The ability for two-term governors to make another run for the state’s top job after sitting out four years is now in the hands of the voters. Chalmette Representative Michael Bayham’s constitutional amendment limiting governors to two lifetime terms has passed both houses by the requisite two-thirds majority and will be on the November 3rd ballot. Bayham says prior history has shown that nothing good results when governors keep coming back time and time again.
“Earl Long, in his third term, got committed to a mental asylum and then, after his fourth term, ended up a few years later going to federal prison,” Bayham explained.
Even though constitutional amendments have fared poorly at the ballot box over the last two years, Bayham says he’s confident that this one will pass, pointing to how the 1995 legislative term limit amendment passed with more than 75% of the vote. He says if voters approve this one, it will mark a new day in Louisiana.
“It shows that we’re creating distance between the present and a political past that has defined us and, to some degree, haunted us,” Bayham noted.
Some Democrats expressed concern that Bayham was specifically targeting John Bel Edwards, who would otherwise be eligible to run for re-election next year – although this amendment would also apply to Republican Bobby Jindal. Edwards and Jindal are the only two living former Louisiana governors. Bayham says neither one expressed any concern about the amendment.
“Well, as feelers move throughout the process, we never heard a peep from either Governor Jindal or Governor Edwards,” Bayham noted.