Ludwig von Mises coined the term “useful innocents” – later transformed by others into a less -charitable term “useful idiots” – to describe those who he saw as “confused and misguided sympathizers” of communism. While that ideology isn’t in play over Amendment 2 to Louisiana’s Constitution appearing on the Mar. 29 ballot, certainly the term applies as the political left has found allies on the right to help it do it dirty work in trying to vote down the measure that would transform fundamentally for the better the state’s fiscal system.
The left has pursued a two-prong strategy to this end. One involves an attack over procedural measures surrounding the amendment’s placing on the ballot (as well as with two others). Upon inspection, its attempt is quite wanting and the judiciary unlikely will find merit in it, but as a by-product of the suit to invalidate the ballot placement as a result the ensuing publicity is designed to sow doubt in the minds of those who, upon analysis of its claims, should know better.
The other is a campaign to convince normally sober supporters of religious activity of a fantastic plot to strip from the property of religious organizations not exclusively used for religious purposes ad valorem tax exemptions, merely by the move through Amendment 2 of such exemptions from the Constitution into statute. The change is part of strategy of removing from the document things that are absolutely not necessarily part of a bedrock assessment of guiding principles behind it – in this case, that imperative being that religious activity should be supported by the state in prohibiting local governments (and, technically, the state as the Constitution empowers it to levy a statewide property tax of up to 5.75 mills, but it never has done so) from taxing property unequivocally part of a religious mission – into statute, if only to reduce the outsized and overly-specific nature of the document as it stands.
At present, the Constitution also includes in this prohibition ancillary property owned by a religious organization that has non-religious use, as part of a larger exemption for nonprofit organizations, both secular and religious. Putting that into statute, as the amendment would do through enabling legislation, theoretically makes it slightly easier to make adjustments to the exemption status going forward, as instead of two-thirds dual chamber legislative votes and a majority popular vote to eliminate only the latter exercise would become necessary. And, in this instance that’s not a bad idea in some cases for some nonprofits or categories of them, whose value to the state as a whole may not merit such local taxpayer support.
But property for secular use is property for secular use, whether a religious organization’s, so that’s the way the amendment was written. Yet, as previously noted, while a number of other states don’t afford such exemptions to religious organizations’ ancillary properties, Louisiana does, because of a political culture that demands that – demands which are processed by legislators who depend upon election and therefore have great incentive not to cross up constituents on this issue. Suffice to say, there would have to be an enormous sea change in the state’s political culture for enough of the voting public to begin electing legislators who decide they’re going to help local governments squeeze more money onto their coffers by hitting up certain property of religious organizations, and getting away with it electorally. That is the political reality.
Yet one recent argument from a usually reliably conservative source calling for rejection of Amendment 2 imagines this as realistic not just sometime in the distant future, but now. As alleged proof that legislators will stray from voter concerns, if not the state’s political culture, on the matter of letting local governments pull cash from religious organizations, the piece cites recent legislation that was defeated that would have made it harder for private interests to expropriate property rights for use in carbon capture schemes, expand recourse for compensation for injuries due to vaccines as a condition for employment, and to overturn destructive pandemic policies, as well as supported supplying the state with two majority-minority congressional districts in a map that at best is highly-questionable constitutionally.
All unwise policy moves, but as well all irrelevant to the topic at hand for multiple reasons. First of all, none of these required supermajorities to come out on the wrong end, but resulted from failures to attain simple majorities (in the long-running feud over gubernatorial emergency powers – fixed last year by simple majorities – inability to overturn these came as a result of court decisions as well). The constitutional requirement of two-thirds majorities of the seated chamber, which would be required to expand the unprotected property list, would have allowed even one-third plus one of the membership in either chamber to turn back the defeated measure, although the disputed map barely received two-thirds support in each chamber even though simple majorities would have done.
Second, none of these examples are tax issues (hence their having no supermajority requirement), much less dealing with property taxes. Keep in mind that if the presumed reason for expanding the kinds of property subject to that tax is to raise more revenue that legislators, and the governor, in charge of changing this, would see none of that money as the property tax collections in question go to local governments. It is entirely unserious to believe that legislators would put their careers on the line by choosing to die on the hill of bringing more religious organization property under the tax umbrella in order to shovel more potential revenues to local governments and elected officials.
Because, third, unlike the examples above, protection of religious expression is extremely fundamental in the Louisiana political culture and, as confirmation, finds that reflection in the Constitution but even more in statute. While the Constitution tracks the U.S. Constitution in its language regarding religious expression, statute goes further. In 2010, lawmakers passed the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, which only six legislators even dared to vote against. The law increases the burden of proof on state and local government to curtail religious expression beyond that of the Constitution.
Not only does this illustrate the political culture’s consensus against degradation of religious organizations to operate – 15 years later that hasn’t changed – but it also begs the question why some have gotten so upset about the supposed threat of the amendment putting peripheral religious organization property into statute yet don’t seem perturbed that the PRFA itself “only” is in statute. Not included among them is the largest religious organization landowner in the state, the Roman Catholic Church, which has no objection to the amendment and assented to its wording.
In fact, of those four examples that fall short in asserting that legislators will cross up their constituents over religious issues, you could argue convincingly that on two lawmakers indeed were tracking the political culture and carrying out voters’ wishes. Given the state’s history of tolerating paternalistic government, it could be argued that overturning the unduly restrictive pandemic policies was congruent with that culture, as well as its history of government poking its nose into private transactions means that the failed carbon capture restrictions fulfills the same.
The larger point is this: fears that legislators suddenly would go after religious properties moved into statute are severely overblown when confronted with evidence-based analysis, with such protestations coming off more as a reaction to what the political left does best, induce panic based on evoking emotion rather than reason. Louisiana’s political culture and the electorate molded from it simply will not permit a large majority of legislators to behave with such deviance at this time, or even in the foreseeable future. Of course, who knows in the distant future although it still seems highly unlikely to see such significant change occur, which would have to come from a large fundamental shift in the public’s attitudes.
This points out yet another flaw in the argument against the amendment: that keeping the properties in question in the Constitution would afford greater protection than in statute. Because the question of religious expression is so fundamental to the state’s political culture, the resulting tight electoral connection between the governed and the government consequent to that means that any move by legislators to go after the ancillary properties could happen only if a significant shift in attitude by voters on this issue occurred that led to putting into office lawmakers of that mind. In that case, the additional requirement of a majority popular vote for change is no extra safeguard, for if things have come to this, a majority would vote it out.
Finally, and what proponents of the argument against the amendment don’t acknowledge, is its defeat immediately and at the bare minimum raises taxes by about $200 million annually. That’s a big lowball since all sorts of enabling legislation kicks in if passed, and that adds up to several hundred million more bucks in net tax increases without the amendment. Do the opponents of the amendments really want to fork over significantly more to state government to assuage their unreasonable trepidation?
(It’s possible this could be fixed, by legislation and another try at the ballot box in November, but not without a lot of leakage of tax dollars into state government. Nor is it guaranteed; recall that any fix would require two-thirds votes and suddenly with a lot more money in state government coffers a few of the less fiscally-conservative Republicans who backed Amendment 2 might waver and defeat any such repair.)
In the final analysis, procedural complaints spearheaded by the political left, as noted above, against Amendment 2 fail to pass muster, and there is no reasonable case to be had that moving protection of certain property of religious organizations from taxation out of the Constitution into statute risks a wholesale attack against religious expression, or even that not doing so affords any extra protection from saddling religious organizations with increased property taxes. Those on the political right must not let themselves become useful innocents in the left’s battle to keep outsized government that insufficiently punishes those who contribute most to society and economic development for all, a fate they may avoid through rational rather than emotively-driven analysis of the question at hand.
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