AG’s Office Details Opinion On-Air, ‘Fix The Charter’ Group Responds

The debate over the newly-approved home rule charter in Lafayette is still raging after council-members passed an ordinance to correct problems with precincts.

As we reported on Tuesday, the ordinance was approved by a 6-3 vote of the Lafayette City-Parish Council to make changes to errors in the voter-approved December 8th charter amendments.

Council member William Theriot proposed tabling the ordinance for 30 days to allow LCG lawyers to meet with the State Attorney General's office to ensure that fixing the charter amendments, by ordinance, is legal. That vote failed 6-3, despite AG Jeff Landry's opinion against a charter fix by ordinance.

The final vote of the Council means that a new reapportionment plan describing each City Council and Parish Council District will be accurately reapportioned and described.

This morning on Acadiana's Morning News, Angelique Free, State Director of the Civil Division under Attorney General Jeff Landry, answered some questions about the recent opinion. Listen to the full interview below.

Shortly after the interview with Freel, Kevin Blanchard with the Fix The Charter group reached out to respond. From their perspective, fixing precincts has been done by ordinance 17 times since the current charter went into effect in 1992.