There was no question the current political season would be unusual, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the challenges it poses to fundraising and traditional campaigning.
But the lawsuits filed in recent days challenging the eligibility of candidates running for mayor-president and Metro Council have been so numerous, it has taken even veteran political consultants by surprise.
In the first week after qualifying for the fall races ended, July 24, four separate lawsuits were filed in 19th Judicial District Court—one, each, challenging the eligibility of mayoral hopefuls Matt Watson and Tara Wicker, one seeking to disqualify Metro Council member LaMont Cole from his District 7 reelection bid, and one claiming that five of the eight candidates running for Wicker’s vacant District 10 council seat should be thrown out.
What’s going on?
“It has become a trend in the last few years to file lawsuits like these in political campaigns,” says political pollster Bernie Pinsonat. “Consultants start looking at everything from potential legal problems to tax filings to where a candidate lives to how many times they missed voting.”
Call it a basic campaign tactic of the 2020s, one that candidates, for better or worse, have come to expect. It’s not something unique to the Bayou State, known for its colorful politics.
Nearly 130 pandemic-related election lawsuits have been filed in recent months around the country, as well as nearly three dozen voting rights cases.
But while those national suits deal with larger, overarching issues, the local suits have dealt with more mundane issues like whether candidates live in the district they’re seeking to represent and are current on their income tax and campaign finance report filings.
What’s perhaps curious about the current batch of lawsuits is how quickly local judges have dismissed them on grounds they are baseless, Pinsonat notes.
Nineteenth Judicial District Court Judge Tim Kelley on Tuesday tossed the suit against Wicker, which claimed she was ineligible to run for mayor because she had not filed her state income tax return.
Also Tuesday, Judge William Morvant cleared the way for four District 10 candidates to run—Eugene Collins, Jay Gaudet, Markeda Cottnaham and Quentin Anthony Anderson—dismissing challenges against them, though he did disqualify candidate William Chatman, Sr.
On July 31, Judge Trudy White dismissed a suit challenging Cole’s District 7 reelection bid, ruling that the incumbent council member does, in fact, live in the district.
And before it even had a chance to make it to a hearing, a suit seeking to disqualify Watson from the mayor’s race for failing to file campaign finance reports was withdrawn by the plaintiff, after the state ethics administration publicly stated Watson had filed requisite documents and paid all fines before officially qualifying.
“Everybody does this,” Pinsonat says of election challenges. “But what so many of these lawsuits show is that if you’re going to do it, you need to do your homework first and make sure you have some legitimate reasons for challenging these campaigns.”
Legitimate or not, is it an effective tactic to file a court challenge?
Pinsonat says it can raise doubt in the minds of voters, which could cause problems for a candidate in a crowded field. Then again, it can inadvertently bring them free publicity and name recognition.
“It can be an effective tactic,” he says. “But not when the allegations are so patently false and baseless.”
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