscal year, authored three of the six bills on the House agenda today and was an anticipated centerpiece for the debate. It is uncertain when Henry plans to return, The special session must have its business completed prior to adjournment Monday.
Finance Committee vice chairman, Rep. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, is now expected to take his place in leading floor debate.
Scalise was in stable condition following surgery in a D.C.-area hospital.