Louisiana voters reject constitutional amendments championed by Republican governor

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana voters soundly rejected four constitutional amendments championed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry related to crime, courts and finances.

Voters said no to each amendment by margins exceeding 60%, according to preliminary results the secretary of state's office released after voting concluded Saturday evening.

Landry and his allies had crisscrossed the state in support of an amendment that would have made sweeping changes to the revenue and finance section of the state's constitution. The amendment received bipartisan support from lawmakers during a November special session on tax reform and was presented as a way to boost teacher salaries, curb excess spending and get rid of special tax breaks in the constitution.

Yet critics from across the political spectrum lambasted the proposed amendment as lacking transparency. The bill exceeded 100 pages but was condensed into a 91-word ballot question for voters.

While major teachers' unions backed the amendment, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and influential conservative religious figures opposed the changes that would have liquidated educational trust funds and removed constitutional protections for tax breaks for some kinds of properties owned by religious institutions.

Another proposed amendment would have made it easier for lawmakers to expand the crimes for which juveniles could be sentenced as adults. Criminal justice reform groups rallied to oppose what they described as draconian punishment that would not address the root causes of youth crime.

The remaining amendments would have allowed lawmakers to create regional specialty courts, which opponents said could be used to usurp judicial authority from local courts, and provided more flexibility in the timeline for holding elections for the state's Supreme Court.

Landry said he was disappointed but would continue to fight for “generational changes” in Louisiana.

“We do not see this as a failure," he said in a statement. “We realize how hard positive change can be to implement in a State that is conditioned for failure.”

Landry blamed the loss on the left-wing billionaire George Soros and “far left liberals.” Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organization founded by Soros, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Louisiana Democratic Party called the outcome “a resounding defeat” for Landry.

“Together, with voters from every party, people came to the conclusion that the constitutional amendments were at best misguided - at worst an attempt to give tax breaks to the rich while locking up more of our children," the party said in a statement. "That is not the Louisiana values we stand for."