Many questions remain about proposed changes in rushed constitutional convention

Shannon Heckt
·4 min read
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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Governor Jeff Landry is pushing to make reforms to the state constitution. Some legislators and advocates are concerned that those reforms will lead to sweeping changes and there is not a lot of insight into what is to be altered.

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The state constitution has not been rewritten since 1974. Since then, hundreds of constitutional amendments have been tacked onto the now bloated document. Landry is not looking to rewrite the constitution, but rather move parts of it into statute to make it easier for the legislature to make changes without asking the voters to approve amendments.

“It’s not really so much what I want, it is what they believe they need to help address some of the budget shortfalls and to do the tax reforms and to clean things up for the state,” Landry said.

HB800 lays out the groundwork of how the convention will work. The 105 members of the state House and 29 members of the state Senate will serve as delegates. The governor gets to appoint 27 delegates. Each group has to agree on the changes to the constitution to make it on the fall ballot where the voters will ultimately give the up or down on the changes.

The legislature has been pushed to wrap up the majority of their work, including the operating budget, before May 20 for the constitutional convention to gavel in. It would last until June 3, about two weeks. Landry said the reason behind not waiting to do the convention later in his administration is that he wants it on the same ballot as the presidential race, which often brings out higher voter turnout.

“The timing, unfortunately, is rushed because we want the most people in this state to have a say in the work that they do,” Landry said. “The process allows us to ensure that some of the sacrosanct things that the people of this state want and demand in our Constitution remain in their constitution.”

Some lawmakers and advocates have shared concerns about the speed at which the convention is being put together and the short window to get their work done.

“Constitutional Convention, yes. Is needed in this short time frame without having all of these concerns that I and other representatives have –that’s a big concern for me,” said state Rep. Candance Newell, D-New Orleans.

There were multiple hearings in the House and Governmental Affairs to hear public testimony and for legislators to ask questions about the process. There have only been broad ideas shared on what the plan is for the changes. State Rep. Beau Beaulieu said the administration wants to see some of the constitutions put into statute – meaning the legislature will more easily be able to make changes without having to change things through amendments.

One example of a change is that the state is facing a $ 500 million shortfall in the budget next year when the temporary half-cent sales tax rolls off. Lawmakers can only make cuts to higher education and healthcare to fill those gaps. They want to change it so there would be more pots of money to pull from.

In past constitutional conventions, the legislators were not the delegates voting on the changes. People from their districts were elected by the public. Some lawmakers are pushing for elected delegates.

State Rep. Ed Larvadain, D-Alexandria, brought up a part of the bill that allows for outside money to fund the convention. He feels this will lead to outside special interests having sway over the policy decisions of the convention.

“What scares me is that we’re going to bring in private dollars and private dollars or can control the whole operation,” Larvadain said.

An amendment was added to the bill stating the chairman of the House and Governmental Affairs committee does not intend to alter articles 1-4 of the state constitution that largely are declarations of rights. It does not guarantee those articles will not be changed in the convention.

There have been questions over if enough legislators, especially on the Senate side, will agree to hold a convention this year.

The bill setting up the framework for this constitutional convention now heads to the full House. It will also need to be approved by a Senate committee and the full chamber before it is fully approved and even farther to go before the proposed changes are on the ballot for voters.

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