I am a lifelong conservative Republican, and I come by it honestly. My dad served on the Credentials Committee at the 1984 Reagan Republican National Convention, and was a long-time member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee. My mom, for her part, started the first crisis pregnancy center in my hometown of Shreveport. I, as well as most of my siblings, are active, pro-life conservatives who love the Republican Party.

I say this only to properly respond to an assertion in a recent Hayride article that opposition to Constitutional Amendment 2 (CA2) is based, at least in part, on “technical grounds” being fueled by the “political left.” That is simply not the case.

One of the “technical grounds” of objection to CA2 to which the article alludes is that its ballot language, which is all most voters will see, does not accurately state what the Amendment actually does. The ballot language, derived from a 115- page Bill passed in a short legislative session, is incomplete, inaccurate, and biased in direct violation of Louisiana law (La.R.S. 18:1229.1).

How so? The ballot language fails to state that CA2 1) substantially narrows the constitutionally protected tax exemption for religious organizations; 2) guts entirely the constitutional exemption for secular non-profits, many of which do excellent charitable work; 3) falsely represents that CA2 guarantees a permanent teacher pay raise; 4) removes from the Constitution the individual state tax deduction for any amounts paid in federal taxes; and 5) deletes certain dedicated education trust funds.

Regardless of political affiliation or ideological bent, voters have a right to know, and the law requires that they know, what they are voting on. CA2 fails to satisfy this “technical” requirement of Louisiana law.

Specifically regarding the religious tax exemption, the article suggests that CA2’s narrowing of this exemption is of no moment, because the exemption will remain in statute, and the legislature will likely never vote to tax religious organizations. While there are some very good conservative leaders in our legislature, the reason the religious exemption is in the Constitution, and thus much harder to eliminate, is that it is impossible to predict what a future legislature may do.

To provide some context, the Republican dominated Louisiana legislature 1) defeated a Bill in committee that would have prohibited private corporations from acquiring use of private property, against the property owner’s will, for multi-billion dollar experimental carbon capture projects paid for with our tax dollars; 2) defeated legislation on the House floor that would have allowed a person provably injured by an experimental vaccine mandated by his employer to sue his employer for damages; 3); voted to create an obviously racially gerrymandered congressional district that resulted in hard Leftist Cleo Fields being elected to the US Congress, endangering the already thin Republican majority in that chamber; (A three-judge federal district court has since declared the district unconstitutional) and 4) despite (then) Representative Alan Seabaugh’s courageous efforts, failed to secure enough House votes to vacate John Bel Edwards’ draconian Covid lockdowns which were destroying businesses and fracturing families across Louisiana.

A Republican dominated Legislature.

There are other examples that could be cited, but hopefully the reader gets the point: as stated, we cannot see into the future, and have no idea what a future legislature may do on critical issues. This is why constitutional protection against a religious organization having to pay taxes to the government in order to operate is essential, and not something that should be left to legislative whim or vulnerable to legal challenge.

Indeed, as the article correctly notes, a number of other states provide no statutory protection against taxation for religious organizations.

One inescapable irony in all of this: The article suggests that one of the reasons CA2 is necessary is to remove “unnecessary clutter” from the Constitution. Why, then, is the legislature seeking to retain in the Constitution issues involving lawyer discipline (Constitutional Amendment 1) and judicial elections (Constitutional Amendment 4) both of which are also on the March 29 ballot?

CA1 and CA4 both involve policy matters that should be addressed in statute, not issues that warrant constitutional consideration. They are textbook examples of why the Louisiana Constitution is 26,000 words long and has been amended 217 times since 1974. The Constitution desperately needs to be purged, but not by altering or removing core protections for religious and non-profit organizations. Let us start the purge by removing issues involving lawyer discipline and judicial elections, then much, much more.

When all is said and done, it is less important how citizens choose to vote than ensuring that they are properly informed of what they are voting for, particularly when they are being asked to amend our Constitution, no trivial matter.

The problems with CA2 are not “technical” but consist of essential deficiencies that thwart meaningful participation in the democratic process, what Lincoln called “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

J. Christopher Alexander
Louisiana Citizen Advocacy Group
www.lacag.org