Viewpoint: Constitutional ballot strains voters’ patience

It doesn’t take much thoughtful consideration to conclude that the slate of constitutional amendments on the Nov. 2 ballot plumbs new depths of the arcane and the obscure, even for Louisiana’s over-appended and over-amended basic charter, writes LaPolitics columnist John Maginnis. The Legislature has outdone itself this time in straining the patience of voters who are trying to discharge their civic duty. The determined citizen, tending toward the wonkish, might want to curl up with the Public Affairs Research Council’s thorough and balanced analysis of the propositions, available here. Most of the rest of you, who get that far down the ballot, will spend eight seconds or less on each item before forming opinions on such bedrock fundamental law as, in this case, post-disaster occupancy grace periods and judgment of workers’ compensation claims. No. 1 is the big crowd pleaser, which would bar statewide elected officials and legislators from accepting pay raises in the same term they are approved. Legislators would not dare try that anyway, after their attempted pay raise fiasco blew up on them two years ago. But voters can feel good about making sure they never do so again. Two amendments rein in government a little bit more. No. 4 restricts how much non-elected taxing bodies, such as a water district board, can roll forward tax millages. No. 6 requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, instead of a majority, to make changes in public retirement benefits that would cost more money. On Nos. 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10, you’re on your own. Little will change for better or worse if they pass or fail. To read the full column, click here.