Louisiana Republicans April 23 rammed through legislation to keep Calvin Duncan, a wrongfully convicted Black man and attorney, from taking office as New Orleans’ Clerk of Criminal Court, a move that will likely cause significant delays to pending criminal court cases and throw the city’s court system in chaos.
Duncan, who was elected last year, was ceremonially sworn in on April 21 and was scheduled to take office May 4.
Prior to the vote, members of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus spoke out against the measure in passionate terms. “We are stepping into dangerous territory … you do not change the rules of the game once the game has been played,” said Rep. Candace Newell, a New Orleans Democrat.
“Today they’re coming for this right, tomorrow they’re coming for yours,” she added.
Their warnings didn’t work. On a vote of 63 to 28, the state House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 256, which will shutter an entire criminal court system and place it under the office of the Clerk of Civil Court in the next 6 business days. The bill’s author, West Monroe Republican Sen. Jay Morris, has acknowledged the bill was introduced at the behest of Gov. Jeff Landry, who has previously opposed Duncan’s election and reportedly sought to block him getting compensation for the time he wrongfully spent in prison.
Landry is expected to sign the legislation before Duncan formally takes office.
The House rejected an amendment by Marrero Democratic Rep. Kyle Green Jr. to postpone the consolidation by four years.
Rep. Dixon Wallace McMakin, a Baton Rouge Republican — who was only lacking the seersucker suit to be straight out of central casting for a white, Southern politician — shepherded the bill across the floor.
Rep. Delisha Boyd, a New Orleans Democrat, for instance took issue with McMakin’s claim that immediately eliminating the office and combining them into one office in a week’s time was in line with previous changes to city offices, including consolidation of New Orleans’ tax assessors and sheriffs offices.
“How long did that process take?” Rep. Boyd pointedly asked about the tax assessors. “I do not know,” McMakin responded.
“Four years,” Boyd said, before raising concerns about how consolidating the offices would almost assuredly result in delays to cases and potentially violating citizens’ 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial.
Pressed by Baton Rouge Democratic Rep. Denise Marcelle on how he’d feel if the governor had decided to eliminate his district before he took office, McMakin improbably claimed he’d have been fine with it.
No word on whether he has a bridge for sale.
So 2 problems here:
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The link goes to a 404 not found page.
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It looks like you copy pasted the entire article before it went down which lemmy.world specifically prohibits for copyright reasons.
I’m removing it for now, if you can update the link to a working version and whittle down the copy-pasta to the 2 to 3 most relevant paragraphs, I’ll restore it!
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Not enough confederates were killed in the civil war
Sherman needed to make a second pass.
I know for a fact I will never time travel in my lifetime because if I will, the history books would have shown John Brown and his men with AK-47s
And helmets, level IV body armor, radios, solar panels, electric vehicles, food, medicine, water purification devices, 1,000s of Fediverse volunteers and a passionately-worded letter of appreciation demonstrating that history will recognize the struggle for human rights.
The worst is that Republicans are OK with dismantling democracy and turn USA into a Russian oligarchy controlled by an authoritarian leader.
R-A-C-I-S-T
I’m a Brit trying to understand how this is even possible. Don’t get me wrong, we have some issues, but this seems incomprehensible. Perhaps because legislation never anticipated these misuses?
Just because they’re doing it doesn’t mean it’s constitutional, but also yes, a lot of our government is predicated on people acting in good faith.
The legislature is changing the law to eliminate the entire public office before the election winner can be sworn in.
The political dynamics are that the state legislature is controlled by the (largely white) Republican party, while the electorate of Orleans Parish tilts to the Democratic party, largely on the support of black citizens.
This amendment to state law only affects the structure of elected offices in Orleans Parish, and not any other part of Louisiana.
Within the last two years, I’ve seen a lot of people outside of the United States saying that what’s happening IS the fault of all people in the U.S., and that “You voted for this,” or at least that we didn’t work hard enough to prevent it from happening.
And I have spent SOOOOOO much effort trying to tell them.
I’VE BEEN ALIVE SINCE BEFORE THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, AND THE UNITED STATES HAS NEVER BEEN A DEMOCRACY FOR AT LEAST AS LONG AS I’VE BEEN ALIVE!
The choice between the Democrats and the Republicans and every election I’ve ever seen is functionally the equivalent of being presented a ballot that says:
How do you want to be raped in the ass?
- WITH lube
- WITHOUT lube
If you look at California, the Democrats have a LITERAL SUPERMAJORITY in California’s legislature, something like 2/3 or 3/4, and they STILL declined to move forward on universal healthcare coverage:
The Republicans actually govern. They do it with negative intentions toward the population.
The Democrats ALWAYS refuse to do ANYTHING meaningful, claiming that doing anything meaningful would prevent them from getting elected again.
ALMOST ALL politicians having significant power in the United States are either Donald Trump, bought and paid for by billionaires, or are bought and paid for by Israel. And I am not referring to Jewish people. I mean Israel, the country itself. Just the country.
The Democrats are controlled opposition. It is when you have a dictatorship which wants to pretend its a democracy, so it creates a party to act like opposition. But you can identify owned opposition by the fact that THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING EVEN WHEN THEY SEEM TO HAVE POWER, and EVERYONE’S BAFFLED AS TO WHY.
Land of the free(dom to oppress anyone who isn’t an old white fart)
West Monroe Republican Sen. Jay Morris
Stay classy, West Monroe.
When I lived in Monroe, I remember it being explained to me that Monroe had a racist bus system that started in the poor black neighborhoods, ran to the rich neighborhoods where most of them would work as housekeepers for rich white people, then go to the mall so they could spend their money once they’re done working, and then back to the poor areas.
West Monroe, on the other hand, didn’t have a bus system at all and it was generally considered by residents that this was because white people in West Monroe didn’t want black people moving there.
So yeah this tracks.
That’s what happened in the rich, white, yacht-club types that live in a local tourist trap, to a t, except the buses run only twice a day, 12 hours apart, and shopping area stops are because the poors work there. Add in a 2 hour ride each way, if the poors get food assistance, they either eat microwave meals, sandwiches, etc, and the entire weekend is either working, catching up chores, catching a ride to the laundromat to wash at $6+, a quarter to dry for ten minutes, plus laundry supplies and the cost of the ride, grocery shopping.
Oh ffs…
On a vote of 63 to 28, the state House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 256, which will shutter an entire criminal court system and place it under the office of the Clerk of Civil Court in the next 6 business days.
This has been the strategy of Gulf States for some time. Any municipality with a liberal majority just… loses its ability to self-govern. Gov Abbott, next door in Texas, loves to exert state power to strip municipalities of local office functions. Also a popular move in Florida and Oklahoma.
Would be nice if National Democrats bothered to notice these abuses when they came through town on fundraising junkets, of course. But it seems like the only way out of this is to flip statewide offices or pick up and move to bluer states.
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