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Seafood rules, card surcharges, balloon release ban: See new Louisiana laws as of Aug. 1 2%
By Marco Cartolano4%
8/1/2026, 4:00:00 AM
Topics: Legislation, State Government
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Framing Effect, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.6% saturation with 118 hits. Analysis detected 851 faulty-reasoning hits from 754 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 8.8% and a BS Rank of 2% (24,767 of 25,260 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 98.00% of the article peer group.
A slew of new Louisiana laws went into effect on Aug.1, including some that will add criminal penalties for deepfakes, ban balloon-release events, eliminate debit card surcharges, and require annual investigations into voter rolls.
The Louisiana Legislature passed over 900 bills during its most recent session, several hundred of which are now active.
Here are a few of the most notable:
Deepfake laws
Louisiana passed several new laws to add criminal penalties for using artificial intelligence to produce child pornography and to protect K-12 students from deepfake material.
Act 892 expands the definition of “child sexual abuse material” in state law to include images created with AI, and Act 211 prohibits the use of a child's image to train AI to produce child pornography.
Act 496 further prohibits the use of deepfake material against students enrolled in K-12 schools.
Balloon release ban
Intentionally releasing a balloon or planning the organized release of 12 or more balloons is now banned in Louisiana.
Act 196 amends the state’s ban on intentional littering to include balloon releases outdoors by people 17 and over.
The release of balloons made with biodegradable or photobiodegradable materials, as well as the use of balloons for scientific, meteorological, and radio tracking purposes, are exempt from the law.
Protecting restaurant workers
Louisiana will get tougher on people who attack restaurant and front counter staff.
Act 892 enhances criminal penalties for assault and battery when the victims are employees in food and retail establishments.
The law comes after a Baton Rouge couple was accused in March of shooting a restaurant owner over a mistake in their food order.
Hazing education
Act 309 requires the state Board of Regents to develop a policy on hazing prevention and reporting with the colleges and schools.
It requires students to directly receive anti-hazing educational material and for Louisiana public and private schools that receive state funds to maintain an online database of reported hazing incidents.
Named after Caleb Wilson, a Southern University student who died last year in a fraternity hazing incident, the act was the result of a legislative task force that worked to address hazing in educational institutions across the state.
Debit card surcharges
Act 751 prohibits retail businesses from adding a surcharge to people who pay with debit cards.
However, before a cardholder can file a lawsuit against a business that uses a surcharge, the new law requires cardholders to give written notice to the business, which must reimburse the cardholder within 30 days.
Checking the voting rolls
State officials must now conduct annual investigations into whether non-citizens vote in elections.
Act 6 mandates that Louisiana annually check voters’ citizenship using the federal System Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE.
Last year, an investigation done by the Secretary of State’s office found that noncitizen voting was not a “systemic problem” in Louisiana and that of the almost 3 million Louisiana residents registered to vote, only 390 noncitizens did so illegally.
Immigrants’ access to benefits
Act 745 adds new reporting requirements to a law that limits which immigrants qualify for public benefits, including SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare.
The act also prohibits state agencies from giving applicants more time to prove their immigration status than the federal requirement.
Targeting improperly labelled seafood
Act 323 requires the labelling of foreign seafood and seafood “commingled” with foreign and domestic origins and places fines or penalties on processors and distributors for labelling such products as “domestic.”
The law is part of a wave of legislation aimed at protecting local shrimpers.
Removing church trespassers
Acts 115 and 148 expand the definition of “disturbing the peace” to include protests and disruptions at places of worship and allow the use of force to remove people who are disrupting services.
Gov.
Jeff Landry supported the laws as part of a wave of conservative backlash to ICE protesters derailing a church service in Minnesota in January.
Changing “gender” to “sex”
Act 814 requires all uses of “gender” to be swapped to “sex” in state law.
The law defines sex as “an individual's biological sex, either male or female, as observed or clinically certified at birth,” and says that gender identity “and other subjective terms shall not be used as synonyms or substitutes.”
Advocates say it provides a uniform definition of “sex” in the state and aligns it with human biology.
Critics say the law could create violations of gender discrimination law and target those who identify as transgender.
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