Louisianans will vote on 10 constitutional amendments on election day, Nov. 3. Voters will consider topics like bail bonds, property taxes and gubernatorial term limits.
The Public Affairs Research Council, a non-partisan group that analyzes Louisiana state and local government policy and elections, recently published a guide to all 10 amendments.
WRKF’s Adam Vos spoke with PAR president Steven Procopio for more.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
ADAM VOS, BYLINE:
So first of all, 10 constitutional amendments. Is that the maximum? Is there a maximum for constitutional amendments on a ballot?
STEVEN PROCOPIO: No, there is no maximum. I think there might be a physical maximum in terms of what Secretary of State Nancy Landry can actually put on there, but there is no legal maximum in terms of the number that you can have.
Some of these amendments have to do with property taxes or property in general, changes in flexibility to how municipalities can raise their rates, some exemptions.
VOS: Tell me about the overall effect of these constitutional amendments pertaining to property taxes.
PROCOPIO: Sure. So there's a lot of property tax amendments on the ballot, and that's not surprising. To do anything with property taxes in the state, you need a constitutional amendment. That's the way our constitution is set up, and one of the reasons for that is to prevent the legislature from passing property tax exemptions which only affect local government.
So it means we vote on more constitutional amendments, but that's the reason for it. Broadly speaking, these generally provide some sort of benefit for a particular group or for a particular reason. For example, benefits for the surviving spouse of a disabled veteran, their ability to transfer their exemption that they have currently in the Constitution to someplace else, or allowing a higher freeze-adjusted income in order to freeze your property.
Instead of having to make less than $100,000, you can make less than $150,000. So it's some particular group, it gets a benefit, and then generally the cost is spread across the rest of that municipality. Another example with constitutional amendment number 10 is that it provides a property tax exemption to fight blighted property.
So this would be a locally enacted group, but you need constitutional approval to get it, and then that would allow for an exemption. It depends on exactly what you're doing. Could be up to 75% of the value of the property, or up to 25% if it's just improved land. So that would reduce the taxes that are paid on that land, but the idea the proponents have is that you'll get the land back in circulation, because no one's paying taxes on it right now.
That's broadly the sort of trade-offs you see in property tax amendments.
VOS: What's the mechanism behind the amendment regarding more local control over the maximum and how they can charge the maximum on property tax rates?
PROCOPIO: This is amendment number two, and the amendment itself is actually not that complicated, but you have to understand a lot of things to get there.
Every four years, assessors reassess the property in an area, and if that property went up in value, then the millage rate — the tax rate that you pay on property — goes down. The Constitution forces it down. So if the citizens voted for a 10 mil property tax and it went up enough, you might have to be forced down to an 8.
But with a two-thirds vote, that jurisdiction can then increase it back up to the maximum of 10. So that's a rollback when it got decreased, and a roll forward. Now, if you do not vote to roll forward your millages, then you're stuck at 8. You can never go back to 10 without having another election and the vote of the people. So this amendment removes that time limit, and it says, "OK, you can roll forward at any point. You don't have to do it right now."
And the proponents behind this wanted to do that because it — in their mind — creates a perverse incentive that the jurisdictions and municipalities feel like they have to roll forward or they'll lose the ability to do it in the future. And they would prefer that be remaining more flexible.
VOS: So this provides a little more flexibility for municipalities to not necessarily take the options to roll forward or roll back and not have to worry about the future impacts of doing that.
PROCOPIO: That's right. That is what they're looking for to do with this constitutional amendment.
VOS: Going forward to the tax exemptions for rehabbed blighted properties, some of the pushback on that seems to be that it may be a giveaway to big developers.
PROCOPIO: You might have a developer come in, buy property and then each locality will have to set up exactly what the terms are, but it might be as much as 75% of the value of the property for 20 years, which is pretty substantial.
I can see where people would say, "No, this is a tax giveaway." On the other hand, compared to the taxes that you're getting from blighted property now, which are not very much. So you're really gonna have to weigh what you think the risk and reward are of providing tax exemptions.
Is this the appropriate method? Is this something that's desperately needed? And as long as you understand that, then that's up to everyone's separate set of values and risk tolerance.
VOS: Leaving taxes behind, there are a couple of other ones that vaguely deal with property. There's some ability to do money toward lead water lines that may be on somebody's private property and a constitutional amendment relating to foreign adversaries and property expropriation. Tell me about those.
PROCOPIO: Sure. These are a grab bag. The property expropriation — so the state and local governments have the ability to take property via eminent domain, and you expropriate the property and you use it for public means, like putting down utilities or a road.
And even private companies in Louisiana and other states have this ability. However, they have a more limited number of things they can do with it, like sewer and water plants, or an airport. This constitutional amendment would remove the ability to do that if you are a foreign adversary defined by the U.S. Treasury, and it's Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro.
So it's limited to that particular group. So the water lines, we have a clause in our Constitution that says that governments cannot donate things. There has to be a public benefit behind it. If you're trying to replace lead water pipes, which we know are hazardous to people, particularly children, you can do all you want in terms of public water lines. But when it reaches your property, that pipe runs from essentially the street to your house; the state and local governments are not allowed to spend any money on it.
That’s an EPA dictate, plus it's also bad for our citizens. So you can't spend any public money on it to remove it because this is really private property. So this constitutional amendment would allow money to be spent by state and local governments to remove and remediate the lead in drinking water from this source.
I will say, there is already an attorney general opinion that says you can do it, but the people behind this want the additional certainty of having a constitutional amendment. Also, there is at least some indication that there is, in fact, federal money that might be able to help pay for at least some of the cost of remediating this.
And so if this flowed through the state or local governments, we wouldn't be able to use it unless we either got the constitutional amendment, or the attorney general opinion withstood legal challenge.
VOS: Got it. Talking about the constitutional amendment relating to flexibility for the state paying its retirement debt, if you're concerned about the state budget or about the viability of your state retirement, that might be of interest to you.
PROCOPIO: Yes. I think the most important thing to say about that one before we say anything else is that this does not affect benefits. So it would not reduce or increase anyone's benefits they're currently receiving, or if you've accrued your benefits, it wouldn't affect that.
So with that off the table, there is essentially a pension debt. It’s not a debt in the normal sense, but it's the gap between how much money the retirement systems have and how much is going to be needed to pay for current and future benefits. Which is more technically called the unfunded accrued liability, but for our purposes, we'll just call it the retirement debt. And there are payment schedules to pay this down.
If there is a surplus at the state level, then 25% of that surplus constitutionally has to go to help deal with this retirement debt. That has to go toward the oldest debt under the current constitution. This amendment would make it so that the legislature and the retirement systems can make a different choice.
So they can either make it the newest debt, they can make it the oldest debt, or some combination thereof. It would be up to them, so it would provide them additional flexibility on how they manage this financial problem.
VOS: Switching gears now to a tough-on-crime related constitutional amendment. It looks like we have to vote on a constitutional amendment about bail for certain convicted offenders. Why is that something that just can't be legislated?
PROCOPIO: It's changing the right to bail, and that is in the Constitution. So to change that, you would need to change the Constitution.
Now, you can make an argument that it should never have been in the Constitution in the first place, but from this point going forward, if you want to make some sort of change, that's where you would actually have to make it.
I didn't really think about this much. I always thought of bail as an option after you got arrested, but you can also get bail post-conviction, and there was at least one case where someone did get out on bail to go visit their sick and elderly mother.
You would lose the right to bail under this constitutional amendment, so not even a judge would be able to grant it to you if you're already convicted of a crime. That's one.
Two, it was one of 20 specified crimes, and generally speaking, they're sex crimes. It's things like rape, sexual battery, kidnapping and sexual trafficking. So those types of crimes are the second tier.
And the third one is that the victim would be under the age of 18. So if you have all three of those things, you have no right to bail, even if a judge wanted to give it to you.
VOS: And finally, gubernatorial term limits. That's been a hot ticket. We already have some gubernatorial term limits, but this seeks to limit the potential for a former governor to run again. Tell me about that.
PROCOPIO: Right. As you said, this is probably one of the most discussed. It’s also probably the easiest to understand out of all these constitutional amendments.
Right now, the governor can serve no more than two consecutive terms, so up to eight years. But then if they leave office, then they can at some future point run again and have another two consecutive terms.
That is different from what the amendment is proposing, which is no more than two terms, period. So more like the presidential system. And states vary quite a bit. 37 states have term limits on their governor. Nine restrict their governors to two lifetime terms, while most others limit them to two consecutive terms. Then one odd person out is Virginia. Virginia's governor: you can't serve any consecutive terms. So you can go in and out one term at a time.
Now, looking at this, this measure came out of a GOP-controlled legislature and governor's mansion. Could this be seen almost as a measure that is targeted at John Bel Edwards, just being the obvious moderate Democrat, to make sure he doesn't run again?
I think there's a lot of discussion around that. It's assumed that he wants to run, and maybe he does. I don't know. I'm probably not in a place to speculate what politicians were doing with the amendment, or whether or not any former governors would want to run. And if you're looking to dig more into these, you can go to parlouisiana.org
PAR doesn't take a position on whether you should vote for or against the amendments, but we want you to be able to have an informed vote when you do.
