Baton Rouge, Louisiana — Louisiana Republicans have abolished elected office days before acquittal He won by a landslide Clerk Bench in New Orleans is set to take office.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry quietly signed legislation eliminating the longtime Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal Court position into law Thursday, according to Louisiana Secretary of State spokesman Trey Williams.
Republicans say erasing the office is a Unification effort It aims to make the local judicial system more efficient and reduce costs. But Democrats call the change an overreach by the government, arguing that it violates the decision of a majority-Black diocese to vote at the polls.
Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly 30 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, easily won election to clerk of the criminal court in November, defeating the incumbent and receiving more than two-thirds of the vote. He was scheduled to take office next Monday, and he did so the federal judge asked To allow him to take office as scheduled.
Duncan and Landry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Duncan, a Democrat whose murder conviction was overturned in 2021 after evidence emerged that police officers lied in court, has vowed to help fix a system that once failed him.
Duncan, 63, and his supporters say he is being targeted by the state’s most powerful Republicans, including those who… He denied his innocencealthough Duncan’s name is included in the National Registry of Exonerations.
“We’re doing something because powerful people don’t like it,” Rep. Mandy Landry, a New Orleans Democrat, told lawmakers during a legislative committee hearing in April. Landry, who is no relation to the governor, called the Republican effort “terrible” and expressed concern about what it might mean for other elected offices in the state.
Republicans say the legislation unifies the offices of civil and criminal court clerks in Orleans Parish, bringing it in line with all other parishes in the state, which have a single clerk’s office. The position of civil clerk will remain and absorb the role of criminal clerk.
Eliminating the clerk position saves the state about $27,000 and the city $233,000, according to the Legislative Auditor’s Office, which added that the long-term costs of consolidation are “unknown.” The legislation also transfers about $1.17 million in state expenses to the parish. The civil and criminal court have separate physical offices and different case management systems.
The governor told The Associated Press that eliminating Duncan’s elected position was about improving government efficiency and “cleaning up the system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.”
The consolidation is part of a broader GOP effort during the ongoing legislative session to reform New Orleans’ judicial system — including bills that propose eliminating several other elected judicial positions in the parish. However, these positions will be abolished in the future, allowing officials to serve out their terms.
The bill’s Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a district several hours from New Orleans, said the goal is to implement the employee consolidation before Duncan takes office, preventing him from starting a four-year term. Morris acknowledged that he expects lawsuits to be filed as a result of this law, but he believes the change is constitutional.
“It’s unfortunate for Mr. Duncan, I admit that,” Morris told lawmakers in April. “It sounds very nice, but we don’t make politics here for just one person.”
Although the conversations have centered around Duncan, many are also raising concerns about how the change might disenfranchise voters — a growing concern in a state that has been deeply red Leading efforts to repeal the Voting Rights Act. Orleans Parish is a Democratic center with a majority black electorate.
Democratic Rep. Edmund Jordan told Morris: “Mr. Duncan was elected with 68% of the vote in a majority African-American city. This is the will of the people, and what your bill is trying to do is usurp the will of the people.”
Long before the legislation reaches the governor’s desk, Duncan said he can see the writing on the wall. Before the outcome, Duncan A.’s attorneys held a contract Taking the constitutional oath For him. Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the Orleans Parish Criminal Court in support of the acquitted.
Duncan told lawmakers that, during last year’s election campaign, he spoke with several people who told him they typically abstained from voting in elections: “Now, this bill tells people exactly what they thought — which is that their votes don’t matter.”
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Brock reported from New Orleans.