It’s been 30 years since Louisiana lawmakers added 25 new precincts to the voter map for judicial elections across the state. The so-called subdistricts, which resulted from a settlement in a 1986 civil rights lawsuit, were carved out in majority-Black neighborhoods. The objective was to give Black candidates vying to be judges a reasonable shot at winning.
When the lines were re-drawn in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal, a slice of inner-city Baton Rouge nestled near the Mississippi River became the Black subdistrict. Judge John Michael Guidry has held that seat since 1997. The other three justices who make up East Baton Rouge’s portion of the appellate circuit are elected from a subdistrict that is primarily White.
No Black candidate has ever been elected from a White district in modern Louisiana history.
Donald Johnson, chief judge of the 19th Judicial Court, has forayed into that White subdistrict in his quest to claim a Court of Appeal judgeship. Judge J. Michael McDonald, who currently holds the seat, is above age 70 and ineligible to seek re-election when his term ends Dec. 31.
Johnson, who is Black, has served an inner-city Baton Rouge district since being elected to the 19th JDC in 1999. He is the longest-tenured judge currently on that bench.
But when he squares off against 19th JDC family court judge Hunter Greene in a Dec. 10 runoff in the court of appeal race, Johnson, a Democrat, will be fighting on unfamiliar turf.
“I cannot go around thinking that I can only win in a majority-Black district,” Johnson told The Advocate in an interview during his campaign. “I can’t accept that anymore. … That cannot be my mindset, and I cannot allow others to accept it.”
The White subdistrict covers about three-quarters of East Baton Rouge Parish, including unincorporated Baton Rouge and the outlying cities of Zachary, Central and Baker.
But Baton Rouge political analyst John Couvillon, who has crunched the numbers in elections statewide and nationally since 2010, says changing demographics in the parish make room for a minority candidate to emerge victorious even in areas once known as staunch Republican strongholds.
“While Louisiana was very much in a conservative mood on election night, East Baton Rouge Parish was not,” Couvillon said. “East Baton Rouge Parish has been moving to the left. Part of it is demographics, and part of it is that the conservative voter base is increasingly moving to Ascension, Livingston and other parishes, leaving a more Democratic core here.”
Couvillon, owner of JMC Analytics and Polling, pointed out enclaves like the Catholic High precinct near Capital Heights, where Democratic candidates enjoy strong support from White liberals and moderates. While about 90% of the voters in that precinct are White, Johnson managed to win 52% of the votes there Tuesday.
“As the Black voter population has dispersed, over time, into other areas of the parish, you’re talking about an appeals court district that’s in the 35% to 40% Black range,” Couvillon said. “Which, in plain terms, means that any Democrat running for that seat will have an automatic base of support that will put him or her in the runoff.”
Last week’s primary was a three-man race that also included Beau Higginbotham, another 19th JDC judge. When the dust cleared, Johnson was the leading vote-getter with 43% of the vote, according to complete but unofficial results from the Louisiana Secretary of State. Since no one won 50% of the vote, however, it must be decided in a runoff.
Greene claimed a third of the vote to finish second and qualify for the Dec. 10 ballot. Higginbotham won about a quarter of the vote to round out the field.
The clash between Greene and Johnson is a winner-take-all affair that could come down to the slimmest margins, as was displayed in an April runoff when Brad Myers edged ex-LSU baseball player Jordan Faircloth by two votes to earn his seat on the 19th JDC bench.
“That’s the great thing about elections like this is you cannot have voter apathy, because every vote truly counts in these kinds of races,” said Andree Miller, a director of political action committees for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, a group of business lobbyists based in Baton Rouge.
Greene and Higginbotham both ran as Republicans. Political insiders say the upcoming election will show if Johnson is a true frontrunner or if Greene and Higginbotham cancelled each other out amongst conservative voters during the primary. That could bode well for Greene, who’d stand to get a lion’s share of Higginbotham’s nods in the runoff.
Another factor will be turnout, which eclipsed 49% in Tuesday’s race. But it was a midterm election with national implications that included several U.S. congressional races as well as a handful of ballot initiatives, which lured voters to the polls. The Dec. 10 runoff will happen on a Saturday in the midst of the holiday season with no “top-ballot” races or constitutional amendments to draw voters. Analysts estimate turnout could dip to 20% or even lower.
“Due to the anticipated low turnout of this runoff, it’s going to be incumbent upon both candidates to communicate their judicial ideology to the voters and turn their voting base out,” Miller said. “Whoever can do that is who I anticipate being the winner.”
The changing demographics was one of the driving factors that compelled Johnson to mount his campaign. He noted Black families were concentrated near the Mississippi when Louisiana established the subdistricts decades ago, but African Americans have spread out across the parish now. Twice denied when he asked the Legislature to consider readjusting the voting lines based on recent census data, Johnson said, his mission now is to show that a minority candidate win the seat outright in an election.
“I don’t want to leave out of this office with the belief that those who come behind me do not have equal opportunity to realize their dreams or their potential,” he said. “I shouldn’t accept that. If I accept that, that means I accept the fact that I don’t believe I can change it.”
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