Voters to Government: Go Home, You’ve Had Enough Taxes

The November 2025 elections offer very important insight into voters, governments, and the future of public financing.

“Louisiana voters always approve local taxes.” That has been the comfortable illusion held by governments for decades. Renewals, continuations, and extensions were treated like mere housekeeping — a perfunctory ritual performed every few years to keep the lights on, the fire trucks fueled, and the administrative machinery humming. And as an added safeguard, they were hidden away in low-advertised, low-turnout elections.

Officials told themselves a reassuring story:

• Voters don’t pay attention.
• Renewals always pass.
• Opposition is unserious.
• The public trusts its local officials.

This illusion became so entrenched that many officials have stopped even trying to justify their budgets. Rededications were slipped into ballots. Extensions labeled as “renewals.” One-cent taxes morphed into layer upon layer of stacked burdens. The assumption was simple: “What’s one more millage?”

But when hundreds of thousands of Louisiana voters walked into the voting booth this cycle, they quietly, firmly, and consistently rejected that assumption. The illusion shattered.

The Truth

The truth-teller in this election is not a whistleblower, reporter, or activist. It is the data itself. Across parishes, large and small — urban and rural — voters delivered a message that could not be ignored:

• Renewals pass.
• New taxes fail.
• Rededications are punished.
• Sales taxes are radioactive.
• Trust in government is eroding everywhere.

This isn’t a fluke. It isn’t ideological. A single demographic group doesn’t drive it. It is structural. It is statewide.

And it is consistent in parish after parish after parish. Let us look at what the numbers actually tell us.

The Revolt Against New Taxes

If we isolate sales taxes, the statewide trend is unmistakable. Voters rejected most attempts to impose or extend them — especially when tied to general government.

Sales tax failures included:

• Tangipahoa Parish: Sheriff’s ¾% sales tax — defeated by 14 points.
• Caldwell Parish: 1% school sales tax — crushed 75% to 25%.
• Webster Parish: 1% parishwide sales tax — failed 53% to 47%.
• West Baton Rouge Parish: 1% parishwide sales tax — failed 51% to 49%.

These results show broad resistance to raising sales taxes for operational spending, law enforcement growth, or general-purpose budgeting. Just as important are the exceptions — because they reveal what voters do trust, at least those that went to the polls in these areas:

• Jefferson Davis Parish approved a ½% school sales tax in perpetuity.

The picture that emerges is nuanced but clear: Louisiana voters are rejecting sales taxes tied to institutions that lack credibility. Narrow, school-related sales taxes can still pass when voters trust the stewards (even when they shouldn’t).

This was not a blanket anti-tax movement. It was a trust movement, and sales taxes tied to weak governance bore the brunt of voter skepticism.

Article 6, Section 29 of the Louisiana Constitution provides: 

“Except as otherwise authorized in a home rule charter as provided for in Section 4 of this Article, the governing authority of any local governmental subdivision or school board may levy and collect a tax upon the sale at retail, the use, the lease or rental, the consumption, and the storage for use or consumption, of tangible personal property and on sales of services as defined by law, if approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon in an election held for that purpose.  The rate thereof, when combined with the rate of all other sales and use taxes, exclusive of state sales and use taxes, levied and collected within any local governmental subdivision, shall not exceed three percent.”

Instead of honoring the spirit of the Constitutional restriction aimed at keeping local sales tax levels at three percent or below, our legislature has crafted language to subvert it. They have allowed the creation of districts not considered “local governmental subdivisions,” allowing taxes on taxes to be stacked on one another, leading to municipalities with rates of 10% or more. 

Louisianans are simply done with sales tax stacking. The government kept layering, and the voters are finally snapping.

Punishment for Rededications

Nothing triggered voter skepticism more strongly than ballot propositions that:

• extended a tax, and
• rededicated the revenue, while being marketed as a “renewal.”

This formula — used most blatantly in East Baton Rouge — produced across-the-board defeats. Voters were not confused. They were offended. They saw the move for what it was, the government attempting to rewrite the will of the people without asking them honestly.

A visible exception can be seen when voters saw:

• the same tax
• the same rate
• the same dedication
• the same purpose

…renewals passed overwhelmingly.

Examples:

• Vermilion Parish: School District passed 81%.
• DeSoto Parish: Two major school millages passed with ~70%, and three renewals for the Village of Grand Cane. 
• Tangipahoa Parish: Multiple lighting districts passed easily.
• Calcasieu Parish: Fire district renewal passed 84%.
• Lafourche Parish (City of Thibodaux): Renewal passed 88%.

Voters are not necessarily anti-government. They are anti-change without trust.

A Collapse in Credibility

Nowhere has trust collapsed more thoroughly than in special districts and some parish governing bodies.

In several parishes, voters turned sharply against what had once been considered routine renewals.

• In Caldwell Parish, the Parishwide School Board 1% S&U Tax (Educational Facilities Improvement District) was crushed, 25% YES to 75% NO.
• In Tangipahoa Parish, the Parishwide 4 Mills Renewal (10 years) failed 48%–52%, even as smaller, highly localized lighting-district renewals passed.
• In Livingston Parish, renewals for Fire Protection District No. 5 (5 Mills) and Fire Protection District No. 8 (15 Mills) were both rejected by voters.

These results show that even renewals—once nearly automatic—are now vulnerable when voters have doubts about how money is being spent. Parishes that have burned voter trust — through insider deals, or political drama — are being punished at the ballot box.

East Baton Rouge — A Government in Crisis

Every parishwide ad valorem proposition failed. Even the Zachary Community School System millage went down. Though no sales taxes appeared on this ballot, the defeats collectively signal deep institutional mistrust.

Orleans Parish — The Outlier

All measures passed, many by landslides. This reflects a unique urban electorate highly reliant on government services and alignment between voters and officials.

Jefferson Parish — Levee Tax Renewal Passed Easily

A single, well-justified millage passed 81%–19%.
>Clear purpose.
>Clear benefit.
>Clear trust.

The Consequences

Government has not yet grasped the magnitude of the shift. But the consequences are already visible:

1. Voters no longer trust “extensions” or “rededications.”

Every deceptive ballot strategy backfired.

2. Voters refuse to raise sales taxes under most circumstances.

The 3% cap debate is not academic — it’s genuine voter sentiment. Voters expect the language of the Constitution to mean something and for our elected officials to uphold it, not try to create workarounds to extort more money from their checking accounts. 

3. Many districts may now be facing financial crises.

But these crises were not caused by voters — they were caused by leadership failures within those districts.

4. The entire system is too complicated.

Voters can’t and are refusing to track dozens of overlapping districts. They are voting “NO” as a defensive act. It is an easier exercise.

The Call to Wisdom

What, then, is the way forward?

The answer is not higher taxes, more layers of government, deceptive ballot language, or “business as usual.” Louisiana needs clarity, honesty, and simplification. We need:

1. Mandatory 10-year sunsets for all local taxes

No more perpetual taxation. No more 20-year millages without check-ins. If a tax is good, voters will renew it. Voters know the difference between good stewardship and waste. The politicians know this as well and have designed a system to protect their bottom line. 

2. Strict ballot-language reform

No more rededications disguised as renewals. If you want to change the purpose, you must ask openly. 

3. A cleanup of overlapping special districts

There should no longer be districts that are wholly within the limits of a municipality or a parish. Anything that can be done within those political subdivisions can be accomplished by those subdivisions. Legislatively created special districts should be confined to the multi-parish and multi-municipal endeavors that aim to address regional problems, such as flood control, without divesting the political subdivision of its own responsibility. 

4. A hard 3% local sales tax cap — with clear, enforceable definitions

Local sales tax stacking is fueling voter revolt. This is especially true for places like Baton Rouge, which just unanimously passed a 1¢ tax benefiting political insiders. It’s for yet another special district just days after voters killed every tax on the ballot, including renewals. Making matters worse, the city is implementing severe austerity measures and even laying off staff. Talk about tone deaf!

5. Voter education and transparency

Publishing tax-effect charts, overlapping district diagrams, and lifetime tax burdens before each election is a transparent measure. Using taxpayer dollars to urge support of a measure is not education; it is a form of taxpayer-funded propaganda that needs to end.

Most importantly:

6. Public officials must earn trust again.

Despite the predictably low voter turnout, this election cycle proved that voters are not disengaged. They are not unaware. They are not apathetic. Instead, they are paying attention and voting with purpose. And they are telling the truth to those in power — even when those in power refuse to hear it.

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