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Louisiana voters face a set of constitutional amendments on March 29 that will impact the state’s governance in financial structure.
Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, or PAR, explained the impacts of the amendments during a presentation Monday at the Baton Rouge Press Club.
The two amendments getting the most attention are Amendments 1 and 2.
Amendment 1 focuses on establishing specialty courts, granting the Legislature power to create courts beyond existing judicial districts. This could lead to more efficient handling of specific legal issues, potentially benefiting businesses involved in specialized sectors. Procopio says there are 69 specialty courts, mostly drug courts.
“You can’t have, for example, a statewide or regional specialty court,” he says. “This would establish the power of the Legislature to create specialty courts outside of those districts. The other thing it does is it would essentially reaffirm in the constitution the right of the [state] Supreme Court to govern and discipline lawyers, particularly out-of-state attorneys.”
The most significant change comes with Amendment 2, which rewrites a large proportion of Article VII of the state constitution. This article governs taxation and finance, and the proposed changes are extensive.
Key aspects of Amendment 2 include:
- Taxation authority: Doubles the standard deduction for those 65 or older and unifies sales tax exemptions between state and local governments. It prohibits state individual income tax rates from exceeding 3.75%. (down from 4.75%). Any new tax exemption will need a two-thirds legislative vote.
- Government growth: Creates tighter limits on annual spending growth from Louisiana’s general fund on ongoing programs and services.
- Merger of savings accounts: Consolidates the Revenue Stabilization Fund into the Budget Stabilization (rainy day) Fund. Budget stabilization would grow to $2.8 billion and reach its cap. The Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund would disappear in 2027. Funding in the rainy day fund would be limited.
- Trust fund for teacher pay: Dissolves three education trust funds, transferring $2 billion to the Teacher’s Retirement System to reduce debt and free up funds for teacher pay raises. It would require public school systems to use savings to provide a $2,000 permanent teacher pay raise and a $1,000 pay raise for school support workers.
“This isn’t equal among all the different school districts,” Procopio says. “Some school districts will do much better, and some won’t quite have enough money to pay for a $2,000 pay raise. The administration has said they will help both those districts that are short and charter schools. That is not in the constitution. That is something they have just pledged publicly.”
View PAR’s 27-page guide to the 2025 constitutional amendments.
