The question of whether Bossier City elected officials should be term-limited can go on the March ballot, the Louisiana State Bond Commission agreed last week.
After more than a year of fighting in council chambers, legal questions and maneuvering and a decaying relationship between many Bossier City residents and their elected leaders, voters in the spring will have a chance to decide whether to limit the number of terms a mayor or council member can serve. But the vote to change the Bossier City Charter, even if successful, would not stop sitting council members from running again though some have served well over three terms already.
The state bond commission approved three ballot items last week for Bossier City residents based on the efforts of the charter review commission established last year in the midst of the messy term limits fight. The ballot items will be:
Proposition No. 1: Amend and restate the city charter, in entirety, as set forth in the revisions from the Citizens Charter Review Commission
Proposition No. 2: Amend the city charter or the amended city charter set forth in Proposition No. 1, if approved, relative to term limits for city council members
Proposition No. 3: Amend the existing city charter or the amended city charter set forth in Proposition No. 1, if approved, relative to term limits for mayor
Though the ballot items will give voters the opportunity to enact term limits for their elected officials, the Citizens Charter Review Commission's proposals significantly undercut the provisions of the petition which sparked the debate in the first place.
The Bossier City Term Limits Coalition more than a year ago began collecting signatures on a petition calling for three-term limits on city's council members and mayor. The group presented the petition and its almost 3,000 signatures to the Bossier City Council last July.
The Coalition's petition didn't make any exceptions for council members or mayors who already have served three terms, meaning if it had been enacted as presented most members of the council would have been ineligible for reelection.
The Bossier City Council, from the start, put up roadblocks to the petition's provisions making their way to a ballot. Coalition and council members clashed at nearly every council meeting in the year that followed. The city sought external legal advice, petitioned the Louisiana Attorney General's Office to weigh in, brought the case to a judge and got the original petition thrown out on a technicality. The Coalition assembled a new petition and presented it to the council, but the council has refused to move the matter to a ballot.
The establishment of the charter review commission was seen, by some, as a way to tackle the term limits question with greater council control. Though the process was messy, the commission assembled a draft revision to the charter.
Though the commission recommended term limits for elected officials, the three-term clock would not start until Jan. 1. It also would allow council members and the mayor to run again after a "break in service."
"Members of the city council shall be eligible for re-election except that no person who has been elected to serve as a member of the city council for more than two and one-half terms in three consecutive terms, that service being during a term of office that began on or after Jan. 1, 2025, shall be elected to the city council for the succeeding term," the proposed charter revisions read.
The council asked the state bond commission to put the charter revisions on the December ballot. Though the state bond commission declined to do so, its members at a meeting last week agreed to put the issue on the March 29 ballot.
A member of the Bossier City Term Limits Coalition sued the city in August in hopes a judge would force council members to put the provisions of their petition on an upcoming ballot. David Crockett, the Coalition's founding member, said the group has not yet received a ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana, but they are hopeful a favorable ruling will see their version of the term limits issue, which would apply retroactively, on the March ballot alongside what the state bond commission already has approved.
Email Adam Duvernay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @bylineDuvernay. Sign up for the daily Shreveport-Bossier email newsletter or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.