La. Supreme Court denies review of Avoyelles Parish Home Rule Charter petition challenge

NEW ORLEANS, La. (KALB) - The Louisiana Supreme Court has denied a writ application submitted by Glenn Goudeau, the petitioner behind the effort to replace the Avoyelles Parish Police Jury (APPJ) with a new form of government.

This means that the election for a commission to write a Home Rule Charter (HRC) for the parish will not happen in the Fall 2023 election.

The denial comes less than two weeks after the Third Circuit Court of Appeal vacated Avoyelles Parish Judge William Bennett’s order for the police jury to place commissioners in the upcoming fall election.

The Third Circuit sent the matter back to the lower court because the actual petition to write a Home Rule Charter was not submitted into the record in parish court, and the validity of the petition was integral to the police jury’s appeal. Neither Goudeau’s attorney, Dannie Garrett, nor THE APPJ’s attorney, Stacy Auzenne, filed the petition into the record. Garrett filed only Avoyelles Parish Registrar of Voters Gloria Moreau’s certification of the petition.

The state high court’s denial means that the Third Circuit’s ruling stands, and now the petition’s validity will have to play out in parish court.

If the court finds the petition to be valid as the legal challenge is resolved, the election could take place in the Spring 2024 election.

A petition to change the parish from a police jury form of government to a HRC was certified in March, meeting the 10% threshold of voter signatures to be successful. Once the petition was certified by Moreau, the APPJ should have called for an election of an 11-member commission to draft an HRC. Instead, the APPJ began the legal process of challenging the validity of the petition.

In a special meeting on May 30, the APPJ voted 5-4 to take additional legal action in response to We the People of Avoyelles Parish’s petition for a home rule charter.

On May 26, Judge William Bennett ruled in favor of petitioner Glenn Goudeau, one of the group’s organizers, who filed a lawsuit against the police jury over its decision not to hold an election for a commission.

On May 30, the APPJ voted 5-4 to file an appeal with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, challenging Bennett’s order.

On July 7, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal issued a ruling, vacating Judge Bennett’s order, while also rejecting the APPJ’s arguments for filing the appeal.

The police jury argued the judge was asking them to do something illegal, assigning five errors to the ruling.

They claimed the petitioners did not follow the law when gathering signatures, even alleging they paid people to sign it, which they cited through social media posts. They also argued they were not allowed to submit evidence, call witnesses or question the registrar in court.

The Third Circuit found the police jury’s attorney had not attempted to submit evidence or call witnesses. Also, since the Registrar of Voters had been sued and had not yet hired representation at the time of the hearing on May 26, Judge Bennett limited both the petitioners and the police jury from questioning Moreau.

Further, the APPJ submitted a motion to supplement the record of evidence with the appeals court ahead of a hearing, which included the original petition.

However, the appeals court rejected that motion since it could not consider any evidence not previously on record in the lower court. That meant virtually all errors the APPJ alleged in Judge Bennett’s ruling had no evidence to support them.

Ultimately, the fact that the original petition had not been submitted into the record, and therefore could not be used in the appeals court’s ruling, proved to work against Goudeau.

The Third Circuit found the signed petitions to be necessary for the court to make a decision in favor of Goudeau. The court believes Goudeau must prove he met the requirements of the petition, finding the certification by the registrar to be “insufficient to meet this burden of proof.”

Goudeau’s attorney argued his client does not have to prove the registrar did her job and the Third Circuit was putting an undue burden on Goudeau in requiring that. In filing his request for a hearing before the Louisiana Supreme Court, Garrett detailed state Supreme Court cases he believed lent support to that argument and contradicted the Third Circuit ruling.

Garrett argued there is no precedent for HRC litigation, as this is the first time a police jury has ever been successfully petitioned to call an election, much less challenged it in court.

Plus, with the election deadline approaching, Garrett believed timeliness was a factor.

The Louisiana Secretary of State Commissioner of Elections Sheri Hadskey said the last possible day to get the commission election on the Fall ballot was Aug. 1., which is why Garrett requested an expedited review. Since the state supreme court denied the writ, the election will need to be pushed to the Spring of 2024, which will come at a cost to the parish of an estimated $150,000 or more.

LEGAL TIMELINE

March 5: APPJ President Kirby Roy sent one of his weekly, public parish updates. In the update, Roy acknowledged the petition had “Avoyelles is unique, in that a petition met the requirements and this will force the APPJ to host an election to elect a commission to write a Charter for Avoyelles.” Roy detailed the steps that would be taken next, acknowledging there were still numerous questions about electing a commission that remained. He expressed concern that an HRC would be the best option for the parish, which he and five other APPJ jurors had already expressed when they voted against calling for an election of a commission independently, a move that spurred the petition process.

March 16: Local officials and attorneys made their first attempt to bring clarity to a process no parish in the state has ever gone through when considering a change over to a home rule charter form of government. During the public meeting, the validity of the petition was brought into question. Rev. Allan Holmes with the Avoyelles Parish chapter of the NAACP detailed concerns that state law had not been followed, pointing to missing ward and precincts next to signatures on the petition.

May 9: Nearly two months after the petition was certified, the APPJ voted 5-4 against holding the election for a commission to write the charter.

May 10: Glenn Goudeau, one of the petitioner’s organizers, filed a Petition for Writ of Mandamus against the APPJ.

May 25: The day before a hearing on the Writ of Mandamus was to be heard before Judge William Bennett, the APPJ filed a third-party demand against Gloria Moreau, Avoyelles Parish Registrar of Voters. This was the first official legal challenge to the validity of the certified petition.

May 26: Judge Bennett ruled in favor of Goudeau, ordering the APPJ to call an election of a commission for the Fall 2023 election.

May 30: The APPJ voted 5-4 to file an appeal with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, challenging Bennett’s order.

July 7: The Third Circuit Court of Appeal vacated Judge Bennett’s Writ of Mandamus ruling, sending the case back to the parish court.

July 10: Goudeau filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Louisiana, requesting an expeditious hearing on the case to overturn the appeals court ruling and get the election of commissioners on the Fall 2023 ballot ahead of the Aug. 1 extension.

July 20: La. Supreme Court denied writ application to review the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

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