Attorneys representing Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins said they would appeal a court opinion handed down Monday that found Perkins was ineligible to run for re-election because he wrote the wrong address on his nomination papers.
Perkins will ask the state Supreme Court to hear the case in the wake of the Second Circuit Court of Appeal finding that the mayor provided false information on his Notice of Candidacy for the November election primary, his attorney, L. Harvard Scott III, told the Louisiana Record.
Specifically, the Second Circuit affirmed a trial court’s decision that Perkins was not eligible to run because he was registered to vote at an address in the city located in a different precinct than the address where he maintains his homestead exemption. Under Louisiana law, a candidate is supposed to register to vote in the precinct where the homestead exemption exists.
Scott criticized Monday’s opinion because it is based on what he said was an expansive ruling the Second Circuit handed down in March of this year, Sellars v. Nance. The March opinion contains dicta, or statements that go beyond what was needed to resolve the case, he said, and are consequently not legally binding on other courts.
“It was always going to be an uphill and Herculean task to persuade the Court of Appeal to overrule its own precedent, and the trial court, which is in the Second Circuit, was bound to follow this precedent,” Scott said.
In addition, among Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal, there is a disagreement about how state law bears on the candidate eligibility issue, so the state’s high court can now step in to resolve the issue, he said.
“There is a clear split of authority on the principal issue among the five Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the issue upon which Mayor Perkins was disqualified is ripe for the Louisiana Supreme Court to grant Mayor Perkins' petition for writ of certiorari and clarify Louisiana law on disqualification of candidates,” Scott said.
The original complaint against Perkins was filed by a voter, Francis Deal, who claimed the mayor was not a qualified elector in the city of Shreveport.