Louisiana Lawmakers Move to Eliminate Office Won by Calvin Duncan Before He Takes Office

In a brazen display of racial politics, Louisiana's Republican-controlled government is dismantling democracy to silence a Black exoneree whose election victory threatened their grip on power.

Calvin Duncan spent nearly 30 years wrongfully imprisoned before being exonerated. Last November, the people of New Orleans, a predominantly Black city,  gave him a resounding mandate, electing him Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court with 68% of the vote. His platform: fix the very system that destroyed decades of his life. The response from Governor Jeff Landry and the white-dominated Republican Legislature? Erase his job before he can take it.

The racial subtext is impossible to ignore. The Louisiana Legislature is "largely Republican and white," representing a "deeply red state" that has been "leading efforts to gut the Voting Rights Act." The target is a Democratic hub with a "predominantly Black electorate." The mechanism is stripping one specific elected official,  a Black man,  of his position, while other New Orleans judicial officials facing potential elimination "would be allowed to serve out their terms."

Duncan himself connects the dots directly: "We are seeing those consequences today as she and the Governor try to undo the will of 68% of voters in New Orleans." This isn't efficiency,  it's erasure. As he told lawmakers, the bill tells voters: "Thank you but you wasted your time. It disenfranchises everybody."

The pretense of fiscal responsibility is laughable. Eliminating the position saves an estimated $27,300,  a rounding error,  while the costs of consolidation remain "unknown." The bill's own Republican author admitted the civil clerk might "struggle" under the added workload and proposed they simply "hire someone."

Senator Royce Duplessis, a New Orleans Democrat, said it plainly from the Senate floor: "I have never seen something so barbaric."

Landry, who previously opposed compensating Duncan for his wrongful imprisonment, now claims this is about "government efficiency."

Link: WBRZ