BATON ROUGE - Louisiana's new governor is in the nation's capital, for the state congressional delegation's annual Washington Mardi Gras festivities.

Gov. John Bel Edwards left Louisiana on Wednesday and is expected to return Sunday.

The Democratic governor, sworn into office on Jan. 11, was scheduled to meet Thursday with federal health officials to discuss the governor's plan to expand Louisiana's Medicaid program to cover an additional 300,000 people or more.

On Friday, he had a meeting planned with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to talk about Louisiana's requests for federal highway aid.

Edwards also had a sit-down planned with much of Louisiana's congressional delegation. Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter, who lost the governor's race to Edwards, was not on the list released by Edwards' office of those scheduled to attend.