Chief Justice John Weimer was automatically re-elected to another 10-year term on the Louisiana Supreme Court last week after no other candidate stepped up to challenge him during the qualifying process for the Nov. 8 contest.
The Supreme Court election in the Sixth District had been on hold after a federal court put in place a consent order blocking Weimer from seeking re-election. But on July 13, U.S. Judge John deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana lifted the May 4 election order, noting that if the stay were not lifted, Weimer, 67, could lose his ability to run again due to age restrictions.
The consent order grew out of litigation filed by the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP against Louisiana, challenging the current Supreme Court district borders as unfair to Black voters. In May, the NAACP and the state Attorney General’s Office agreed to put the Sixth District election on hold as redistricting discussions continued.
The seven high court justices in Louisiana are elected in separate districts through partisan elections. Weimer is the only Supreme Court justice on the ballot in November. The NAACP lawsuit sought to create a second majority-minority Supreme Court district in the state, according to one of Weimer’s attorneys, John W. Perry.
“The suit itself, that's going to require legislative action,” Perry told the Louisiana Record. “There's been no resolution to that. I guess the parties will continue to talk."
The part of the legal process that relates to Weimer, however, is over, Perry said.
“We won that hands down, and there was no appeal,” he said. “The Supreme Court qualifying went forward as scheduled (last week).”
Perry said he wasn’t surprised by the lack of any potential candidates entering the field to challenge Weimer.
“There’s not a single person in the state of Louisiana who could have beat Justice Weimer,” he said. “That’s why the whole thing was just dirty politics because (Attorney General) Jeff Landry didn’t want justice Weimer re-elected. …He wasn’t able to find a candidate who wanted to go on a kamikaze mission.”
The underlying litigation filed by the NAACP will likely go on indefinitely, according to Perry. The state has three options on Supreme Court redistricting, he said. State lawmakers could do nothing, or they could expand the court to nine members and carve out three majority-minority districts, Perry said, adding that the latter option would require a constitutional amendment and a vote of the people.
Another option would be to redraw the current seven districts to create a second majority-minority district. But state lawmakers did not move forward on that option this year, Perry said.