What has this all been about?

I still don't know if the constitutional convention is happening for real.  But those of you who wrote in, "Make the state subsidize petrochemical industries, private schools, and rich people in general by raising taxes on the poor" as your answer, you were correct.  

Two of Gov. Jeff Landry’s allies in his effort to overhaul the state constitution would personally support weakening protections around popular state sales tax breaks for residential utilities, prescription drugs and food purchased for home consumption. 

State Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, and former Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker, a Republican, on Friday said they would not personally want to lift those sales tax exemptions, but they don’t think such granular tax policy belongs in the state’s foundational governing document.

Beaullieu and Tucker support moving those types of tax items from the constitution to state statute during a constitutional convention proposed for this summer. The two men spoke during an online webinar sponsored by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.

Beaullieu said he also thought cigarette tax restrictions should be shifted from the constitution to statute as well. Louisiana cannot tax cigarettes below their 2012 rate because of a constitutional mandate.

Which one is the white guy?

This morning's T-P looks at the race for Louisiana Secretary of State between incumbent Tom Schedler who inherited the office when Jay Dardenne became Lieutenant Governor in 2010 and Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker. Like most of what appears on this fall's statewide ballot, it's a dismal race. Both men are Republicans although it's worth noting that Tucker is on Senator David Vitter's slate of endorsed candidates.

The Vitty ticket also includes Billy Nungesser in the Lt. Governor's race as well as Attorney General Buddy Caldwell and Gov. Jindal, although Jindal and Vitter enjoy an uneasy relationship at best. The generally agreed upon point is that Vitter will be using his endorsements as well as his PAC money in this year's elections to both purge the state of insufficiently conservative so-called "RINOs" and, of course, beef up his own power within the LA GOP.

Beyond that, there isn't much substantive disagreement between these two candidates. Tucker criticizes Schedler for being too unhappy with the state's already shoestring museum budget. Schedler attacks Tucker for the now three year old non-issue of legislative pay raises. You'll forgive us if we pause to yawn.

The good news is, thanks to Schedler's (for the moment) Secretary of State website's Candidate Database, voters should have no difficulty discovering the race or gender of any of the candidates in this fall's elections as that information is prominently displayed.