March 29, 2025 Constitutional Amendments

Source: Public Domain

The first statewide election date of 2025 is upon us and once again the Legislature is asking citizens to amend the Louisiana Constitution. On March 29 citizens will be asked to determine the fate of 4 proposed Amendments to the Louisiana Constitution. There are also a several local items on the ballot, including:

• Clerk of Court (Karan Corley or Thomas David III)
• Police Juror-District B (Kevin Sasser or Randy Wiggins)
• Justice of the Peace-Ward 2 (Brian Hickman or Kevin Kitchen)
• Mayor-Town of Cheneyville (Ronny Green, Jr or Francis Mitchell)

You can get details on your ballot at the Secretary of State's website or by going to http://GeauxVote.com. 

For the past several years I have sought to provide a layman's guide to the amendments because they are (rightfully so) written in "legalese" in order to be factual, precise, and enforceable. Unfortunately, that means that sometimes they are not easily understood!

To guide my research I read as much as I can about the amendments as well as take in PAR's excellent guide to the amendments. I appreciate the work they put into explaining the issues and recommend that you take a look. However, it is a lot of reading, so below is my attempt to summarize each amendment in one or two paragraphs. Let's dive right in!

• CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 1 has two major components. One would clarify the authority the LA Supreme Court has to discipline out-of-state lawyers who engage in unscrupulous or improper conduct which goes against professional standards. The second part would allow the Legislature  (by 2/3 vote) to establish specialty courts that are not limited to parish and judicial district boundaries. One idea that has been floated is to create a "business court" to deal with complex litigation involving securities laws, corporate governance, and antitrust issues. There could also be specialty courts for larger territories than is currently allowed, thus spreading the financial load over a larger base and providing drug courts or behavioral health courts for rural areas that are currently underserved.
  
  
• CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 2 is by far the most complex amendment we've seen in awhile. The bill itself is 115 pages long with multiple companion bills that spread the effects through various provisions in state law. (Even PAR's simple explanation is 14 pages long!) This amendment is part of Governor Landry's Louisiana Forward* initiative to update the state tax code. (The link is to the Pelican Institute's explanation, which supports the initiative.) To be honest, there's no simple explanation of this bill, but here are just a few of the things it covers:
• Requires 2/3 vote for lawmakers to give new tax breaks.
• Requires that any new sales tax exclusions apply to both state and local sales tax.
• Doubles the standard income tax deduction for those over 65 and lowers the maximum rate from 4.75% to 3.75%.
• Removes the cap on severance tax revenue collected by local governments.
• Limits the annual growth in state general fund spending, tying the limit to population and inflation changes.
• Merges two state trust funds, Budget Stabilization Fund (aka "rainy day fund") and Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund.
• Use money in education trust funds to pay down retirement debt for teachers and provide a permanent pay raise to teachers and support workers.
• Removes several trust funds from the constitution, placing them in state law where legislators would have more flexibility on their rules and use.
• Incentivizes parishes to stop charging business inventory tax and allows parishes to give partial exemptions to businesses by reducing the assessed value of the property.
• Prohibit parishes from charging property tax on prescription drugs.
• Makes it harder for legislators to pass new property tax breaks.
• These are significant changes to the constitution that I can't fully address here. I STRONGLY encourage you to take a look at other resources, such as Balotpedia's explanation, as well as the explanation from Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) in addition to the aforementioned PAR document. All of these are non-partisan organizations that don't take a stand, simply offer commentary. The New Orleans Fox affiliate (Fox8) offered one of the better news overviews I've read. The Louisiana Illuminator ran a story that the major teacher unions are endorsing the amendment while WGNO ran a story that civil liberties groups are opposing all 4 amendments! There's even a NoToThemAll website set up to oppose all 4 amendments. Needless to say the debate is fierce and we all need to educate ourselves!
  
  
• CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 3 would allow juveniles under the age of 17 to be more easily charged as adults. The list of 16 crimes that currently exists would be removed from the Constitution and placed in state law, allowing lawmakers the flexibility to make changes by 2/3 vote without going back to the voters. 
  
  
• CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 4 would change the election date for special elections to fill newly created judgeships or a vacancy on the bench. This is an unintended consequence of the closed primary system Louisiana is going to in 2026 because current law could make it impossible to fill such vacancies in a timely manner. Some say this amendment is unnecessary because it truly only affects the seven Supreme Court justice seats that are required to run in closed primary in the event of a death of resignation before the end of the 10 year term. They recommend changing state law on closed primaries rather than change the constitution. You be the judge! :)

Well, there you have it, a brief look at the four amendments coming up on the December 7 ballot. I've decided to not give recommendations this time as I'm still processing them myself. I'm hoping my brief description helps people decide how to vote. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the constitutional amendments. But most of all, I hope everyone will educate themselves on the amendments and geaux vote!!!