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What do you know about the Louisiana Constitution?

Not so much.

it's a good question.

We learned a lot about that in middle school, but not much off the top of my head.

Can you tell me what you know about the Louisiana Constitution?

Very little.

I know it's changed multiple times.

Did you know that they're trying to change the Constitution for the first time in 50 years?

I did not know that.

Can you tell me what you know about the Louisiana Constitution?

Well, not very much, but I hear they're getting ready to change it.

I█d like to know what they█re changing it to though.

Hello, and welcome to Louisiana Spotlight.

I'm Kara St. Cyr, your host for tonight's show.

The state constitution is not something many people know much about, but there are few things more important to life in Louisiana than our governing document.

The Constitutional Convention has been a hot topic for the past few months, with Governor Jeff Landry and lawmakers wanting to rewrite the Constitution for the first time in over 50 years.

The push to reform the Constitution is nothing new, but the speed and uncertainty over what could be changed has made some question why now?

The first Louisiana Constitution was drafted in 1812, and since then the state constitution has been rewritten ten times.

The last rewrite was ratified in 1974 after an almost two year convention.

Since then, the 74 constitution has been amended 195 times, causing it to balloon to over 72,000 words and making it the fourth longest constitution in the United States.

Tonight, with the help of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, we'll explore the history of our state's constitution, as well as the reasons behind this current push to rewrite it.

But first, we'll hear from Jeremy Alford, author of The Last Constitution, which tells the story of the 1973 constitutional convention led by then new governor Edwin Edwards.

Alford says there's a lot that can be learned from the 73 convention, and that much of that history could repeat itself today.

The Louisiana House of Representatives just advanced House Bill 800, which sets up a framework for a constitutional convention.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where, if passed, would start the first rewrite to our state's constitution in more than 50 years.

Governor Jeff Landry has fully supported this recent push for a convention.

But in 1973, Edwin Edwards was the newly elected governor from Acadiana, who led the last rewrite to our state's governing document.

Jeremy Alford's The Last Constitution examines the architects and process of the 1973 convention.

He believes the past can give us an idea of what to expect in the future convention.

So the important thing to remember about the 1973 Constitutional Convention was that it didn't happen overnight.

This followed years, several years of lawmakers trying to push Louisiana into a constitutional convention.

At the time, we had what is still considered to be one of the worst written constitutions in United States history.

The era of Huey Long and old style populism was starting to fall by the wayside, and it was being replaced with this new kind of progressive politics, being led by the late Governor Edwin Edwards.

So there was a big push to get Louisiana into a constitutional convention.

There is what was supposed to happen.

And then what actually happened here is what was supposed to happen.

Lawmakers passed an enabling legislation that would have allowed elected delegates to go into a convention and have more or less an up or down vote on a pre-prepared document, and then it was only supposed to take a few months, would actually happen.

Was a group of delegates the night before the first morning of the convention, they got together at Pastime Lounge, which is a well known bar in Baton Rouge near LSU.

And, there are about 6 to 8 of these delegates, and they're sitting down there drinking beer, and they're like, why don't we just write a new constitution?

So on the back of a cocktail napkin, they came up with the idea of a committee on committees, a committee on rules, and a few other things that outlined an opportunity for them to completely rewrite, an entirely new document, even though that is not what the governor wanted, and it wasn't what the legislature wanted.

It's also the way cocktail napkin was one of the first documents entered into the record of the Constitutional Convention.

So now we find ourselves where lawmakers are passing another piece of enabling legislation for another constitutional convention.

And the way it's passing is there are exceptions.

They're saying that the homestead exemption is off the table, but K-through-12 is off the table.

Certain pensions are off the table.

Well, you know, if we learned anything in the 70s, is that the enabling legislation doesn't matter.

Once delegates go into a convention, they can do whatever they want.

And we saw, you know, there were policy parts in the 70s.

They kind of like took the convention and made it their own.

So there's a question of, you know, what exactly is going to happen in this convention.

Is there more to it?

you know, there's a trust factor here.

And that trust factor was there, in the 1970s as well.

You know, folks didn't want to give Edwin Edwards free reign over the Constitution.

Let's create a constitution that is streamlined and emblematic of the core principles that define who we are as a people.

I mean, it looks like right now that that moving forward, the check on Jeff Landry, maybe the Louisiana Senate, they have most certainly been in the driver's seat on this constitutional convention.

the senators first objected to the timeline that's been altered.

They've objected to subject matter, that's been altered.

And now the bill's over in the Senate, and I think we're looking at the most important floor vote of the entire session and how the Senate votes on this legislation could very well dictate the legislative tone for the remainder of the term.

And another three and a half years to go.

The thing to watch for, I believe, will be whether the governor is allowed to keep his appointments.

That's incredibly important to Jeff Landry, because that is his level of engagement that he's allowed in this convention.

He's not going to get veto authority like they do during this session.

So, senators know that.

And I think the Senate wants to draw a line in the sand.

And I think they want to show the governor that they can push back.

And, it wouldn't be unprecedented.

Of course, you long at the peak of his power push for a constitutional convention, and lawmakers just weren't comfortable giving him that much authority.

There's a lot at stake with this potential convention.

The issues, much like the Constitution itself, are dense to help us better understand the potential risks and benefits of a convention.

Is our panel.

Doctor Steven Procopio is the president of the Public Affairs Research Council, and is one of the 27 proposed delegates appointed by Governor Landry to serve at the convention.

And Melinda Deslatte is the research director for PA, which has created a two part constitutional reform project that recommends potential reforms in detail.

Thank you so much for joining us.

So House Bill 800, which sets up the framework for a constitutional convention, recently passed the House but seems to be held up in the Senate.

The convention was originally scheduled to start this week, but has now been amended to start in August.

What are some of the concerns that the Senate has raised with this bill?

So I'll punt this one to you.

Okay.

Thank you for having us.

so I would say you're seeing several different sets of concerns from, senators about the convention.

some of it is a question of timing of, you know, how how much time will they have to go through the convention, and go through the individual articles of the Constitution?

there are some specific concerns about the number and kind of delegates that the governor wants to include.

There are a lot of just basic questions about the process of how would the convention work.

who would make recommendations?

Where would they meet?

You know, just logistical things.

And then you also have legislators who are in the final weeks of their regular session.

They're trying to pass their own bills.

They're having a lot of disagreements over bills already in the process.

And it seems as though the Constitutional Convention bill is getting caught up in some of the politics of all the other legislation that is moving around.

So, I guess what I would say is you're seeing, you know, some significant resistance in the Senate, but some interest in the concept of a convention.

So, you know, if the bill doesn't make it through this session, it does seem as though the discussion over a convention is not over.

It will not end, you know, on the fate of this one particular piece of legislation.

Right.

And to that point, you know, it does seem that most lawmakers are on board with some sort of update to the document because it does have a lot of words.

It's the fourth longest constitution in the country.

It's 72,000 words.

But when it was ratified in 1974, that constitution, it only had about 36,000 words.

So what's caused our state document to bloat to that size?

The really two fundamental things going on.

one is a lack of trust.

and there's been empirical studies that show that, you know, the less you trust your government, the longer your Constitution is.

And we have now one of the longer constitutions.

And that shouldn't surprise anyone.

There's also something of a snowball effect once you start adding things in your constitution.

then to change them, you need to keep adding them.

So if you put your tax code or large portions of your tax code in there, when you want to change your tax code, which happens naturally, you got to go having a constitutional amendment.

When you add a fund and you want to change that fund, then you have to have another constitutional amendment.

So you have all that's in there, and you have to keep making more constitutional amendments to fix the previous constitutional amendments.

So it's a little bit of a, self-fulfilling prophecy.

Okay.

And so earlier you were talking about how it's kind of a lack of trust in our state government, and that's why our Constitution is bloated.

Can you give me an example of maybe an amendment or a provision that's in the Constitution that could possibly fall under that category?

I'm trying to think of one that wouldn't, I mean, wouldn't it almost that bad.

Almost everything that's in there, like we're going to put in our tax brackets and this is what we want to be at.

and this is from legislators who will tell you, because we can't trust future legislators.

And it's like, well, that's what you did.

And so we may have to change our tax code in the future.

but they just felt like, well, this was perfect.

And so this is what we need to stay at.

it you look at the same things in terms of funds as well.

Like, well, this this particular pot of money needs to be like this and never, ever change.

because we can't trust what the future legislature is going to do.

And I say the legislators, but also people in general.

don't necessarily have a lot of trust with the government, and I don't necessarily blame them for that.

But if you want to improve your government, you have to let legislators legislate and then hold them accountable.

And so PAR in general has done a lot of work on the constitutional reform project and some of the key.

Can you tell me a little bit about some of the key recommendations that you all have made whenever it comes to what the constitutional convention and you know what should happen?

Sure.

What we've really looked at is the finance section, which was article seven.

And that's really where the tax and spending is, and that's where most of the changes have happened.

that's where all the bloat and growth is.

And basically, we think those things that are really tax code issues, our brackets, our rates, administration that needs to go into statute where that usually is in other states.

Same thing on the funding side.

There are a lot of funds in the Constitution that shouldn't even be in the Constitution.

And those could be put out and put into statute.

Now.

There are some important things.

important funds, like we have a rainy day fund where you can't just have that in statute because then, you know, the legislature might come and spend it any time you have to be able to set that aside.

So there are some things that do need to remain.

but for the most part, the the bias ought to be let's put this in statute, unless you give me a good reason not to.

So it doesn't sound like you want a complete rewrite, just kind of a restructuring of the document.

Oh, absolutely.

I think sort of where we are and where the conversation about a convention is centered is about simply shrinking the size of the document and moving and and reducing the document to more of a foundation of law kind of concept so that it sets the individual rights that people has.

It establishes the branches of government and their authorities.

but a lot of the, the day to day operations of government and the things that, that involve, how government functions, a lot of that could be in statute.

So it is much more about just determining what should stay in a foundational governing document and which is better left to statutory law, so that if legislators in the future want to change things, redo things, adjust how they approach specific financial issues, they have an easier time doing that.

So does locking budget items and tax code into the Constitution through amendments also make it difficult for the state to adapt when there are economic shifts?

Oh, absolutely.

And I think the good example of that is coming from the 1980s oil boom and bust, where you had the Constitution essentially set up the whole structure of state government set up based off of oil revenues.

And then when that didn't pan out, part of the reason you saw in 1992, Constitution Convention was to try and fix that.

Now, that didn't go over really well with the public, but what you saw over the next decade was a series of amendments that tried to adjust, what was in the Constitution to provide more protections and also free up, and allow other funding sources to, to really grow.

All right.

So we'll come back to this, but there have been several amendments to House Bill 800 that restrict the scope of the convention.

But as we heard from Jeremy Alford earlier, the law is not clear on whether you can restrict a convention.

We asked the author of House Bill 800, representative Bob Bowyer, whether his bill would be able to take some budget items off the convention table.

So we have legal folks on both sides of the aisle who say that the HB 800 can put the constraints on the convention and they have those that say it cannot.

So that's ultimately that's going to be up for the courts to decide.

The purpose of this, even if even if those who would win that argument and say, hey, HB 800 cannot put constraints on the convention, this is letting the public and not everybody know that this is our intent and the delegates are going to be legislators.

So it means House and Senate members, some appointees of other by the governor.

but this is this is our legislative intent.

And so it's not our intent to touch the homestead exemption.

It's not our intent to touch the MFP.

And no intent is a is a big word there.

But we also control the votes.

So we have to get two thirds of a vote to pass House Bill 800 and a two thirds of our legislature says these items are off limits.

Then it's off limits.

Could you have somebody try something rogue?

Of course.

But we have two thirds of the body was agreed that, these items are or should be retained in the Constitution.

So that sounds like there's some wiggle room with House Bill 800.

So first, what are some of the restrictions the legislature has placed in the bill that they would like to be left alone?

So among the items that they've sort of put off limits for discussion in the convention are the homestead exemption, for example, the minimum Foundation program, which is the K-through-12 public school funding formula, public retirement systems, the individual rights section, the things that that say what people have, as in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, those kind of things.

but they've also moved some things dealing with the sheriffs and the district attorneys, off limits.

Some things about the way we collect sales taxes in the state has been moved off limits.

So it's sort of an array of politically touchy topics that they've just sort of taken off the table as a starting point, although there obviously are legal disagreements about whether the bill really can limit them in a convention.

But I do think you've seen the governor and you've seen legislators who have supported the bill saying it doesn't matter legally if we can do this, and if it holds legal weight.

But we are committing to this as a starting point for a convention discussion.

Well, speaking of, homestead exemption, could items like this one still make their way to the chopping block despite being written into bills?

as an exemption?

So.

So I think there's a legal question on whether or not that can happen.

And that's a that's an open question.

We really haven't had anything definitive from the courts.

so I really can't answer that.

And I don't know that anyone could definitively either.

But there's the practical question, and I think the chairman was talking about, if you are calling the legislature into session and they voted to put this in the bill, I think they would be very hesitant to, go back on their word after they told the voters via the, constituted convention bill and start handling things.

And I think very much at the top of that list would be homestead exemption to not be touched.

And that that's, you know, and I understand that I would actually like to see more things addressed in the Constitution.

but I think we would have to abide by whatever was done, even if not legally.

I just think in helping to build the trust with voters.

All right.

So the timing and process of this convention has also come under scrutiny.

Some lawmakers have said the month long convention is not enough time for this important work, and that having appointed delegates rather than elected delegates does not give room for public input.

Here's Representative Candice Newell with some of her concerns.

What I like to see is a full constitutional convention, similar to what we had in 1972 as a state, my concerns are, is the time period that we're rushing this through with HB 800.

It would only allow for us to meet maybe three weeks in 1972.

It was about a year and a half process where there was an election of the delegates to the Constitution, and there were some appointments from the governor.

however, those delegates were elected by the by the people of Louisiana.

And it gave people from Louisiana who wanted to be a part of the process, the opportunity to run for those seats, whereas right now we're all going to be delegates to the Constitution.

And when I say we, I mean the entire legislative body, the House and the Senate, and then there will be 27 delegates who are, chosen by the governor to be part of this process.

I would like to have the year long process where the constituents of this state have the opportunity to elect the people who are going to be making the changes to this Constitution that hopefully will rule our state for the next 50 years, just as the one we have.

We're working on that now.

Now, we've had three public meetings here at the Capitol for people to come in and express their concerns about the proposed constitutional convention.

However, going back to 1972 process that was a statewide roadshow with this, the only buying at this, the constituents had an opportunity, to hear or to provide was only on HB 800, which is the legislation that would provide us to whether or not we're going to go into the Constitution, not on what changes needs to be made.

And I don't think it was a genuine effort to allow for public input in this constitutional convention.

So, Doctor Procopio, this is your question.

So you've been appointed by the governor as one of the 27 proposed delegates.

Does appointing delegates, rather than electing them, create a lack of public participation as Representative Newell said, and not necessarily, I think, the public participation, which it has to be fundamental if this is going to be successful, that should come in where people can discuss with the legislators as part as a committee system, or a road show or something along those lines where you can really get their feedback.

the delegates are sort of an additional way to get feedback, but from very particular people.

this might be the governor supporters, or it might be judges in, in the case of what they have here.

so I don't necessarily those two are at odds, but I don't think the purpose of the delegates is to have public participation.

although that's got to be a key part if you're hoping to pass this thing ultimately of the voters.

But do you think there's enough time for public input in between the convention and the November elections?

I think if they're trying to limit it to just a few key issues, and the question is not what we should change it to, but does it stay in the Constitution, or does it get put in the statute with maybe like a two thirds vote?

Then I think you can, I think probably par if you gave us some, enough lawyers, from legislature to let us sit down with them, we could probably write our version.

I don't know, that would pass, if we did it that way.

And that's why you have to have the trust of the voters.

so I don't know if it's enough to do it.

And also get the public on board.

I do think it is enough time to actually complete the goal of trying to, you know, make a much more streamlined constitution.

Okay.

I spoke with constitutional law professor Stephen Griffin about the timing of the convention.

He worries the rush timeline for the convention could create skepticism among voters.

The big issue is, what's the agenda?

Is the agenda going to be in this enabling legislation, or is it just going to be something where everyone understands that the governor is going to put his proposal down, and that's what's going to be voted on, because that's all the time they have, and that could work out.

But that could create problems.

When you come to having the people vote, people could get suspicious unless, there's a very restricted agenda and I wish we knew what that was.

The 2025 session will be focused on fiscal issues and taxes.

Is that part of the rush to have a convention now?

I think the governor said that pretty directly.

I think there are a couple things going on with the timing of it.

They obviously, would like the administration would like to see it on a presidential election year ballot.

which is this fall, because you get higher turnout then.

So that's one thing driving the timing discussion.

But I do think the other key issue is that in 2025, the legislature faces a big budget shortfall.

And the argument is that you have a lot of, budget and tax issues tied up in the Constitution, which limits the flexibility of the legislature to address budget gaps.

And so the administration clearly sees this as a way to loosen some of the reins on some of these issues so that the legislature can have a more robust conversation about ways to address the budget shortfall that they face.

What about the presidential election?

is it also part of the push to restructure the Constitution in terms of simply the amount of voters who show up for a presidential election?

Usually that's the highest turnout that you see in Louisiana elections is on a presidential election year.

So I think they're trying to hope that they will have large turnout for that election, so that you will get a significant number of people voting on whether to adopt the rewritten constitution.

But eventually it will be up to the public to pass a new constitution.

PAR has offered research, commentary and recommendations to fuel public discourse on important policy matters for decades, and PAR was an integral part of the last constitutional convention in 1973.

So what does PAR hope to see in this convention that will ensure public engagement and trust?

Oh wait, there's got to be, a discussion.

The citizens.

if there's a plan, then it should be like, hey, here's the things that we really want to change.

PAR has put out our ideas, and, you know, trying to promote that so people will read that so they'll be educated going into this, working with LBB, and, you know, then there's got to be open conversation in the constitutional Convention.

This is what we're doing, and we want to hear from the citizens.

And it can't feel like it's just rushed and it's predetermined.

And I think that's a big part of it.

And in addition, whatever comes out of it, if something comes out of it, will be working like we do all the time to try and educate the voters in terms of what has been proposed, so they can understand it, so they can make an informed decision.

And then do you have anything to add?

I'll just say we really want to see robust public testimony and public comment periods in this convention.

If you don't, if people don't feel included in this convention and in the discussions that are ongoing, you'll never persuade them to adopt a new constitution on a ballot.

All right.

Well, it looks like we are out of time for our discussion tonight.

I want to thank Doctor Procopio and Mr.s.

Deslatte for sharing their extensive knowledge on the subject.

So what do you, our viewers, think?

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Thank you for watching and good night.

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