Stop Medicaid fraud
March 29, 2016
Faye Pizani
March 30, 2016
It was 18 years ago that this quest to address the question of race when it comes to who passes judgment from the benches of Terrebonne Parish’s courtrooms, and every step attempted has in one way or another met a bad end.
Until now.
On this Monday past, a member of the Terrebonne Parish Council and two members of the School Board, all African-Americans, met in Baton Rouge with the attorney who advises Gov. John Bel Edwards on these matters and a meeting of the minds came to pass.
Councilwoman Arlanda Williams was also involved in the discussion, by telephone, with Councilman John Navy, as well as board members Roosevelt Thomas and Gregory Harding.
To put all of this in perspective, the issue most recently has been the manner in which Terrebonne Parish selects its judges. Local state district court judges are elected by popular vote, with the judges for each of the parish’s five divisions of court all running at large. This means you vote to fill all five of those divisions from a slate of at-large candidates, whether you live in Cocodrie or Coteau, Bayou Blue or Bayou Black.
Terrebonne Parish NAACP President Jerome Boykin led the charge on this matter, to the consternation of many. The resistance to a solution for this problem came from many different quarters, and it continues still. To Boykin’s way of thinking, if you were not part of the solution you were part of the problem and he still thinks this way. We are often critical of the people who bring these issues to public attention, without realizing that without such people stuff doesn’t get done. We hate being told that we might be doing some thing wrong. We have no desire to have outsiders impose their manner of thinking on us. It has always been this way, not just in Houma, not just in the south, but throughout these United States and you can go all the way back to Julius Caesar, if you wish, likely even on his good days.
After an attempt at legislating a change for electing judges failed, Boykin talked to lawyers, not just any lawyers but the ones who specialize in this sort of thing. Leah Aden and other attorneys from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York. As a point of reference, the Legal Defense Fund is a separate organization from the NAACP, with a separate board of directors. They determined that the at-large method of electing judges in Terrebonne Parish violates Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which does not require intent for discrimination to be inferred. Those lawyers, who are expert in this type of litigation, play to win and have tremendous resources, and so Jerome Boykin got a legal Goliath behind him on this one. The case progressed through the courts. Bobby Jindal, who used to be governor, was a defendant and so was the former attorney general, Buddy Caldwell. Jindal, whose decisions were based on how they might be viewed by politically by partisan minions everywhere but Louisiana, just about, did not appear to make any attempts at settling this matter, other than to try and get taken out of it by legal motions which failed. Caldwell, who was facing re-election, felt pretty much the same way, and a federal judge, the Hon. J. James Brady, determined that the buck stops with both of them, pretty much. So when John Bel Edwards got elected governor, he inherited this mess.
What Edwards did that his predecessor did not was agree to work toward a solution.
Parish President Gordon Dove, also newly elected, took a step some saw as heavy handed, by attempting to volunteer Terrebonne Parish as a defendant. The court still has to rule on this. But it pushed the matter far enough in discussion that the Terrebonne folks mentioned above had their meeting with Matthew Block. The result is that the parish officials will now talk up their solution to the Chamber of Commerce and the South Central Industrial Association, and the school board and the parish council. When it is all over with, the Terrebonne delegation will likely present legislation that will make the new method of electing judges consistent with what is already being done to achieve legal compliance with the Voting Rights Act in the council and the school board. The problem is not yet solved. But each element – Boykin by bringing eyes to the problem and the lawyers for fighting the good fight, Navy, Williams, Harding and Thomas for doing the footwork, Edwards for being receptive and Block for his contributions, Dove for bringing the matter center stage, plus a few people working in the background, each in their own way are bringing this chapter about local racial contention to a close. The rest of the story will be told according to how receptive Terrebonne Parish is overall to the recommendations of the peacemakers. And as we all know, the peacemakers are always blessed. With this many good minds working on a solution people of good will in this parish can’t possibly lose. •
