Longtime First District Court of Appeals Judge John Michael Guidry is set to become the new Louisiana Supreme Court justice after the state court disqualified his two opponents from the race this week.
In two orders released late Tuesday, state Supreme Court justices voted 5-2 to overturn part of the Fourth District Court of Appeals’ decision to keep Shreveport Appellate Judge Marcus Hunter on the ballot. The justices also upheld part of the Fourth District’s decision to remove Leslie Chambers from the race.
Hunter, 45, is a judge in his first term on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Chambers, 43, is chief of staff for the Louisiana Housing Corporation. The two candidates competed with Guidry for the position of the second black Supreme Court justice in a newly drawn majority-black judicial district.
The state Supreme Court nipped the race in the bud by finding that Hunter had failed to file his state income taxes in 2022 and 2023 and Chambers could not successfully prove that she had filed her taxes in 2022. State law requires Supreme Court candidates to file their state and federal income taxes in each of the five years before the election to qualify. In its rulings, the Supreme Court ordered the Secretary of State to remove both candidates’ names from the ballot.
That leaves Guidry as the only remaining candidate for now. If he does not successfully challenge Tuesday’s ruling, he will automatically win the seat on the state’s highest court without the need for a Nov. 5 primary. He said he still has campaign events planned, where he will now have a chance to thank his supporters across the state.
“I have to thank God and my family,” he said Wednesday. “I thank everyone who has encouraged me, prayed for me and supported me. And I am ready to make them proud as an Associate Justice of our Supreme Court.”
The court’s next term begins Jan. 1. Guidry, 62, is currently in the middle of his third full term as the only Black appellate judge on the Baton Rouge-based First District Court of Appeals. He was elected in 1997 and became the first Black chief judge in the court’s history in January 2023.
In its ruling Tuesday, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Baton Rouge woman who filed a lawsuit last month challenging the candidacies of Hunter and Chambers.
“The candidate in question clearly failed to file his income tax returns on time,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer wrote in one of the disqualification orders. “There is no documentary evidence that these returns were filed on time annually or that an extension was requested for most of the years for which the returns were filed late. Nor is there any evidence in the record that the candidate was not required to file income tax returns.”
Following her disqualification on Tuesday evening, Chambers is apparently considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to maintain her candidacy.
“While I of course respect the final judgment of the High Court, I will consult with my lawyer this evening to assess the full impact of these decisions, including whether there are any appeals available beyond this route,” she said in a statement.
Hunter was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
Elisa Knowles Collins, 76, filed the lawsuit on July 26 in 19th District Court in Baton Rouge, claiming Chambers does not live within the redistricted voting districts of the court’s second congressional district, which has a majority black voter base. The plaintiff in the case also cited records from the Louisiana Department of Revenue that her lawyers said proved Chambers lied on her eligibility forms when she said she had filed her 2022 state income taxes.
Collins also challenged Hunter’s candidacy in her lawsuit, claiming he failed to file his taxes in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the 19th JDC’s decision to keep Hunter on the ballot, citing testimony from his Shreveport accountant that he believed his taxes for all three years had been successfully filed before the three-day waiting period ended on July 19.
Chambers testified that she used Turbo Tax in June to file her 2022 taxes online. She was told she was owed nearly $5,000 in tax returns and believed she had successfully filed the returns, but the Louisiana Department of Revenue said it never received Chambers’ tax returns for that year. The appeals court ruled that Chambers did not sufficiently prove that she had filed the returns.
“I think the court process worked,” Guidry said. “People have been talking about who should be a qualified candidate in the race, and this court decision simply affirms the decisions previously made by the people of the state.”
State lawmakers redistricted Supreme Court judicial districts during this year’s legislative session to create a second black-majority district. It was the first time Louisiana redistricted its Supreme Court map since 1997, when a federal court order forced lawmakers to create the state’s first minority-majority district in Orleans Parish. Justice Piper Griffin currently holds that state Supreme Court seat; her term ends in 2030.
Campaign finance disclosures filed by the three candidates earlier this month showed that Chambers was the trio’s biggest fundraiser three months before the Nov. 5 primary. She raised $185,000 in the 11 days after qualifying for the race began on July 17, according to campaign filings. The influx came from 48 donors, many of them colleagues in the legal industry, leaving Chambers with a war chest of nearly $180,000 by the time she filed her report Thursday.
Guidry, who enjoys broad support from more than 70 donors, amassed about $172,000 in the last quarter and entered the final 90 days of the campaign with just over $140,000 in campaign funds – he has covered more than $27,000 in expenses. His backers included a number of political action committees, the influential Baton Rouge law firm Taylor Porter and the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry (LABI). The state’s largest business organization covered catering costs for one of Guidry’s campaign events on July 25.
Colins, the plaintiff in the case, disclosed at a hearing on July 30 that her daughter is a senior administrative adviser for the First Judicial District and works for Guidry.
Financial records show that the Baton Rouge law firm representing Collins donated $2,500 to Guidry’s campaign on May 28. Guidry said Wednesday that he was not involved in the lawsuit.
According to his Aug. 7 campaign disclosure, Hunter had not yet fully kicked off his fundraising efforts, having raised only $5,000 from a personal loan he made to his campaign.
“The right of citizens to challenge individuals unqualified for office in our courts is necessary to protect both the integrity of elections and the integrity of the judiciary,” Collins’ attorney, David Bienvenu, said in a statement Tuesday night. “With great courage and conscience, Ms. Collins exercised an important and necessary civic responsibility in this matter by pointing out that candidates must follow the law when running for office. In this matter, the legal system worked exactly as it is supposed to work.”
