I read the whole ballot guide twice and the humidity still had the last word.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – The ballot guide arrived folded into a shape that suggested it had been through something, and so had I. It was a Wednesday, the humidity was sitting on the city like a damp cat, and I had exactly one pencil, which belonged to my landlord and had been returned to me with teeth marks on it. I decided to take democracy seriously anyway.
Morning: Ten Questions Before Coffee
I had read that Louisiana voters face ten constitutional amendments in November, and the guide arranges them with the confidence of a menu in a restaurant that has only ever served one dish. Ten. Not nine, which would feel like a typo, and not eleven, which would feel like a threat.
Amendment 1 lets the surviving spouse of a disabled veteran keep a property tax exemption one time if they move to another qualifying home. I read it, nodded, and felt briefly like a well-informed citizen. Amendment 8 would stop foreign adversaries and their agents from taking private property through eminent domain, which I assume is aimed at somebody, though nobody in my group chat could say who. Marguerite replied with a single raised-eyebrow face and then a photograph of her cat.
Then I reached Amendment 4, the one everybody is arguing about on the streetcar. It would set a lifetime limit of two terms as governor. At present a governor can serve two consecutive terms, then sit out a break and run again, which is a bit like leaving the party for twenty minutes to get your coat and coming back in as the host.
Midday: Notes From a Lecture on Louisiana Constitutions
Professor Thibodeaux’s afternoon seminar was on the history of Louisiana’s founding documents, and he began, as he always does, by putting his glasses on his forehead and then looking for them. Louisiana has been through eleven constitutions, he told us, and he said the number the way other people say how many times they have been married.
He also said that the habit of amending the document is old and deep and nobody should be shocked by a ballot with ten items on it. I wrote that down. Then I wrote “ask if he knows where his glasses are,” crossed it out, and drew a very small streetcar in the margin.
The reading list was the usual archive-flavoured misery: ledgers, convention journals and one pamphlet that Tobias described as “all footnote, no mercy.” I like a footnote. I just prefer one that does not need its own footnote to explain the first one.
Professor Thibodeaux, on voter guides: “A good amendment is short, clear and quiet. You will meet very few of them.”
Afternoon: Amendment 7 and the Pipe Situation
My attention sharpened considerably at Amendment 7, which would allow public money to pay for work on drinking water service lines on private property. I live in a rented flat above a landlord who treats plumbing as a hobby, and I have views on service lines. Mr. Quince, the landlord, believes that a pipe which still carries water is a pipe in good health. By that standard, the Titanic was a very sound vessel until a certain April.
The state is not my first concern when the kitchen tap whistles like a kettle in a bad mood. Still, I stood in the hallway reading the water amendment and listening to the building clear its throat, and I felt the grand sweep of civic life brush against my own sink.
Amendment 9 raises the income limit for the property tax assessment freeze from 100,000 dollars to 150,000 dollars, and I did the maths on my own income, which took four seconds and ended in a small, dignified silence.
Evening: Choir Practice and the Great Parking Debate
The church hall smelled of floor polish and red beans, which is correct for a Wednesday. Mrs. Lalonde, who runs the choir with the calm of a woman who has outlasted four organists, handed out a new anthem and a stern note about breathing. Several of us breathed incorrectly on purpose, to see what would happen. Nothing did, other than a look.
During the break the tenors argued about Amendment 4 for eleven minutes. One said eight years should be plenty for anybody. Another said voters should choose whom they like, as often as they like. A bass, who had not spoken since September, said that he had once been president of a bowling league for nineteen years and no one had complained. The room agreed that this settled nothing and also that it was the best point made all evening.
I appreciated that nobody raised a voice, because the soprano section was in charge of the sandwiches and nobody wanted to find out what that would cost them.
On the walk home I stopped at the corner and thought about how odd it is to hear a whole city quietly decide how much power ought to rest in one chair. I also thought about where to stand on the parade route next spring, because those are my two modes: constitutional wonder and logistics.
Night: Lights Out and Flying Plans
Before bed I texted the flying club about Saturday. The forecast was soup, which the instructor calls “a character-building ceiling.” I will wait and see. Anything involving a cloud base and a clipboard is best left to people with a clipboard.
It was a long day, so here is the full list of what I have decided, for the record:
- I will read the amendments again with a better pencil.
- I will ask Professor Thibodeaux to explain the eleventh constitution slowly.
- I will tell Mr. Quince about Amendment 7 and then watch his face.
- I will also read the coverage of the lifetime term limit for governors before I vote on anything.
Out of habit, I ended the night with the farm pages, because a diary needs a palate cleanser. There I found the headline Congress honors farmers but skips the money, which struck me as the most universal sentence in American public life. Honour first, funding later, a nice bow on the empty box. I thought of Amendment 5, which would give state retirement systems and lawmakers more say over which retirement debt one-time state funds pay down, and I wondered how many of us are being honoured and not paid.
My friend Tobias says I should stop reading the news after ten at night, as it makes my sentences long. He may be right, but I think the news makes everyone’s sentences long. This is why I keep a list of what the world has done today and read it back to myself as if it were a stranger’s. If you need a handy way of sorting the real from the rest, this checklist for telling real news from the other sort lives at The London Prat, and I keep it by the kettle. You can find more of my daily notes at The London Prat too, written between lectures and thunderstorms.
Bohiney Magazine has been good company on the long nights, too, and its daily pages of nonsense are a fair match for a ballot guide of this size. Tomorrow I will bring a better pencil and a spare opinion, and I will see whether the humidity has finished with the day or merely paused.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/