BATON ROUGE — The head of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana says it might be appropriate for the state to draft a new constitution.

Speaking at the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday, Steven Procopio said the current constitution, adopted 50 years ago, gets deep into the weeds when it should just set guidelines for how the state should operate.

"We're doing it wrong," Procopio said. "A constitution should be a fundamental document that guides the policy-making process. It says how bills become law. It sets the checks and balances. It gives you your fundamental rights. That's what should be in a constitution."

Louisiana's constitution of 1974 had about 36,000 words, but it has been amended 219 times, with most of the changes dictating how the state spends its money.

"There are some very specific things that are in there," said Procopio, the organization's president. "There's a lot of really important things that are in there too — that we have to pay back the people we borrow money from ... that we have to have a balanced budget. There are important things in there, but there's a lot of detail and minutiae that shouldn't be in there."

Procopio also warned that a plan to revamp the state's Ethics Board would not be in the state's best interest. A lawmaker has proposed doing away with a panel that recommends potential board members to the governor, the Senate and the House. They must select someone from the list.

Under Senate Bill 497, Gov. Jeff Landry and the others would be able to name people without any prior vetting. Landry last year was dinged by the panel for not reporting a trip to Hawaii he told on a political donor's airplane.

"The idea that you would have a governor that has problems and then have control of the ethics board is a problem," Procopio said. "It would have been a problem under Gov. John Bel (Edwards). It will be a problem with whoever the next governor is."

"The other concern is that in addition to using it as a shield to protect yourself, you can use it to go after your enemies," Procopio said.

He suggested keeping the current system, or that if changes need to be made give appointments to other office-holders.

"So you spread it out so no one person has a majority or even close to majority on it," he said.