(Citizens for a New Louisiana) — Louisiana is quietly repeating the very abuses that drove America to independence: taxes imposed without the people’s consent. The American War for Independence was not simply a war over tariffs and duties. It was a struggle over who holds power — and by extension, who has sovereignty. The Founders insisted that taxation was inseparable from self-government. For the colonists, taxes imposed without consent reduced free men to “tributary slaves,” as Samuel Adams put it. Yet, we are allowing this to happen all over again. And here we go again with the expansion of local tyranny, unless we do something soon.

The Principle of Taxation

Louisiana is witnessing local governments repeat the very patterns of abuse that sparked the American War for Independence. In many communities, leaders are attempting to expand a sales tax beyond what voters ever authorized. In other tourism improvement districts, a levy is imposed without any vote of the people at all. Though cloaked in modern legal language, these actions strike at the same fundamental principle: taxation requires the direct, informed consent of the governed.

The British Parliament defended its authority with the Declaratory Act of 1766, proclaiming power to legislate “in all cases whatsoever.” For the colonists, this was intolerable. They had assemblies of their own, and to them, the right to tax was the most essential right of all. Patrick Henry’s Virginia Resolves declared:

“the general assembly of this colony have the only and sole exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony.”

This was not a technical dispute but a constitutional one. The British constitution was unwritten and prone to being corrupted. While the American Constitution and those of the states were written, they have been deemed “elastic” and subject to manipulation by the redefinition of words. To American colonists, accepting taxation from a body in which they had no representation was to accept that sovereignty belonged not to the people but to government itself. Jefferson and Madison later framed this as the dividing line in the struggle for independence: Americans asserted that sovereignty remained with the people, while Britain insisted it remained with Parliament.

Jefferson warned of this danger:

“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” 

Our Founders designed our national Constitution to prevent a repeat of such events. Something that was echoed in our varying state Constitutions. Sovereignty, including taxing power, remained in the hands of the people, to be exercised through their elected representatives only within explicit constitutional boundaries. Any tax not rooted in the people’s consent was seen as illegitimate — an act of usurpation.

Scenario One: Youngsville’s Ongoing Debate Over the Digital Tax

In Youngsville, the issue is not whether a tax exists, but whether government may stretch the people’s prior consent beyond recognition. In Louisiana, the power to impose a sales tax at the local level remains in the hands of the people. Article VI, Section 29 of the Louisiana Constitution states:

“…the governing authority of any local governmental subdivision or school board may levy and collect a tax upon the sale at retail, the use, the lease or rental, the consumption, and the storage for use or consumption, of tangible personal property and on sales of services as defined by law, if approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon in an election held for that purpose.“

In 1981, voters approved a local sales tax, carefully worded to apply only to items “as presently defined” in state law. Then, in 1999, they approved another levy with the same restriction. In both instances, the phrase “as presently defined” froze the tax base to the definitions that existed at the time of each election. The voters approved no more and no less.

The City of Youngsville has been seeking to adopt various versions of Ordinance 503-2025 for several months. Each variation of the ordinance aims to replace the definitions with later enacted state definitions, including categories such as “digital products” — terms that did not exist when voters cast their ballots.

The city defends this as “updating” obsolete language. In reality, it is a stealth tax increase. The author of the bill, which added the language of the digital tax to state statute, Ken Brass (D 2/10), when asked on the House Floor if this was a tax increase, he called it what it is. Yes, it is a Tax Increase!

The Louisiana Supreme Court has already struck down this maneuver. In Radiofone v. City of New Orleans, the court struck down a nearly identical expansion, holding that when a city attempted to apply a 1968 telecommunications tax to entirely new services like cell phones, it WAS NOT a continuation but a NEW TAX REQUIRING VOTER APPROVAL.

By attempting the same end-run, Youngsville and other municipalities risk rendering future local tax elections meaningless. If ballot language can be reinterpreted after the fact, the people’s vote ceases to be a genuine check on government power. Every vote of the people hereafter on ANY ballot initiative concerning a tax will be interpreted as an open-ended blank check for the government to do what it wishes. A power to tax “in all cases whatsoever.”

Scenario Two: The Lafayette Tourism Improvement District (LTID)

If Youngsville’s proposal bends voter consent, Lafayette’s new tourism district bypasses it altogether.

In 2023, the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission (LCVC), in partnership with hotel owners, petitioned to create the Lafayette Tourism Improvement District. Under its plan:

• All hotels within the parish must add a 2% surcharge on room rentals.
• The surcharge is mandatory, collected through the parish sales tax office, and enforced with penalties.
• Funds are used for marketing, capital projects, and tourism promotion, with an annual budget exceeding $1.7 million.

This charge is referred to as an “assessment,” not a tax. Yet it walks, talks, and acts like a tax: it is compulsory, revenue-raising, and imposed on commerce. And unlike local sales taxes in Louisiana, it was never placed before the voters. In effect, this scheme creates taxation without representation. The people of Lafayette Parish never approved this levy, but they and visiting consumers must pay it nonetheless.

All that is required for the district to be created is the consent of 75% of the business owners affected or paying the tax. Did they meet the threshold? That is something that can’t be determined. According to the Lafayette Parish School System, the records that would demonstrate whether or not that threshold has been met are not subject to a public records request. Thus, the people have absolutely no way of determining whether that threshold has ever been met.

That same entity indicates that it has absolutely no way of determining the amount of any sales taxes being collected on digital products. It may not matter what the LPSS provides and doesn’t provide. After all, this is the same agency that recently had an employee arrested for falsifying public records. Something they apparently are quite sensitive about, considering they have failed to respond to subsequent requests from our office once the topic was raised.

The Common Thread: Usurpation of Sovereignty

Though different in form, both cases share the same constitutional flaw: the government seizing taxing power that the people never delegated. Whether stretched or sidestepped, the people’s consent is being erased.

• In Youngsville, leaders attempt to expand an old vote beyond its clear limits.
• In Lafayette, leaders impose a new levy without a vote at all.

Both echo the grievances of the 1760s and 1770s. Colonists were told that Parliament could tax them because it was “supreme” and that their consent was unnecessary. Today, Louisiana citizens are told that an ordinance can “update” definitions, or that a levy is only an “assessment,” not a tax. However, the effect remains the same: taxation without the free and informed consent of the governed.

Lessons for Louisiana Today

The Founders did not shrug at unconstitutional taxation. They declared it void. Jefferson called nullification “the rightful remedy” when powers are assumed without delegation. Madison warned that when representatives betray their constituents, the people must reclaim their original sovereignty.

These principles are not dusty relics. They remain vital safeguards. If governments in Louisiana can expand tax bases unilaterally or impose levies by relabeling them, then constitutional limits are meaningless, and the people’s sovereignty is forever lost.

The remedy is straightforward:

• If officials want to expand Youngsville’s sales tax base, they must return to the voters.
• If Lafayette wants a new levy to fund tourism, it should hold an election.

Anything else is not self-government. It is rule by decree.

The founding generation fought because taxation without representation was the symbol and substance of tyranny. Today, Louisiana faces the same creeping danger. Whether by stretching ballot language or inventing “assessments,” governments are undermining our founding principles and eroding the people’s sovereignty.

The ability to elect someone who holds the whip does not make the people free. True freedom demands that the government cannot tax without the people’s explicit consent. Youngsville and Lafayette have forgotten that lesson. It is up to the people of Louisiana to remind them — before “no taxation without representation” becomes nothing more than a slogan on a history exam. Louisiana doesn’t need a history lesson. It needs a reminder: taxation without consent is tyranny.