Louisiana citizens are being asked to vote on six new amendments to the Louisiana constitution in October and November. Amendments to the constitution are required to pass through the state legislature with at least a two-thirds vote and are then submitted to the citizenry for a statewide vote. Once submitted for a vote, they cannot be vetoed by the governor. The proposed amendments mostly deal with funding certain programs.
One of the proposed amendments set to be voted upon on Oct. 22 deals with funding for the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS), the state-funded program that so many Louisiana students depend on to pay for college. For those who do not know, TOPS is a merit-based program that provides scholarships for approximately one-third of all full-time students. Due to the rising cost of tuition, the amount of money needed for TOPS has increased. Currently, TOPS is funded through the state general fund and a trust that holds tobacco litigation money called the Millennium Trust. The proposed amendment would redirect about $45 million from the Millennium Trust and put it directly into the TOPS fund. This would increase the amount of money available for TOPS starting April 1, 2012.
That all sounds pretty great, right? The legislator is trying to increase the longevity of a program that most Louisianans love by adding the funding to the constitution. Well, there is more to it because this amendment has another part. The additional part of the amendment seeks to renew a four cent tax on tobacco products which is scheduled to expire next year. The legislature tried to renew the tax in a completely separate statute, but Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed the proposal because he perceived it as a tax increase. In an effort to get it passed, the legislature coupled both the popular TOPS legislation and the statute to renew the tobacco tax into one constitutional amendment that the governor cannot veto.
My problem with this does not stem from either part of the proposed amendment, but that, the legislature is now trying to forget it passed. I think most Louisiana natives would be hard pressed to find a problem with supporting more funding for TOPS, but I do not doubt that there may be people who oppose the tobacco tax. With the way this legislation is proposed, people who want to support TOPS are forced to support the tobacco tax. To elaborate, voters must either vote yes to both the TOPS proposition and the tobacco tax renewal or no to both. One part of the amendment cannot be approved without the other.
As I previously mentioned, there are many students in Louisiana who rely on TOPS. Students are told from their freshman year in high school until they graduate that, if they meet the requirements, they will be able to receive a TOPS reward and go to almost any college in Louisiana without having to pay full tuition. In some cases, these students are also granted additional money from TOPS for exceeding the requirements.
State legislatures always seem willing to cut funding for education when times get rough, as demonstrated by our current financial situation. All students know the pain of budget cuts whether they pay more money for school or they cannot major in what they want because their major has been cut.
That being said, why would the legislature do anything to jeopardize TOPS? In my opinion, the fact that the legislature is willing to tag along that tax legislation shows their lack of dedication to higher education. Maybe they feel that, because there is such overwhelming support for TOPS, it will not matter if there is a simple four cent tax, but to some people it might matter a whole lot.
Furthermore, it is important to look at the purpose of a constitution. The constitution itself is the building blocks of government and is meant to be permanent. Amendments to that constitution should be bare bones in nature meaning that they should not have to be changed when a situation changes. This is because they should be the principle of which laws are based on, not the law itself.
It pains me to reach the realization that the legislature has forgotten the true purpose of making an amendment. The way the amendment is worded makes it sound more like a normal, everyday law rather than something that should be in the constitution of our state.
All of that being said, this is why these amendments are required to go for a statewide vote. Voters are not just voting on the amendment they are voting on whether or not the wording of that amendment is worthy of being put into permanence.