Nearly two-thirds of voters in Louisiana rejected all four proposed constitutional amendments backed by Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA).
The rejection of the four amendments means the state’s tax, legal, and judicial systems will remain unchanged. A campaign against the amendments, called “No to Them All, Ya’ll,” issued a statement calling the results “a resounding message that the agenda behind these amendments never had a mandate and that voters are sick of being lied to.”
“The defeat of the amendments is a blow to Gov. Jeff Landry,” the statement said.
Landry had campaigned in support of all four amendments. He blamed the loss on “far left liberals” and “propaganda and outright lies about Amendment 2,” a measure that would have lowered the maximum income tax rate that the state could enact and restricted yearly budget increases.
He noted that while the result was a disappointment, “this is not the end for us, and we will continue to fight to make the generational changes for Louisiana to succeed.”
Some deeply Republican parishes in the state, however, voted against the amendments. In Landry’s hometown parish of St. Martin, 51% of voters voted against Amendment 2. In Jefferson Parish, in which 55% of its voters backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, two-thirds of voters rejected the amendment.
“It’s clear from the stunning repudiation of all four of these amendments that the governor and the Legislature, at least in this case, are out of step with the vast majority of people who voted,” Pearson Cross, a professor of Louisiana and American politics at the University of Louisiana-Monroe, told the Times-Picayune.
Amendment 1 failed with 65.1% voting “no.” The amendment would have given Louisiana state lawmakers the authority to create new specialty courts and would have allowed the Louisiana Supreme Court the authority to discipline lawyers from out of state.
Around 64% of voters rejected Amendment 2, so the state’s current income tax structure and spending limits will remain intact. Its failure means there will be no automatic tax deductions for seniors and no guaranteed teacher pay raises.
Amendment 3, which 66% of voters opposed, would have made it easier to send more minors to adult jails and prisons for longer sentences.
The final question, Amendment 4, failed, with 64% of voters opposed. It would have adjusted the rules for special elections to fill vacant or new judgeships, notably for the Louisiana Supreme Court. State courts will continue to operate under existing election time frames rather than being required to use the earliest available election date as the amendment proposed.
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The election Saturday also had higher than anticipated turnout. Data from the secretary of state found 21% of eligible Louisiana voters cast a ballot, while projections called for just 12% turnout.
“This was a ‘primal scream’ kind of vote, driven by robust Democratic EV turnout that I’m not seeing being offset by a strong GOP Election Day vote,” John Couvillon, an award-winning pollster, said in a social media post.