Most readers see a councilmember's name on an agenda item and assume the idea is theirs. Two small words often say otherwise. A plain-language guide to spotting where a law actually came from.

By Kim M. Braud | September 26, 2026

If you have never sat through a New Orleans City Council meeting, the agenda can read like a foreign language. Long ordinance numbers. Blocks of legal phrasing. And beside almost every item, a councilmember's name.

That name is where most people stop. Cal. No. 35,384, by Councilmember Morrell. The natural assumption is that Morrell thought of it, wrote it, and wants it passed.

Sometimes that is exactly right. Often it is not. The tell is two words that appear in parentheses after the name: by request.

Start with the name at the top of each item

Every ordinance, motion, and resolution on the agenda is introduced by a councilmember. It has to be. The Council holds the city's lawmaking power, and only a member of the Council can introduce legislation and move it toward a vote.

So the name you see is the name of the sponsor: the member who formally introduced the item and put it into the process. Sponsorship is real. The member chose to carry it.

But sponsorship and authorship are not the same thing. The member who introduces a measure did not necessarily write it, and did not necessarily come up with it.

The name on the item tells you who introduced it. It does not always tell you whose idea it was.

What "by request" actually means

This is where the tag earns its place. The Council's own rules define it plainly. Under Rule 41, any legislative item that is not initiated by a councilmember on his or her own initiative is "by request."

In plain terms: someone outside the Council wanted this. A city department, an agency, or an outside party drafted the measure and asked a councilmember to introduce it. The member agreed to sponsor it, but the idea and the drafting came from somewhere else.

When you see "(by request)" after a name, the Council is telling you, right there on the page, that the item did not start with the person whose name it carries.

Why the tag exists at all

The reason traces back to that lawmaking rule. The mayor's administration cannot introduce legislation. Neither can a department head, a board, or a private applicant. Only a councilmember can.

So when the administration wants an ordinance passed, it has to find a member willing to carry it. The measure gets drafted downtown, handed to a council office, and introduced under that member's name, marked "by request."

The tag is the honest part of that arrangement. Rather than let an administration measure pass as if a councilmember dreamed it up, the label flags the true point of origin. It is a small piece of transparency built into the paperwork.

How to spot it on a real agenda

Look at the agenda for the regular meeting of September 3, 2026.

Cal. No. 35,384, the ordinance reshaping the city's sanitation fees, the charge that lands on your monthly bill, was introduced by Councilmember Morrell "by request." The tag tells you Morrell did not originate it. It came to him from outside the Council. What the tag does not tell you, by itself, is exactly who downtown asked for it. That name lives on a separate form, and it is where the next installment goes.

A few items down, Cal. No. 35,533, by Councilmember Harris "by request," authorizes the mayor to sign a servitude agreement for an encroachment on Tchoupitoulas Street. Routine city property housekeeping, drafted elsewhere, carried by the district member.

Now compare those to the items with no tag. Cal. No. 35,543, by Councilmember Willard, sets new standards for holding city contractors accountable. Cal. No. 35,530, by Councilmember Harris, reduces a housing fee and steers the money to the New Orleans Housing Trust Fund. No "by request" on either. Those are the members' own.

Read a full agenda this way and it starts to separate into two streams: the measures councilmembers originate, and the measures they carry for someone else.

Read the agenda this way and it splits in two: what the Council wants, and what the Council was asked to pass.

There is a paper trail, and it names names

Here is the part worth holding onto. A "by request" item is not supposed to arrive anonymously.

Rule 41 requires every one to come with a summary form that names the party responsible for initiating and drafting it, along with contact information, the background, and the reason it is needed. The councilmember initials that form to acknowledge sponsorship. Without it, the Clerk will not place the item on an agenda.

That form is the document that turns a label into a name. The agenda tells you an item came from outside the Council. The form tells you exactly who. Obtaining one, and reading what it reveals, is the subject of Part 2.

For now the takeaway is simpler. The next time you scan a council agenda, do not stop at the name. Check for the two words beside it. They tell you whether you are looking at a councilmember's idea, or someone else's.

Verify it yourself: the September 3, 2026 regular agenda is posted in the New Orleans City Council document archive at council.nola.gov. Rule 41 appears in the Council's Rules and Regulations, published at council.nola.gov.

Kim M. Braud is the Founder & Editor of Evans Cutchmore Press, an independent newsroom covering Louisiana and the Gulf South. Her reporting focuses on government accountability, infrastructure, business, culture, and the public policies that shape communities.

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