Louisiana voters have seen political mail, online advertising and even television spots about the four constitutional amendments on the ballot Saturday, but weak public financial disclosure laws make it difficult to say who is paying for those election efforts. Groups supporting and opposing the a mendments are trying to sway voters using money from nonprofit organizations that aren’t required to disclose their donors. The tactic makes it impossible to get the full picture of who is paying for the campaigns surrounding the amendments. Gov. Jeff Landry has been traveling the state trying to gin up support for the four constitutional changes, which would affect taxes, state budgeting, court operations, criminal sentencing and judicial elections. Most of the public campaigning has taken place on Amendment 2, which reworks the state’s income tax structure, and Amendment 3, which could result in more minors being sent into adult prisons. A review of campaign finance reports shows that at least $588,000 had been spent to pass Amendment 2. Another $509,000 has been spent on an opposition campaign to all four amendments, with a priority on defeating Amendment 3. Based on the campaign reports available from the Louisiana Ethics Administration, the groups spending in favor of Amendment 2 include a Landry political action committee (PAC) called Make Louisiana Great Again ($292,000); the antitax organization Americans for Prosperity ($157,000); the Louisiana Republican Legislative Delegation ($125,000); and Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier’s Foundation PAC ($14,000). The opposition groups who submitted campaign reports are the Vera Institute of Justice ($482,000) and Southern Poverty Law Center ($28,000), organizations that focus on lowering incarceration rates and providing alternatives to prison. This spending likely represents just a portion of the money that has gone into the constitutional amendment campaigns so far. Rules for the disclosure of spending on amendments are more relaxed than they are for traditional elections that feature political candidates. A wider range of nonprofit organizations are able to spend money on constitutional propositions without having to submit campaign finance reports to the state, according to people working on both sides of the amendment campaigns. For example, conservative activist and former state representative Woody Jenkins does not intend to report any of his political activity opposing Amendment 2 on campaign finance forms. Jenkins, who helped write the current state constitution ratified in 1974, is upset Amendment 2 would weaken protections for religious organizations’ property tax exemptions. It would remove those property tax breaks from the state constitution, thereby making them easier to eliminate. He has run editorials and news articles critical of Amendment 2 in his two Baton Rouge-based community newspapers. Jenkins also shares content online opposing the amendment through his political accounts, though he doesn’t think that activity rises to the level of requiring an ethics disclosure. “We don’t have a campaign or anything,” Jenkins said. Likewise, the Protect Louisiana’s Children PAC sent out a mail piece this week supporting Amendment 2 and touting the amendment’s endorsement by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. Republican political consultant Jason Hebert runs the group, which helped elect Landry in 2023, and it hasn’t publicly disclosed any political spending on the amendments. Even when political groups submitted campaign finance reports, it’s been difficult to figure out who is paying for their election efforts. Landry’s Make Louisiana Great Again PAC got all $300,000 of its amendment campaign money from just one contributor: a “social welfare” nonprofit called Protect Louisiana Values set up to support Landry. Protect Louisiana Values is probably best known as the organization that helped bring a live tiger from Florida to the LSU football game against Alabama last fall. Its donors are secret, meaning no one knows who put up the money for the live tiger mascot — or the recent PAC push for Amendment 2. Shane Guidry, a wealthy oilfield services executive and Landry confidant, defended the decision to keep those donors private, even after Guidry admitted he is one of the group’s contributors. “It lets people support what they want to support without being ridiculed,” Landry said in a telephone interview Thursday from the Bahamas. “All of us have businesses. We all have friends on both sides of the aisle.” Guidry spoke on the phone while attending a blue marlin fishing tournament this week with Steve Orlando, another close friend of Landry’s who is chairman of the Make Louisiana Great Again PAC. Orlando also heads Landry’s Fiscal Responsibility Program, which is modeled after Elon Musk’s federal-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Who’s paying for the amendments’ opposition campaign is also opaque. The Vera Institute only listed a handful of contributors on its campaign finance reports. The Foundation for Louisiana and The Navigation Fund, a charity founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Jared McCaleb, was expected to give $25,000 to efforts to defeat the amendments, according to the forms. But there was no accounting for where Vera got the remaining $400,000-plus it had already spent on the campaign. Sara Omojola, who works for the Vera Institute in Louisiana, said Thursday the organization was putting its own money into the election. Headquartered in New York City, Vera focuses on reducing the country’s prison population and took in over $260 million in annual revenue in both 2022 and 2023. It didn’t disclose donors on its most recent tax form. Landry sought Thursday to link Vera and other groups opposed to his constitutional amendment push to liberal billionaire George Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who has served as a bogeyman for Republicans for several years. Soros’ Open Societies Foundations  gave $1.25 million in 2023 to Vera Action Inc., an affiliated group of the Vera Institute, but the donation is a relatively small sum of money compared with the nonprofit’s overall annual revenue. It’s also not clear, based on tax filings, whether any of that money would have been spent in Louisiana. Landry’s pro-Amendment 2 coalition has its own controversial billionaire in the mix as well. Conservative Republican Charles Koch is the founder of Americans for Prosperity, a group that has been knocking on doors, phone banking and sending out direct mail in favor of Amendment 2 over the last two months. A Kansas native, Koch is an anti-tax activist with libertarian leanings who often draws the ire of Democrats for spending in national politics. Americans for Prosperity is supporting Amendment 2, in part, because it would lower the maximum rate of the state income tax, said Scott Simon, the former Louisiana state representative who leads the organization’s Louisiana chapter. “Our efforts are all on Amendment 2,” Simon said. ...read more read less