In ruby-red Louisiana, a disturbing power play exposed how far a rusting Democratic machine will reach to undermine lawful state government.
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From the isolated blue stronghold of Orleans Parish, which is New Orleans itself, local officials defied the state legislature. They basically claimed home rule trumped all, then indicted Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, for the “crime” of enforcing Louisiana law.
This was no routine dispute. It was illegal retaliation from a shrinking political island desperate to reclaim influence it lost at the ballot box.
The situation is wheels within wheels. Within wheels.
Orleans Parish long maintained separate civil and criminal clerks of court, a relic unique among Louisiana’s 64 parishes. This year, Republican-led lawmakers passed Act 15, folding the criminal clerk’s duties into the existing civil clerk’s office. Voters had elected Calvin Duncan, recently freed from a long, wrongful prison stretch, to the now-eliminated criminal post. Instead, Chelsey Richard Napoleon, the civil clerk, would assume the combined role.
Federal and state courts, including the Louisiana Supreme Court on June 1, upheld Act 15 as constitutional. No vacancy existed. The merger took effect.
New Orleans Democrats were incensed. The district attorney had pushed the city council for an “interim clerk.” Mayor Helena Moreno insisted a new office required a special election. On May 11, the all-Democratic council passed resolutions appointing retired Judge Calvin Johnson and scheduling a fall vote. They charged forward even after the attorney general affirmed the legislature’s action.
Murrill responded to New Orleans professionally. She advised that its moves were “plainly wrong.” No new office had been created. When ignored, her May 13 follow-up cited a usurper statute that strips elected officials of their positions for recognizing false officeholders. The impostor himself could be prosecuted. The City Council’s defiance only intensified.
On July 2, Democratic Special Prosecutor Laurie White secured a grand jury indictment against Murrill on 16 felony counts: retaliation and malfeasance. Officials twisted routine legal correspondence into violent and terroristic charges. The timing and substance revealed the motive. By then, the Supreme Court had already validated Murrill’s exact position.
Daniel R. Street, a legal expert who has practiced in Louisiana for decades, described the sequence on my show News Sight: “It was absolutely preposterous.”
The Supreme Court swiftly stayed Murrill’s indictment on July 3. When White signaled she would still pursue an arrest, the Court recalled her warrant. Republican Justice Jay McCallum’s concurrence cut deep, noting the apparent “invidious motives” at worst or “incompetence” at best, likely triggering disciplinary proceedings. Governor Jeff Landry, another Republican, ordered a state police probe into the investigation of Murrill.
A reporter and an attorney had been detained and handcuffed as the grand jury returned its indictment. That was because the Democratic judge, Leon Roche, ordered his courtroom cleared. This was another illegality the high court condemned.
The political circus in New Orleans provides key context. The city-parish has lost population dramatically since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, now only having about 300,000 residents. Surrounding suburbs vastly outnumber it. Indeed, every neighboring parish votes red. Statewide, Republicans hold supermajorities in the legislature and all statewide offices. They recently gained the edge in voter registration for the first time since Reconstruction.
That shift prompted reforms of the notoriously corrupt and dysfunctional New Orleans government. These stretch far beyond any clerk’s office. State police took over entire districts from the local department. The district attorney was indicted by Murrill, as was the previous criminal-law sheriff. Legislators eliminated certain judgeships in New Orleans.
These Republicans spared Roche, seemingly through backroom dealing. A female judge, who lost her seat, now challenges Roche. That decision places him in a brutal blue-versus-blue primary. Under immense pressure to prove his credentials to a furious Democratic base, Roche presided over the grand jury persecution of Murrill.
White, herself an ex-judge, represented Duncan. She faces separate litigation defended by the attorney general’s office. Nonetheless, White was appointed to present cases before the grand jury, by none other than Roche himself. That White faced glaring conflicts of interest was immaterial to the blue New Orleans machine. After all, it is accustomed to calling the shots, though in a parish now neutered by crippling political demographics.
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This local drama fits a national pattern.
It first gained momentum in the lawfare against Donald J. Trump and his allies during the 2024 election cycle. Blue jurisdictions discovered they could weaponize friendly prosecutors and courts to hamstring the GOP. When those tactics apparently worked, at least over the short term, the impulse spread downward.
Street observed: “What happened to President Trump? And not just not just in Fulton County and not just in Manhattan, but in in DC with the special prosecutor and in Florida… the Democrats in Washington weaponized the federal law enforcement and trampled all over the rights of… some of the most consequential, influential and powerful people in the country.
“And if they can do that to people like President Trump… then what can they do to ordinary people?”
Street called the New Orleans case a “malady” infecting blue enclaves: “Hey, if these clowns over in Fulton County can indict a former president, we can indict the current state attorney general.”
The consequences threaten the republic. Blue pockets, embedded in redder states, now attempt to nullify voter will through local indictments, selective law enforcement, and defiance of higher judicial authority. It creates a patchwork where circuit and district courts in Democratic strongholds become tools to thwart GOP-led government. At all levels.
This cancer does not respect presidential or congressional outcomes. It festers in localities, subverting staunch red governance from safe blue bastions.
“The local officials in charge of government in Orleans Parish can’t be trusted to wield law enforcement power at this level, period,” Street concluded. He believes that, in the future, “they can prosecute crimes in Orleans Parish that are committed by criminals, but that’s going to be it.” Essentially, Street argues that no parish, which is to say “county” outside Louisiana, should be able to charge state or federal officials with nonviolent offenses.
Accountability is essential. Absent real consequences for Democratic judicial abuses, the lesson learned will be that lawfare carries no risk. Only blue political reward.
Louisiana’s institutions ultimately held. Its high court quashed the farce. However, this episode delivers a sobering national warning. When Democrats embrace weaponized so-called justice from blue bastions, every American’s rights hang in the balance.
Voters chose Republican leadership to restore order and respect legislative will. Attempts to sabotage that choice from within Democratic strongholds should be exposed, confronted, and stopped cold. The alternative is continued erosion of first-world constitutional republicanism by those unwilling to accept defeat at the polling station. Or even the prospect of losing.
November’s midterm elections are fast approaching. Republican voters, and all Americans who do not want to be crushed by Democrats, will decide how much they care about curbing blue lawfare. Whether or not enough fair-minded Americans cast a ballot may make a pivotal difference. It is between law and order or, as Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria said, “show me the man, and I’ll show you his crime.”
That may sound like hyperbole. It is serious as heart failure during a transatlantic flight.
Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto is the creator, host, and producer of News Sight, delivering sharp insights on the key events that shape our lives. He publishes Dr. Cotto’s Digest, sharing how business and the economy really impact us all. During the 2024 presidential race, he developed the Five-Point Forecast, which accurately predicted Donald Trump’s national victory and correctly called every swing state. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt.
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