Louisiana Supreme Court building in New Orleans (Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal must decide before Thursday evening whether all three candidates in the newly created majority-Black election district for the Louisiana Supreme Court can stay in the race.
All 12 judges on the appellate court presided over a short hearing Wednesday afternoon in the lawsuit seeking to throw two of three Supreme Court candidates in District 2 off the Nov. 5 ballot.
Regardless of their ruling the case is expected to go the Louisiana Supreme Court for review before being settled.
If successful, the lawsuit would make John Michael Guidry, chief judge for the First Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge, a new Louisiana Supreme Court justice by default because he would be the only remaining candidate in the race.
A Baton Rouge voter who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, Elise Knowles Collins, testified at a district court hearing last week that her daughter works for Guidry as an attorney. Collins wasn’t present for Wednesday’s appellate court hearing, but Guidry and his wife attended in person.
In the lawsuit, Collins alleges Leslie Chambers, chief of staff for the Louisiana Housing Corporation, should be disqualified as a Supreme Court candidate because Chambers is not a resident of the district where she is seeking office. District 2 is centered around Baton Rouge and extends up to Monroe, but it does not include Ascension Parish where Chambers lives.
The lawsuit also seeks to knock Chambers and Marcus Hunter, a judge with the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Monroe, out of the race for not filing their taxes every year over the past five years, which is a requirement for candidates in the race. It’s alleged Chambers did not file her 2022 tax return and Hunter didn’t file returns for 2021, 2022 or 2023.
Collins’ attorney, David Bienvenu, spent almost all of his time before the appellate judges Wednesday making the case for why Chambers should be removed from the race. He barely addressed Hunter’s failure to file taxes.
It’s not clear who’s paying for Bienvenu or the rest of the legal team behind Collins’ lawsuit. Bievenu said Wednesday it would be inappropriate for him to reveal who is paying him.
The appellate judges gave no indication where they might land on the case. Only six of the 12 judges spoke during the hearing, and just five asked questions to attorneys.
Residency challenge
State law requires election candidates to live in the district where they run for office for at least a year before signing up as a candidate. Bienvenu pointed out that Chambers, who has admitted to never living in District 2, “can’t even vote for herself in the election where she is seeking office.”
Chambers’ attorney, Gray Sexton, argued his client doesn’t have to live in the district to be a candidate in this particular race because the new Supreme Court districts were only approved in early May, less than three months before people were asked to sign up for the race in July.
District 2 was moved out of northwest Louisiana to Baton Rouge and Monroe, and none of the candidates lived within its old boundaries, Sexton said. For example, Chambers lived in the old District 5, which used to include Baton Rouge before it was moved to District 2. Now, District 5 is based on Louisiana Gulf of Mexico coast.
Sexton said the Louisiana Supreme Court previously ruled that local government officials and state legislators can run for office in districts where they weren’t residents as long as the district overlaps with a portion of an old seat where they live. Chambers would meet this requirement.
Bienvenu countered that this exception to the residency rule only applies to state legislators, as explicitly stated in the Louisiana Constitution, and candidates for police juries and town or city councils. To apply it to the judiciary would require a state constitutional amendment that needs voter approval, he said.
Fourth Circuit Judges Daniel Dysart, an independent from District 3, and Rosemary Ledet, a Democrat from District 1, appeared sympathetic to Chambers’ arguments about her residency.
Ledet questioned whether any of the candidates met the state constitution’s residency requirement for District 2, if none of them lived in District 2 when it was based in northwest Louisiana earlier this year.
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Tax filing challenge
Chambers and Hunter have also argued they submitted their late tax filings in June and July of this year — before they signed up to run for the Supreme Court — but their paperwork might not have been transmitted properly or received.
On Wednesday, Sexton reiterated that Chambers has filed all of her tax returns through TurboTax and never faced a problem, except with the possibility of her 2022 return. He then said he believes Chambers made a good faith effort to file her 2022 tax return because TurboTax told her she was entitled to a refund of more than $4,500.
A couple of the appellate judges asked whether Chambers, who did not attend Wednesday’s hearing in person, had any more records to show she had submitted her taxes.
“Is there anything to show there was a transmittal?” Judge Sandra Cabrina Jenkins asked Sexton. “Any physical evidence?”
Sexton replied that Chambers testified under oath that she tried to file the taxes. She also submitted to the court a copy of a draft of her tax refund with TurboTax, indicating she was owed a large tax refund.
“A candidate who is entitled to a refund is … not trying to avoid paying her taxes,” Sexton said. “She did everything she could reasonably do.”
Daniel Hunter, the brother and attorney for Marcus Hunter, said Marcus Hunter submitted his 2021 tax return last year and attempted to submit his 2022 and 2023 tax returns in July, though they were ultimately rejected over a technical issue.
Hunter’s certified public accountant sent Hunter a letter indicating his 2022 and 2023 tax returns had been filed July 16, the day before he signed up to run for Supreme Court. Marcus Hunter believed the letter indicated he met the requirements to qualify for the election, Daniel Hunter said. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Marcus Hunter didn’t learn that his tax returns weren’t accepted until Collins’ lawsuit was filed in late July. His accountant had entered the incorrect personal identification number.
“Our client, in good faith, filed taxes through their CPA,” Daniel Hunter said.
Bienvenu argued a good faith effort doesn’t meet the threshold set out for candidates in the law.
“The law doesn’t allow a candidate to say ‘I sent it in,’” he told the judges.
New Black justice coming to the court regardless
Whatever the outcome of the Supreme Court race, District 2 will be sending a second Black justice to the Supreme Court.
Chambers, Hunter and Guidry are all African American Democrats.
Black residents, who make up a third of Louisiana’s population, have long sought more representation on the Louisiana Supreme Court. It took almost three decades for a governor and state lawmakers to approve a new high court election map that includes two majority-Black districts among the seven seats.
Prior to the new map’s approval in May, the court only included one majority-Black district in the New Orleans area. District 2 presents a brand new chance for Black residents in Baton Rouge and Monroe to elect a justice of their choice.
The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, a powerful business group that has taken an interest in reshaping Louisiana’s courts, has endorsed Guidry. Trial attorneys are backing Chambers.