The U.S. Senate race has attracted most of the attention, but there are five constitutional amendments for voters to decide on Saturday’s ballot. Know before you go, and check out Better Louisiana’s analysis of the amendments and why we support Amendments #3 and #4.
There is always more to the constitutional amendments than meets the eye, but the Legislature still sends them to voters every election cycle, asking them to make decisions about changes to the state’s foundational governing document.
To make that job a little easier we have distilled all the things you need to know in our regular guide to the amendments which you can access here.
This year we believe two amendments truly stand out as deserving the support of voters. Amendment #3 would help our teachers in a way that also happens to be fiscally smart. It uses revenues from three education trust funds to pay off about $2 billion of debt in the state teacher retirement system. It then utilizes the savings to increase a non-guaranteed teacher pay stipend and make it permanent.
Reducing debt in retirement systems is good fiscal policy and this approach has the added benefit of supporting Louisiana teachers.
Passage of Amendment #4 could make Louisiana’s tax structure more competitive and help us continue to grow jobs. Our local business inventory tax is an outlier, of sorts, because most states don’t have it. That hurts us in terms of economic development. This amendment would provide a financial incentive for local governments to phase out or eliminate their inventory tax. It also gives them the flexibility to reduce it if they choose to do so for competitive reasons, something they are not allowed to do now.
It’s optional, so there is no obligation to change anything, but passage of this amendment would give local governments a new tool in their efforts to attract more businesses and jobs to their areas.
Constitutional amendments can be complicated, but it is still our duty as citizens to consider them thoughtfully. To that end, we hope voters will use our guide and other resources that are available to make informed decisions on these important matters this Saturday.
