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Louisiana Supreme Court disqualifies candidate for 2nd District judgeship
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BATON ROUGE - Louisiana's highest court has disqualified two candidates from a race for a position on the state Supreme Court, essentially determining that 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Michael Guidry will join the bench next year.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled Marcus Hunter ineligible to run for the District 2 seat, which runs from Iberville Parish northward to the Monroe area. The court upheld a lower court ruling that said Louisiana Housing Corporation Chief of Staff Leslie Ricard Chambers was ineligible.
With Guidry, Hunter and Richard were running for a judgeship for the recently redrawn 2nd District, making it the state's second Black-majority district.
The initial lawsuit, by Baton Rouge resident Elise Knowles Collins, said Chambers lives outside the judicial district and that both candidates couldn't prove they had filed state income tax returns in each of the last five years, a requirement to run for the post under state law.
Chief Justice John Weimer, in a concurring opinion, said that while he "would much prefer seeing multiple candidates participate in the electoral process to facilitate the voters having a choice in deciding who should serve them, [he] cannot ignore the clear facts or the applicable law which is equally clear... Clearly, the candidate in question did not file his income tax returns timely."
Collins' daughter works at the 1st Circuit as an attorney for Guidry, according to the Louisiana Illuminator. Collins' attorneys said she raised the objections to ensure the law was "faithfully" applied.
Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court are possible, though the nation's highest court seldom takes up local election issues unless certain constitutional issues are at stake.
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