GARY CROCKETT v. STATE OF LOUISIANA JEFF LANDRY IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA ET AL (2026)

The majority disenfranchises thousands of New Orleanians, violates both the state and federal right to vote and the due process clauses;¹ violates the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions; allows the legislature to violate the voting rights in any election it dislikes – whether in Orleans, Union, St. Tammany, or anywhere else – essentially ignores the public notice requirement for local and special laws;² splits from the only two State Supreme Court's on whose constitutions our Framers explicitly based our right to vote provision (though, this fact was not known on original hearing);³ and, twists the meaning of “new office” beyond recognition.⁴ According to the majority, the right to vote in La. Const. art. I § 10 cannot protect a term in office from legislative abolition of that office, even after votes were cast and during the respective term.

For the reasons assigned in my dissent on original hearing and for these new reasons, I dissent.

FOOTNOTES

1.   See e.g., Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 554-55 (1964), La. Const. art. I § 10, Michael S. Kang, Electoral Due Process, 120 NW. U. L. REV. 925, 978 (2026), Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter, Countering the New Election Subversion: The Democracy Principle and the Role of State Courts, 2022 WIS. L. REV. 1337, 1360 (2022), Michael T. Morley, The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, 90 Fordham L. Rev. 501, 548 (2021).

2.   La. Const. art. III § 13.

3.   Records of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973, Journal of the Proceedings, volume I, page 87-88 (Journal Page 4-5), July 6, 1973, 11th Day of the Proceeding (noting the provision was based on the Illinois and Montana Constitutions and that the only difference with Illinois was that it did not automatically bar interdicts from voting), and see Id. at page 284 (Journal Page 9), July 6, 1973, 28th Day of the Proceeding (citing Ill. Const. art. III § 3, providing for free and fair elections, as partial basis for provisions allows Louisiana legislatures some control over elections). Tully v. Edgar, 171 Ill. 2d 297 (1996) (striking down state law that abolished office after votes were cast and before the term ended), McDonald v. Jacobsen, 409 Mont. 405, 428, 515 P.3d 777, 792 (2022)(finding that “as provided by law” does not give legislature carte blanch power to change judicial election because “even when a process, generally, had been delegated to the Legislature, it was “not without constitutional bounds” as determined by the objectives of the Framers.”)

4.   La. Const. art. V § 28 establishes the terms for clerks of court and § 30 establishes who shall be the clerk when a vacancy arises and who shall appoint the clerk in the absence of a valid elected official.

GRIFFIN, J., would grant rehearing and assigns reasons.