Louisiana voters will find ten constitutional amendments on the Nov. 3 ballot, and Amendment 8 reads like it was written for a yard sign. The ballot question is one sentence: "Do you support an amendment to prohibit expropriation of property by a foreign adversary or an agent of a foreign adversary?" Not many people in Bunkie or Bogalusa will vote no on that.
The amendment deserves a closer look anyway, because what it does is narrower than the ballot line suggests, and the strongest argument against it has nothing to do with being soft on China.
Start with the law as it stands. Article I, Section 4 of the state constitution already says a private entity "authorized by law to expropriate" can take or damage property only "for a public and necessary purpose and with just compensation paid to the owner," and it makes the question of public necessity a matter for the courts. State law hands that power to companies building railroads, toll roads, water and sewer plants, pipelines, power transmission and aviation facilities, according to the Public Affairs Research Council's guide to this fall's amendments.
Louisiana has also already moved against foreign adversaries on land. PAR notes that current law bars any entity connected to a foreign adversary from expropriating property within 50 miles of a military base, and from buying or leasing immovable property anywhere in the state.
Amendment 8 adds a single sentence to the constitution: "No private entity that is a foreign adversary or an agent of a foreign adversary, as defined by law, shall take or damage property." That is the entire change. It started as House Bill 192, filed Feb. 18 by Rep. Chuck Owen, and became Act 277 of the 2026 regular session. The Senate co-authors on the enrolled bill run from Blake Miguez and Alan Seabaugh to Regina Barrow and Katrina Jackson-Andrews.
Nobody voted against it. The House passed it 100-0 on April 21, and the Senate followed 36-0 on May 21, according to Ballotpedia. Owen said the measure would "allow citizens, if they want to cordon off their property [to prevent] any possibility of a foreign adversary ever expropriating it."
Who counts as a foreign adversary is set in statute, not in the amendment itself. State law defines the term as "a foreign nongovernment person or foreign government identified as a foreign adversary pursuant to 15 CFR 7.4 including the People's Republic of China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Republic of Cuba, Islamic Republic of Iran, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and Venezuela under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro." A companion law, PAR reports, defines an agent of a foreign adversary as "a person under the power, direction, management or policies of a country or person identified by the federal government as a foreign adversary."
The case for it is preventive. PAR's summary of the argument for the amendment opens by conceding that "the state has no evidence a company connected to a foreign adversary has expropriated property in Louisiana." The argument is that a guardrail belongs in place before the first pipeline company with a Beijing parent shows up at a rice farmer's door in Acadia Parish with a petition to expropriate, not after.
That argument is right. A state working hard to recruit new industry ought to be clear about who gets to use the power of the courts to take a family's land. Expropriation is one of the most serious powers Louisiana lends to private companies. Lending it to an outfit taking direction from the Chinese Communist Party should be out of the question.
The case against deserves a fair hearing, and PAR states it well. "Louisiana would not control the list of foreign adversaries," the guide says. "A presidential administration could include countries or regimes that state leaders don't feel are adversaries and prohibit expropriation for an important project." The second objection is sharper: "The definition of an agent of a foreign adversary is so broad it could sweep in companies with minority foreign ownership or financing."
Conservatives should take that second point seriously. A definition loose enough to catch a company over "minority foreign ownership or financing," in PAR's words, could tie up a legitimate pipeline or rail spur in litigation for years. Trial lawyers would be delighted.
The answer is in the amendment's own wording. Because it applies to adversaries "as defined by law," the Legislature can tighten the agent definition by ordinary statute without going back to voters. If the companion law turns out to be too broad, lawmakers can fix it in a regular session. The constitutional principle stays put.
Early voting runs Oct. 20 to 27. Amendment 8 sits near the bottom of a long ballot that also asks voters about governors' term limits and lead pipes. Read the whole thing before you get to the booth.
