Commentary

Any conversation about rewriting Louisiana's constitution should start with a draft of a new constitution. So I decided to write one. It lives on Github, a popular platform for software development. Github is actually useful for managing textaul projects in general, especially ones with many parts. So it is a great platform for developing a new constitution, even if you aren't a software developer.

OK, I didn't write it entirely from scratch. I borrowed content and ideas from the United States constitution and existing state constitutions.

"Why not just use the federal constitution or a particular state's constitution as a starting point?" Well, there's a lot of stuff in the constitutions of other states that apply well to those respective states but do not translate well to Louisiana. There are plenty of other good reasons to write a draft rather than just copy an existing constitution. For one, why do things the way we've always done them? In my proposal, I've eliminated the state Senate. Why do we need a legislature of two houses? Nebraska has only one house, and they're doing well eough to keep Warren Buffett.

Every constitution consists of several articles, each of which consists of sections. So I start with an outline of the various articles and major sections within those articles.

Establish general content for each section.
Receive feedback on the content and update accordingly. (This will take place through the Issues feature of this repository.)