Lane Grigsby, a Baton Rouge business owner and Republican megadonor who chaired Gov. Jeff Landry's "constitutional reform" transition committee, this week made yet another pitch for a rewrite of the state constitution.
Grigsby spoke to media and the public at a Baton Rouge Press Club luncheon on Monday. It was a follow-up to an e-mail he sent to state lawmakers the prior week, urging them convene before the end of August for "debate, resolution, and drafting of a revised constitution."
By meeting for an off-season special session before the end of August, lawmakers could meet a deadline to put constitutional changes on the November ballot, Grigsby argued. Those changes require voter approval.
"Everything that's in the constitution which is policy should be moved over into statute and should be available for the Legislature to look at through careful evaluation and debate," Grisby told luncheon attendees.
Reading from a prepared statement, he listed areas of "broad consensus" in Louisiana: The constitution "is broken," fiscal policy is "a mess," and the state is going in the wrong direction. He added that there have been too many one-off amendments to the constitution and that "status quo special interests have a stranglehold on our state government."
Lawmakers during the regular session this spring rejected a measure backed by Gov. Jeff Landry that would have called a constitutional convention to redraft the state's charter. The measure died in a Senate committee.
Grigsby on Monday called out the state Senate for derailing the constitutional rewrite: "This is aimed at the Senate, who has despite overwhelming support in the House, refused to give the convention the courtesy of an open debate."
As of Friday, neither House nor Senate leadership indicated if the Legislature would return to the Capitol this summer for a special session.
Asked on Monday if the governor fully backs his plan for amending the constitution, Grigsby responded: "He has told me many times that he understands the depth of this problem ... He's never said 'Be quiet.'"