In a 4-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Weimer, the Louisiana Supreme Court has reversed an appeals court ruling that found Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins was ineligible to run for re-election.
The Aug. 19 opinion clears the way for Perkins to make his re-election bid despite a paperwork error on his nomination papers relating to his residential address.
Louisiana law requires most home-owning candidates to register to vote in the precinct where they maintain their state homestead tax exemption. Perkins, however, has two residences in Shreveport, and he registered at the address without the homestead exemption. A voter challenged Perkins’ candidacy, arguing that the mayor was ineligible to run due to the paperwork error.
The high court concluded that the state law in question, Louisiana Revised Statute 18:492, specifically outlines the grounds for someone to object to a person’s candidacy and that Perkins’ certification error is not covered by those grounds.
Different Louisiana appeals courts had ruled differently in similar cases, and it was up to the state Supreme Court to make a final decision on the issue.
“We felt we were right on the law,” Perkins’ attorney, L. Havard Scott, told the Louisiana Record. “The Supreme Court in essence adopted our position on what the Legislature had intended with the statute on disqualification.”
Perkins’ campaign for re-election, however, never ceased while the litigation proceeded from trial court to appeals court to the state Supreme Court, according to Scott.
“Because we always appealed the decision of the lower court and were determined to go all the way to the Supreme Court … he was never officially removed or disqualified from candidacy by the secretary of state," he said.
In this case, the Legislature’s intention was to reduce the number of legal residency challenges that arise with every election as people look to change their voting addresses or buy property in order to run in a district where they didn’t live previously, Scott said. This situation didn’t apply to Perkins because both of his properties were within the city of Shreveport.
“We always felt it was going to take the Supreme Court to straighten out the wrongly decided precedent that the Second Circuit (Court of Appeals) and the trial court relied upon,” he said.