Longtime First Circuit Court of Appeal judge John Michael Guidry is set to become the newest Louisiana Supreme Court justice after the state court disqualified his two opponents from the race this week.
In a pair of orders released late Tuesday, state Supreme Court judges voted 5-2 to reverse part of a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal decision to keep Shreveport appellate judge Marcus Hunter on the ballot. Justices also upheld the portion of the Fourth Circuit’s decision to remove Leslie Chambers from the race.
Hunter, 45, is a first-term judge in the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. Chambers, 43, is the Louisiana Housing Corporation's chief of staff. The two hopefuls were competing with Guidry to become the Supreme Court's second Black justice in a newly redrawn majority-Black judicial district.
The state Supreme Court nipped the race in its infancy, determining Hunter didn't file his state income taxes in 2022 or 2023 and Chambers failed to successfully prove she filed her taxes in 2022. State law requires Supreme Court candidates to file their state and federal income taxes each of the five years leading up to elections in order to qualify. In their rulings, the Supreme Court ordered the Secretary of State to remove both candidates' names from the ballot.
That leaves Guidry as the lone remaining candidate for now. Without a successful challenge to Tuesday’s ruling, he will win the seat on the state’s court of authority by default, without need for the Nov. 5 primary election. He said he still has campaign events lined up that will now become opportunities to thank his supporters across the state.
'I have to thank God and my family," he said Wednesday. "I thank all those who encouraged and prayed for me, supported me. And I am ready to go make them proud as an associate justice of our state Supreme Court."
The court's next term of office begins Jan. 1. Guidry, 62, is currently in the middle of his third full term as the lone Black appellate judge on the First Circuit appeals court based in Baton Rouge. He was elected in 1997 and became the first Black chief judge in the court’s history in January 2023.
In their ruling Tuesday, the Louisiana Supreme Court sided with a Baton Rouge woman who filed a lawsuit last month challenging Hunter and Chambers' candidacies.
“Clearly, the candidate in question did not file his income tax returns timely,” Supreme Court Chief Judge John Weimer wrote in one of the disqualifying orders. “There is no documentary evidence these returns were filed annually when due or that an extension of time was sought for most of the years for which the returns were filed late. The record is also devoid of proof the candidate was not required to file income tax returns.”
Following Tuesday night's disqualification, Chambers seemed to be weighing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep her candidacy alive.
“While I, of course, respect the state high courts final judgment, I’ll be conferring with counsel this evening to assess the full impact of these decisions, including whether there is judicial relief beyond this venue,” she said in a statement.
Hunter was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
Elisa Knowles Collins, 76, filed the lawsuit July 26 in the Baton Rouge-based 19th Judicial District Court. She alleged Chambers does not live within reapportioned boundary lines for the court’s second majority-Black voting district. The plaintiff in the case also cited Louisiana Department of Revenue records that, according to her attorneys, proved Chambers lied on her qualifying forms when she said she filed her 2022 state income taxes.
Collins also challenged Hunter’s candidacy in her lawsuit, saying he failed to file his taxes in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the 19th JDC's ruling to keep Hunter on the ballot, citing testimony from his Shreveport accountant that he believed his taxes for all three years were successfully filed before the three-day qualifying period ended July 19.
Chambers testified that she used Turbo Tax to file her 2022 taxes online in June. She was told she was owed a nearly $5,000 return and believed she had successfully submitted the returns, but the Louisiana Department of Revenue indicated it never received Chamber’s tax filings for that year. The appellate court ruled that Chambers didn't adequately prove she filed the returns.
"I think that the judicial process worked," Guidry said. "The people have spoken on who should be a qualified candidate in the race and this judicial decision simply vindicated the decisions that have been made previously by the people of the state."
State lawmakers reapportioned the high court's judicial boundaries during this year’s legislative session to create a second majority-Black voting district. It was the first time Louisiana revamped its Supreme Court map since 1997, when a federal court order forced lawmakers to carve out the state’s first majority-minority district in Orleans Parish. Justice Piper Griffin currently holds that seat on the state Supreme Court; her term ends in 2030.
Campaign finance disclosures filed by the three hopefuls earlier this month showed Chambers was the top fundraiser of the trio with three months until the Nov. 5 primary. She raised $185,000 in the 11-day span after qualifying for the race began July 17, campaign records showed. The influx came from 48 contributors, many of them colleagues in the legal community, leaving Chambers with a war chest of nearly $180,000 by the time she filed her report Thursday.
Guidry, who’s enjoyed a wide base of support from more than 70 contributors, amassed about $172,000 last quarter and entered the final 90 days of the race with little over $140,000 in campaign dollars — he absorbed more than $27,000 in expenses. Among his supporters were a collection of political action committees, powerful Baton Rouge law firm Taylor Porter, and the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry, or LABI. The state’s largest business organization paid catering costs for one of Guidry’s July 25 campaign events.
Colins, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, revealed at a July 30 hearing that her daughter is a chief administrative counsel for the First Circuit and works for Guidry.
Financial disclosures show the Baton Rouge law firm representing Collins contributed $2,500 to Guidry’s campaign on May 28. Guidry assured that he was not a party involved in the lawsuit Wednesday.
Hunter had yet to fully kickstart his fundraising efforts, according to his Aug. 7 campaign disclosures. He’d only raised $5,000, which came from a personal loan he made to his campaign.
"The right of citizens to raise objections in our courts, based on valid legal objections to individuals who are not qualified to seek office, is necessary to maintain both election integrity 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 pointing out that candidates are required to follow the law when seeking election. In this matter, the legal system worked, exactly as it is designed to work."