The constitutional amendment that rewrote the fiscal portion of Louisiana’s Constitution failed primarily because of a tactical error made by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and his legislative allies.
This amendment, #2, sunk last weekend with only 35 percent of the vote on 21.3 percent turnout. The key to understanding why and how this translates into the blunder is in who was activated to vote against it.
Much was made of some conservative opposition to it, but the size of the loss is the first indication that this didn’t have much to do with the result. Picking up on a Trojan Horse meme circulated by the left designed to ensnare them, these individuals put their thinking caps aside and shunned the pro-growth, smaller government aspects of the reforms in favor of panicked long-shot interpretations that passage meant the state would tax churches out of existence. However, only had the result been a much closer loss would they have made the difference.
Rather, leftist special interests riled opposition from their bases, the first clue of this being all four amendments failed at about the same level, even #4, the most nonpartisan and innocuous of the bunch. Much anecdotal evidence shows mainly out-of-state leftist group dumping huge resources into agitating for a negative vote, aimed at Democrats and more generally black voters. Data tell the rest of the story.
Statistical analysis of the 16 most populous parishes showed a strong negative relationship between the proportion of Democrats in a parish and support of the amendment (when performed with proportion of blacks substituted instead, it was slightly weaker). That appeared to be tempered by location of parish, where the 12 southern parishes holding constant Democrats’ registration were more likely to vote against than the other four.
Somewhat weaker as an explanatory factor was level of turnout, which wasn’t significant in explaining support when factored in with region and Democrats registered, because it was strongly related with Democrats registered. In other words, Democrats were much more likely to vote against it and the more Democrats in the voting pool the higher was turnout, tempered somewhat by being outside south Louisiana. This reveals the efficacious of the left’s efforts.
Thus, the fatal mistake was in scheduling the amendment during a low-turnout election. Leftists didn’t want to see smaller government and less taxation mainly benefitting the middle class-and-above, and, in this milieu, they leveraged their resources more efficiently by delivering marching orders in an environment where the conservative base had less stimulus to turn out.
This points to what Landry and his allies should do to try to rebound, understanding that, even as this big reform by its nature is not easy, they can win if they choose better conditions. During the upcoming regular session, they can show the wages of the rejection, such as by not authorizing another educator pay stipend and reminding objectors that had the amendment passed a teacher pay raise would have become permanent. Then, after the session they should call a special session and pass something close to #2 with some minor adjustments, but this time schedule the vote on it for Nov. 3, 2026.
Recent election history demonstrates that in environments where Republican national candidates or a governor’s race are on the ballot, the reverse of what was seen Mar. 29 occurs: the more Republicans in the electorate, the higher is turnout. Especially with a Senate race expected to be a walkaway GOP win, disproportionate Republican turnout will happen on Nov. 3 (and the same might apply on Apr. 18 or May 30, when party primaries will occur featuring the red-hot Republican nomination contest) and tilt the scales in favor of fiscal reform.
Of course, shooting at the king – in this case, the “every man a king” worldview that undergirds the redistributive oversized and overbearing Louisiana state government that has put its people so far behind other states’ which holds back living standards and bleeds population – and missing makes the task harder in the future. But if Landry and his allies understand that there is enough appetite for reform and it didn’t work this time because of bungled scheduling – perhaps understandable given wanting to strike while the iron was hot and to budget under the new structure – they can learn from this and succeed in reform before their terms end.
No comments:
Post a Comment