In the debate over whether the Louisiana Legislature should convene a constitutional convention this summer and, if so, what that new document might say, keep your eyes on what Gov. Jeff Landry and his allies may have in store for the Louisiana Supreme Court.
If Landry and his far-right allies hope to drastically remake Louisiana government in their image — and, trust me, they do — they must secure control of the state Supreme Court.
In other words, they want to guarantee that the state’s highest court will uphold whatever legislation they pass.
While Landry’s Constitutional Reform Policy Council's recommendations do not include specific changes for the state Supreme Court, one of Landry’s allies in the House has already revealed his hand.
Covington Republican Rep. Mark Wright has introduced a constitutional amendment to transform the composition and makeup of the state Supreme Court. It would give Landry and future governors vast new powers over the state’s highest court.
H.B. 533 would eliminate all Supreme Court districts, enlarge the court from its current six members to eight, and allow the governor, beginning in 2025, to appoint judges to fill vacancies on the court, including the two new members. Each appointee would serve a ten-year term after a two-thirds vote of approval by the state Senate.
Even without a constitutional convention, lawmakers could approve Wright’s bill this session and send it to the voters next fall. So far, the House Judiciary Committee has not held hearings on the bill.
However, if the amendment is approved and becomes enshrined in the current or a new constitution, Landry could appoint replacements for three of the current justices in this term.
That would be in addition to Landry’s right to appoint two new members to an expanded court in early 2025. Should he be re-elected in 2027, Landry would eventually fill three of the remaining four seats. By the end of a prospective second term, eight of the nine justices on the court would be men or women he had named.
The likelihood of this power grab succeeding is uncertain.
First, senators may balk at calling the convention for various reasons. Foremost among them is Landry’s proposal to appoint 39 senators and 105 House members as delegates, meaning the Senate, as a body, could be largely irrelevant in the deliberations.
Second, even if there is a convention, the Legislature has many lawyers who care about the makeup of the state’s judiciary. This is one area where some legislative independence might emerge.
But if Landry gets his convention and then stacks it in his favor — clearly his objective — this change might win approval, leaving it to voters to decide in November.
If approved, it would be the kind of right-wing power grab we’ve seen in other states.
As the New York Times reported in 2022:
Over the past decade or so, the national Republican Party and other conservative groups have spent heavily to move both state legislatures and courts rightward. The party’s Judicial Fairness Initiative says it has spent more than $21 million since its formation in 2014 to elect conservatives to state courts, and will spend more than $5 million this year. The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group that has been a principal backer of recent Republican nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, also has invested money in state supreme court races.
The Democratic Party has also poured growing sums of money into court elections, as have allies like labor unions — but not as much, and not for as long, as have Republicans. But the rightward lurch of federal courts increasingly is leading progressives to see state courts as potential bulwarks against more conservative gains, said Joshua A. Douglas, an elections and voting rights scholar at the University of Kentucky. . . .
“If Republicans and conservatives want to control the redistricting process, then winning control of state legislatures is not enough. You also need to control the supreme courts,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the Republican State Leadership Committee.
Kelly Burton, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which has backed many of those suits, said the battle was more about stopping a creeping autocracy than about changing political boundaries.
“It’s about voting rights cases,” she said. “It’s about fights over access to abortion. And fundamentally, we’re trying to protect these courts as neutral arbiters, while Republicans want to make them less independent and more partisan.”
Why spend millions to elect right-wing Supreme Court justices when the state constitution can just empower Landry to appoint members to his liking? Imagine the toxic, authoritarian legal environment Landry could create here.
Fortunately, we do not have to imagine it. We need only look to Arizona, where that state’s Supreme Court majority recently upheld an 1864 law criminalizing all abortions. It was all made possible by a constitutional change that expanded the state Supreme Court by two members. Before he left office, former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appointed five of the seven justices.
As the New York Times reported last week:
In the past, Arizona’s highest court typically included Republicans and Democrats who had attended law schools in Arizona as well as East Coast institutions like Harvard and Yale. . . .
Things changed when Mr. Ducey expanded the court. Proponents argued that the courts, in one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, needed more judges to handle a growing caseload. But critics said that the new appointments had allowed the Republican state leadership to expand its influence.
The current court is made up largely of mainstream conservatives, many with backgrounds as prosecutors in Arizona and ties to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that advocates for a close adherence to the text of the U.S. Constitution as it was originally constructed.
There will likely be many reasons to oppose whatever state constitutional changes Landry and his big-business overlord Lance Grigsby concoct this summer. But the question of who selects Supreme Court justices — people who will be serving long after Landry is gone — should be among the most important concerns for anyone who cares about the rule of law and an independent judiciary.
The current state Supreme Court is bad enough. Just imagine the oppressive, undemocratic government Landry can establish once he has complete control of the state’s highest court.
The audacity and pride of this group of winners who must cheat to win. Members of the state legislatures belong to a group called Republican Attorneys' General Association. Following the ALEC version of original winners whining their ways through Oligarchy High School. Riding the massive wave of corruption that was always the home port for total corporate domination of everything. The RAGA helped to arrange, pay for, schedule, get the permits from the Park Service in Washington and carry out the Jan. 6th riot. Of course the system is rigged. Followed Mr Landry and his rise to creep show man ship. Like the Tea Party bible field trips to schlepp senior citizens to state capitol rallies in the long-ago Obama years. Free water and protest signs. Koch Breaus.