Louisiana House speaker: Constitutional convention, more special sessions unlikely this year

Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier addresses representatives at a January 2024 organizational session. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP, Pool)

Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said the Legislature might hold special sessions on insurance or taxes and budget issues, but they are unlikely to take place before 2025.

“I think it’s really early to try to predict if we’re going to have a special session on any of those fronts because we don’t know what the bills would look like and we don’t know, really, what the deficit is,” DeVillier said Thursday morning in an interview at his office in the state Capitol.

“I would think it would take months of these types of meetings to come up with a package of bills to figure out what direction we want to go in. So I don’t think [a special session] will take place until next year,” he said later in the interview.

The speaker echoed remarks from Senate President Cameron Henry , R-Metairie, earlier this week, who also said lawmakers were not planning to return for a special session or constitutional convention yet.

A few hours after his interview, and after Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration started publicly advocating for an August or September special session in a public hearing, DeVillier softened his stance, saying on social media that he would willing to hold a special session on budget and taxes in August if legislators wanted to do so. Henry did not respond to a phone call or text Thursday.

For months, Landry has been pushing a constitutional convention — or more recently a pared-down special session with proposed constitution amendments — in August or September at the latest.

The governor and his tax chief, Louisiana Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson, suggested Louisiana’s anticipated budget shortfalls over the next few years should be addressed with a sweeping tax policy overhaul that includes constitutional changes. Nelson outlined some of the constitutional amendments to tax policy he would propose Thursday afternoon to a joint legislative committee.

But without a special session called for August or September, it’s unlikely the Landry administration’s proposed constitutional changes could pass and take effect in time to deal with the next year’s state budget deficit. It’s projected to exceed $550 million.

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Louisiana lawmakers need a two-thirds vote in each chamber just to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. Then, Louisiana voters need to approve constitutional changes in a statewide election.

There are only two statewide elections happening before 2026 — Nov. 5 and Dec. 7. If Landry and lawmakers want to put constitutional amendments on either of those ballots, the Legislature would have to meet and approve the amendments in August or September, respectively.

Landry doesn’t need the legislators permission to call them into a special session, but it would be difficult to get a two-thirds vote to pass any changes without the legislative leadership’s support.

DeVillier also indicated that it might be hard to reach a two-thirds vote to approve constitutional amendments for a statewide ballot over the next few weeks, even if the Legislature did convene.

“Do we want to do tax reform before the next fiscal year? Certainly we would love to do that, but then we don’t know what that looks like to be able to get member buy-in,” the speaker said. “And, of course, it has to pass the ballot to become effective anyway.”

“I don’t think having a good tax reform plan is going to happen overnight,” DeVillier said.

Instead of a special session, legislators are scheduling a series of public hearings over the next several weeks focused on insurance, budget and tax policy in an effort to educate legislators and the public on the state’s financial and insurance challenges.

Hearings on insurance and taxes took place Thursday. DeVillier said the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget and the Revenue Estimating Conference will also meet in August and focus on the size of the state’s deficit.

The House Appropriations Committee, which focuses on building the state budget, also plans to have a series of meetings going over spending in detail starting in late August, he said.

“If we would come up with a package of bills that the members would like, we would go around the state visiting with the different delegations and proposing what those bills are,” DeVillier said. “And then seeing if we would go [into a special session], or if we want to go in early to have a special session.”

Nelson is interested in eliminating the state income tax, but doing so would cripple the state budget unless the revenue can be replaced. Individual income tax alone generated $4.8 billion dollars in state revenue during the 2022-23 fiscal cycle, according to the state revenue department .

Conservatives would also like to lower the state’s sales tax rate, which when combined with the average local sales tax rate, is the highest in the country.

Three of the largest sales tax exemptions are also among the most popular and are constitutionally protected, however. Louisiana does not apply state sales tax to food for home consumption, residential utilities and prescription drugs. The tax break on groceries cost the state $584.5 million last fiscal year .

Getting legislators and voters to remove the tax break on food for home consumption from the state constitution might be a tough sell.

“I believe other states are joining us in exempting food for home consumption. So it is going to be something that is going to be difficult to ask people on the ballot to tax themselves on it,” DeVillier said.

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DeVillier said it is also difficult to compare Louisiana’s tax structure to neighboring states. Texas might not have a personal income tax, but it has high property taxes. Louisiana has relatively low property taxes, in part, because of the state’s homestead exemption.

“It’s hard to look at a state like Texas and try to say what we need to do,” he said. “Because if you ask my constituents, they don’t want to pay higher property taxes, right? They would appreciate a lower personal income tax.”

There are also several options for dealing with the budget deficit that don’t require constitutional changes.

Louisiana will face budget shortfalls in large part because it is automatically cutting its state sales tax rate from 4.45% to 4% next year. Legislators could vote next spring to keep that higher sales tax rate in place, but DeVillier said lawmakers are unlikely to do so.

“I certainly think members are going to file bills to renew it,” DeVillier said. “I don’t think it passes. I don’t think it passes the House.”

Another option to reduce the state deficit next year would be to redirect a portion of vehicle sales tax revenue currently designated for transportation projects and use it to pay for other expenses such as health care costs and higher education programs. Estimates show the change could lessen the budget shortfall by as much as $266 million in the next fiscal year.

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