BATON ROUGE, La. ( Louisiana Illuminator ) - Louisiana lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a set of dramatic changes to state ethics laws Wednesday that will make it much more difficult to charge elected officials and public employees with misconduct.

House Bill 674 alters the process the state ethics board used to bring charges against Gov. Jeff Landry two years ago that are still pending.

Landry’s charges won’t be affected by the legislation, but he pushed for the bill and is expected to let it pass into law. The governor’s personal attorney, Stephen Gelé, helped craft the language contained in it.

Beyond making it harder to bring ethics charges, the legislation also loosens limits on elected officials’ and state employees’ state travel, weakens restrictions on government co

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