07/31/2026
Y’all know I have never needed a matching T-shirt to say exactly what I mean. Conveniently, that remains true. 🫶🏽
After one year with Little Lobbyists, I have stepped down from my role as state lead of Little Lobbyists Louisiana, and will no longer be representing or advocating under the Little Lobbyists umbrella.
Little Lobbyists has spent years helping families of children with complex medical needs show lawmakers what their decisions look like at home. I have been proud to bring my experience as a parent, attorney, policymaker, and advocate to that mission in Louisiana.
I am damn proud of what our Louisiana partnership accomplished in one year. We showed up, testified, organized families, built relationships, and made sure Louisiana’s children with disabilities and their families were harder to ignore. We helped pass laws and helped make sure lawmakers heard directly from the families expected to live with their policies.
Of course, a change in affiliation does not erase any of that work or the people who did it.
I am grateful for the platform Little Lobbyists provided and proud of what we accomplished together. The substance of that work came, as always, from family-advocates who understood Louisiana and the families who trusted us with what they were facing.
I wish Little Lobbyists all the best, and all of us are parting ways with a clearer understanding of our respective priorities, and I think that clarity will serve everyone.
Louisiana still has thousands of people waiting for home and community-based services. Rural hospitals and clinics are still cutting services, while others remain at risk of closure. Families are still being forced to fight their way through a failing health care system.
Meanwhile, Louisiana was perfectly willing to join a lawsuit challenging the right of people with disabilities to receive services in their communities. The state stopped appearing in later pleadings once the DOJ decided they wouldn't enforce the underlying law.
Last summer, I wrote an open letter attempting to sound the alarm about the concerted efforts to use homelessness as an excuse to lock people with disabilities up. Mental health remains a disability policy priority for me, including building crisis care that does not default to locking up disabled folks.
People with mental health disabilities will always have the space to voice their most difficult thoughts in the disability community I am trying to help build. I don't run a support group or anything, but saying we hold space rings hollow if all we do is tell people to take care of themselves and only make room for the easy parts of them. When I say you belong in this work, I mean YOU, not just the version of you that makes everyone else the most comfortable.
All the same problems are still here. So am I.
I’ve never needed a particular logo behind me to advocate. For me, advocating has always just been about Louisiana and the challenges our families face right now, and that will always remain unchanged.
It's just the t-shirt that's changing. The mouth is not. 😘
