For the second year in a row, voters said no to every constitutional amendment on the ballot by a wide margin. All five amendments failed by a minimum of 16 points, with the one to remove certain employees from the civil service division failing by a whopping 56 points. Melinda Deslatte with the Public Affairs Research Council says there are several reasons why voters turned aside all five amendments.
“Unhappy with things going on at the Capitol, related to redistricting, or unhappy with Governor Jeff Landry’s policies on some certain things; and some other people are irritated that they have to keep voting on amendments every election cycle,” Deslatte explained.
Deslatte says voters do not have the time to research these issues to make informed decisions.
“It is a heavy lift to expect voters to be able to sift through some of these proposals, because they are complex. They take a lot of education. People have other things going on in life,” Deslatte said.
Governor Landry posted on social media today that since Amendment 3 failed, if the legislature does not come up with a way to fund a pay raise for teachers, no public employee will get a pay raise. Deslatte says she doesn’t know exactly what Landry means by that.
“I’m curious, if that means also that his cabinet secretaries, several of whom are scheduled to get pay raises in the budget bill for next year; does he mean that they also won’t get pay raises?” Deslatte asked.
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