You knew the Hail Mary pass was coming from the vested interests that want to thwart Louisiana’s attempt at fiscal reform, and here it is.

This week, a law firm in the past associated with supporting far left-wing political candidacies filed suit to try to kick off Amendment 2 from the March ballot. That came to be from Act 1 of the Third Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature, which passed unanimously in the Senate and with only a few dissenting votes from hard left Democrats in the House.

Leftist extremists oppose the amendment because it reduces taxation on investment and productive activity while raising it on consumption and enhancing conditions to right-size state government. That means lower-income individuals would likely experience an overall tax increase more than higher-income individuals or see a smaller tax decrease. It also makes the curtailment of discretionary transfer payments from the government—whether to individuals or groups such as nonprofit organizations, in recurring or one-time form—more likely.

This reordering squeezes the political left’s mother’s milk: wealth redistribution. And thus, it threatens their political power. But knowing they can’t win in the court of public opinion—since the amendment is very likely to pass—they’ve turned to the actual courts. The big payoff would be with defeat of it statutory changes already passed would remain in effect, boosting the size of government by about $200 million annually and leaving in place a less efficient revenue collection and disbursement system that would incentivize the government to raise taxes—probably on middle- and higher-income individuals.

Thus, on behalf of at least three individuals—one of whom has a brief but unambiguous history of donating to far-left candidates and another who, in recent years, has found a compliant media willing to amplify his shilling for a left-wing agenda—the firm laid out a series of claims that, if true, should deny ballot access based on the description voters will see in the bill.

Except that the evidence they present is exceptionally flimsy. Hanging most of their effort’s hat on statute that says the introductory ballot language seen by voters must be “simple, unbiased, concise, and easily understood,” the suit then makes a series of claims that, in the context of jurisprudence surrounding ballot items, hold little water.

For example, it contests the “unbiased” portion by noting in the description is a vote for would trigger a permanent pay raise for teachers that supposedly is a positive selling point, but then neglects to mention presumably negative impacts, such as removing protected status to three funds within state government that have been used to pay for education delivery. And then the permanent pay raise, which the amendment imbues by having the state pay off unfunded accrued liabilities for school systems and mandating them to kick higher salaries with the savings, does double duty for the plaintiffs in claiming it doesn’t provide a permanent pay raise because it doesn’t guarantee higher pay than the current salary plus temporary state stipend.

What the suit does here is substitute opinion for fact. If I were asked what is a positive and negative about education spending in the amendment, I would point to the pay raise as a negative – because there’s no real relationship between base pay for teachers and student achievement – and the fund loosening as a positive – because greater flexibility allows for measures that actually work, such as, when done correctly, performance pay for teachers. The suit erroneously assumes that “positives” and “negatives” are universally agreed upon and therefore “bias” is detectable simply as a collection of its preferred issue positions.

As well, the argument against the alleged inaccuracy of a “permanent pay raise” is felled by a clear contradiction: the stipend is temporary, while the amendment shifts funds to mandate sustained higher base pay. Shoddy argumentation like this typifies the suit, beyond just these examples, in the many other alleged defects it claims.

The suit also tries two additional avenues to defeat the measure. One argues that the title is unclear or inadequate–except for an initial section that would be too long. But the courts will surely recognize that the amendment’s comprehensiveness necessitates a title as “brief” a summary as possible, even if extensive. The other claim alleges that the amendment violates the single-object rule because not every single section of the article in question is modified. But, as most of it is addressed, the courts will likely recognize that this qualifies as “a revision of an entire Article,” creating an exception to the single-object restriction.

In other words, these jokers are throwing any- and everything they can think of–no matter how remotely connected to any cogent argument–to see if anything sticks. No doubt, they’re encouraged by the increasing nuttiness of 19th Judicial District decisions, which, as we saw just last week, are getting overturned by the adults at the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Don’t expect this one to fly when all is said and done.

The main point in all of this: the expected desperation heave has arrived to try to stop fiscal reform and keep the government gravy train rolling for the state’s political left—even if doing so worsens the prospects of those who refuse to subscribe to their tenets of dependency and victimhood.