Louisiana’s constitution is cluttered, and come election day next week, will likely become more so thanks to the nine proposed constitutional amendments included on the Nov. 6 ballot.
The state’s voters, according to the Public Affairs Research Council, have approved 167 out of 239 amendment proposals since the creation of Louisiana’s current constitution in 1974. The Louisiana Constitution is one of the most amended constitutions in the U.S., and according to PAR, is a bastardization of what a constitution is meant to be:
A constitution is supposed to be a state’s fundamental law that contains the essential elements of government organization, the basic principles of governmental powers and the enumeration of citizens rights. A constitution is meant to have permancence.
Louisiana has a long history of frequent constitutional changes, Too often, amendments are drafted for a specific situation rather than setting a guiding principle and leaving the Legislature to fill in the details by statute. Special interests frequently demand constitutional protection for favored programs to avoid future interference, resulting in numerous revenue dedications and trust fund provisions. The concept of the Constitution as a relatively permanent statement of basic law fades with the adoption of many amendments.
Melinda Deslatte of the Associated Press writes the problem hasn’t escaped the attention of state lawmakers, but still continues to grow, resulting in distrust of the legislative process and state government.
Noting ballots in recent years have included as many as 15 constitutional amendments, Deslatte writes:
Often, issues put before voters in constitutional amendments are arcane, highly-specialized or only applicable to one municipality. And in a problematic twist, as more gets written into the constitution, that could require even more amendment proposals for voters as situations change or problems develop with the provisions added.
Statistics over years of elections have shown that people often skip making decisions on constitutional amendments when in the voting booth, with fewer votes cast the farther down the ballot an amendment is.So, for those who do vote on amendment proposals, whether haphazardly or not, it may be in your best interest to at least know what constitutional changes you will be voting on.
The situation is unlikely to change anytime soon, since it would take a constitutional convention to fully revamp the state’s guiding document. That’s a lengthy endeavor that lawmakers have shown little interest in when their colleagues have proposed the idea.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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