Louisiana House advances bill for constitutional convention as full scope remains unclear

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The Louisiana House of Representatives passed the bill that would call the legislature into a constitutional convention. While there have been amendments stating what the lawmakers don’t want to change, a lot of things are on the table.

The House of Representatives voted to advance HB800 that lays the groundwork for the proposed constitutional convention. Amendments added intended protections for HBCU’s, teacher retirement and among other concerns lawmakers have been presented with.

Gov. Jeff Landry watched over the House proceedings calling members who have been publicly skeptical of the constitutional convention. The bill sponsor offered an amendment to set up committees over the summer for the public to testify about the proposed changes and the full convention will meet in August to vote.

This is a major change from the originally proposed convention taking place over two weeks later this month.

“But it would also have the committee being able to do some of that heavy lifting during the summer, stretching out the time that we could take public input. And I think this is something that has been popular when we’ve been vetting it with you all,” said state Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia.

Lawmakers are still uncertain of how the voting and committee process will work. Rules will have to be established with the delegates on how the convention will run and what will actually be changed in the constitution.

The leadership has framed the convention as a reworking of the constitution rather than a rewrite. They want to move parts of the protected sections of the constitution into statute so the legislature can make changes without having to put it to a vote of the people.

The governor has talked about the projected $500 million shortfall next year. He wants to have more options to move funds from than just higher education and healthcare.

“The recent poll that came out shows that only 1% of Louisiana’s population believe that this is a top priority. And of those who took an issue on the poll on the Constitution, 29% were, were against the constitutional convention, 27% were for. And I guess the other 44% really didn’t even, didn’t even matter to them,” said state Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge.

There have been amendments to say the convention won’t touch things like the homestead exemption or the K-12 funding formula, but some lawmakers said the original bill can be ignored once a convention is in action. Which is said to be what happened in the 70’s.

There’s still a lot of questions about how this bill will fare in the Senate. As senators have been more outwardly skeptical of the convention. The bill now heads to Senate committee.

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