State employee protections will go before Louisiana voters
A sign directs voters to a polling place at Edward Hynes Charter School in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood on Nov. 8, 2022. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
Louisiana voters will get to weigh in next on whether civil service protections should be removed from certain state employees, though it's not certain the measure will result in current government workers losing their status.
Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris. R-West Monroe, received final passage Wednesday in the Senate on a 28-9 party-line vote.
The proposal is a constitutional amendment that will be placed on a ballot April 18, 2026, pending approval of a separate bill to set that election date.
Morris' bill would give state lawmakers power that currently rests with the Civil Service Commission, a seven-member independent review panel that oversees the hiring, promotion and firing of 39,000 'classified' state workers. The commission, working with state agencies on staffing goals, has the power to create and eliminate job positions and decide which jobs should have a protected status and which should not.
Classified employees enjoy some degree of protection against politically motivated or otherwise unfair terminations and disciplinary practices because they have the right to appeal such decisions to the Civil Service Commission, which has the final say on staffing matters for most state agencies.
Although there was debate and confusion earlier in the week over whether the bill would apply to current classified employees or just future-hires, Morris said in an interview Thursday it could affect current employees 'to a degree.'
'Obviously, it can affect future employees. That's obvious,' he said. 'But it can affect existing employees.'
The degree to which it will affect current employees would depend on how the Legislature decides to use the amendment if voters adopt it. Morris said lawmakers would still need to pass a new statute that contains those specifics.
'Any bill passed would have to be carefully constructed to avoid any issues of an unconstitutional taking' of an existing employee's job, he said.
Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), a state government watchdog group, said the amendment would give lawmakers power to determine which state employees should be removed from classified civil service.
Whether they choose to take it that far remains to be seen, he said.
'Does it affect current employees?' Procopio said. 'I think it's technically possible. You can do it, but there has to be due process applied.'
There is a legal precedent from a court case that could require some level of due process before currently classified employees can be fired, he added.
'PAR is for civil service reforms, but I am concerned this doesn't provide enough safeguards,' Procopio said.
At any rate, the matter could end up in court before the election over the proposal's ballot language, which does not mention the 'classified' civil service and could mislead voters into thinking it doesn't apply to those workers.
The ballot language states: 'Do you support an amendment to allow the legislature to remove or add officers, positions, and employees to the unclassified civil service?'
Lawmakers based the ballot language off of a current constitutional provision that states: 'Additional positions may be added to the unclassified service and those positions may be revoked by rules adopted by a commission.'
All state employees are classified unless their job falls under one of the 13 unclassified positions listed in the Louisiana Constitution.
'I think that the ballot language could be misleading,' Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, said, noting that the state constitution specifically allows for legal challenges in such situations.
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