76 percent of voters chose to reject Constitutional Amendment One Saturday, which if passed would have allowed people living out of state to serve on state college and university supervisory boards.
LaPolitics.com publisher Jeremy Alford says the amendment passed the Legislature without a single vote against.
“I was surprised by the fact that it was defeated,” said Alford. “By-and-large these amendments are usually rubber-stamped by the electorate.”
The November election had seven constitutional amendments, with five passing.
So why did voters so soundly reject Amendment One?
“You only have to assume that a vote of no by the public meant that they either had strong feelings about it, or more than likely just did not want to learn about the amendment,” said Alford.
The Louisiana State GOP also asked voters to reject the amendment, but Alford doubts that played much of a role in the final result.
Alford says on average voters are faced with seven constitutional amendments per ballot, and while this result may indicate some amendment fatigue from the public Alford does not see this as a breaking point.
“Until we see kind of a widespread uprising against these amendments like we saw in 1970 where there were 53 constitutional amendments, every one of them rejected by voters, until something like that happens we are not going to see a different approach by policymakers,” said Alford.
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