Gov. Jeff Landry is pushing hard for state legislators to convene a special convention next month to rewrite Louisiana’s constitution, but few voters see this as a top priority, according to a new poll for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate.
Only 1% of voters said getting a new constitution ought to be one of the governor’s top goals, the poll showed. Seven other issues were ranked more important by voters.
While Landry is popular overall, voters give him middling marks on how he has handled the writing of a new constitution, with 27% approving and 29% disapproving.
Landry, backed by conservative megadonor Lane Grigsby, is lobbying legislators to call the convention and promoted the plan recently in a press conference and radio appearances.
But Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, has questioned whether legislators have enough time to consider the proposal before the convention would begin on May 20 to give Louisiana a new constitution for the first time in 50 years.
Critics have repeatedly said that Landry and the plan’s supporters are moving too quickly. They note that voters adopted the current state constitution in 1974 after a three-year process that began when Edwin Edwards ran for governor in 1971-72. Elections were then held to elect 105 delegates to the convention, one per House district. Those elected were a mixture of state legislators and people from various walks of life. The delegates spent 1973 debating and writing the constitution, and voters approved it in 1974.
Landry is taking a very different path this time.
He barely mentioned the need for a new constitution when he ran for governor last year. The measure that would convene the constitution, House Bill 800, calls for the 144 House and Senate members to serve as delegates, along with 27 mostly conservative delegates appointed by the governor, or 171 total.
They would meet for as little as two weeks to debate and approve the changes to the constitution. Landry has said that’s enough time for the convention because the changes contemplated call for taking certain sections out of the constitution and not rewording the remaining language.
Two House committees have passed the measure to call the constitution, House Bill 800. The bill is now awaiting a vote by the full House. It would then have to be considered by a Senate committee and the Senate in advance of May 20.
At least one other poll announced last week, conducted by Global Strategy Group, a New York public relations firm that often polls on progressive causes, found most people thought the process to rewrite the constitution has been rushed. That poll, commissioned by a group called Louisiana Voters for Constitutional Integrity, also found that most people want voters, not Landry, to choose the convention's delegates.
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How the poll was conducted
Faucheux Strategies, a nonpartisan research firm based in Louisiana, interviewed a representative sample of 800 registered voters across Louisiana between April 22-26.
Trained professionals conducted the interviews by telephone; 79% of them were contacted on cell phones and 21% on landlines.
The calls were based on a scientifically selected, random sample of state voters. The racial composition of the sample was 64% White, 30% Black and 6% other. For this poll, “independent” includes people who have no party affiliation and people who are affiliated with a third party. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.46%.
