Civil liberties groups oppose LA constitutional amendments on March 29 ballot

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Governor Jeff Landry is pressing voters to say “yes” to four amendments to the state constitution.

The amendments on the March 29 ballot include issues like juvenile crime and the state’s tax code.

The amendments are generating quite a buzz, even sparking Say No to Them All, Y’all campaign.

Voters will be asked to approve Constitutional Amendment 2 to rewrite the state’s tax code. Some legislators are promising teacher pay raises, but according to Jan Moller, the executive director of Invest in Louisiana, the language isn’t clear cut.

“What this does is it requires or asks local school boards to pay teachers a little more, and it would take away a stipend that the teachers have been getting for the last two years,” explained Moller. “So, teachers are getting the same amount of money as they are right now, if this passes.”

Amendment 3 expands the list of crimes in which juveniles can be transferred to adult prisons. Critics, like Kristen Rome, the executive director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, say state law already allows prosecutors to charge juveniles who commit serious crimes as adults. 

“This particular amendment takes out the transparency in that process and just creates a blanket pathway for the legislature to decide on its own, without any checks and balances, without any folks weighing in what can be transferred,” said Rome.

Amendment 1 gives the legislature the power to create new courts, and Amendment 4 allows judicial vacancies to be filled on the earliest possible election date.

Political Analyst Jeff Crouere says voters must digest a lot of information in a short period of time and is predicting a low voter turnout.

“When you’re talking about redistribution of how the money goes, when you’re incentivizing teachers and you’re giving teachers a pay raise, that could generate support among those groups and get to that hopeful goal of the 20% turnout.”

Early voting for the March 29 election begins March 15 and will last through March 22.

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