Tara Wicker is vowing to fight a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision, issued earlier today, disqualifying her from the crowded field of candidates running for mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish.
While Wicker was withholding details of her planned fight for a scheduled 3:30 p.m. news conference, she tells Daily Report, “This is definitely far from over. … They’re trying to bury me and kill my good name and I’m not going to have it. God’s not going to have it.”
This morning’s ruling reversed an earlier ruling by 19th Judicial District Court Judge Tim Kelly, who dismissed a challenge to Wicker’s candidacy by three Baton Rouge residents, who claimed she was ineligible to run because she had not filed her 2016 and 2018 state tax returns at the time she qualified.
In its decision today, the appellate court said Kelly erred in his findings by relying on Wicker’s testimony, which did not definitively establish the 2018 return in particular had been filed prior to qualifying on July 22.
While Wicker disputes the appellate ruling, she lays blame squarely at the feet of the Broome administration, which she believes is behind the lawsuit.
“I just hope people don’t forget: The character of any community is determined by the character of its leadership and the way you campaign is the way you’re going to govern,” she says “You don’t have to be dirty and ugly to maintain a job. This is why good people do not run for public office.”
Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s administration has previously distanced itself from the suit, which was filed by attorney Bill Bryan on behalf of plaintiffs Millard “Sonny” Cranch, Glenn Ducote and Richard Brazan.
Bryan says he is not aware of any connection to the Broome campaign.
Broome’s attorney in the St. George suit, Mary Olive Pierson, says she briefly consulted with Bryan about the appeal but not because anyone in the Broome administration asked her to. She says her role was marginal and that she was not compensated for it, though she acknowledges she is a Broome supporter.
“This supporter of the mayor is in favor of getting Ms. Wicker out of the race,” Pierson says. “This one, who is well-known publicly, is in favor of the plaintiffs, who have now won, because Ms. Wicker can’t prove that she filed tax returns for two of the last five years and swore that she did.”
Wicker has until 10:59 a.m. Saturday, 48 hours from the time of this morning’s ruling, to file writs with the Louisiana Supreme Court, which, under state election law, would be required to take up the matter on an expedited schedule.
If the high court upholds today’s ruling, the field of candidates challenging Broome would shrink to six: state Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, who, like Broome, is a Black Democrat; and former state Rep. Steve Carter, Metro Council member Matt Watson, businessman Jordan Piazza, attorney E. Eric Guirard and political newcomer Frank Smith III, all of whom are white Republicans.
Would it make much difference, though, in lessening the chances Broome will wind up in a December runoff against one of her GOP challengers, which is the most likely scenario?
Not likely, according to some political analysts.
“I don’t think Wicker was ever going to beat the mayor,” says Southern University political scientist Albert Samuels. “The fact that she had already gotten a large contribution from (conservative businessman and political operative) Lane Grigsby was going to be political dynamite against her in the black community.”
Then again, he says, having one fewer Black Democrat to battle in the primary can’t hurt.
“It widens the mayor’s lane because this is a crowded field,” he says. “But it’s too soon to say this is over yet. I suspect Wicker will be going to the [Louisiana] Supreme Court.”
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