Elected with 68% of the vote, Calvin Duncan refiles federal challenge to the law that eliminated his office

A federal case over an elected office that no longer exists is moving again.

Lawyers for Calvin Duncan, who won the November 2025 election for Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal District Court, filed an amended complaint on Friday, Aug. 14, in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, FOX 8 WVUE New Orleans reported on Aug. 15. Duncan defeated the incumbent, Darren Lombard, with more than 68% of the vote, the station reported. He was never sworn in. Act 15 of the 2026 Regular Session folded the criminal clerk's duties into the Orleans Parish civil clerk's office before his term could begin.

The dispute is about why. What follows sets what the law's supporters said they were doing beside the Legislature's own dated record of what was done.

What was said

Gov. Jeff Landry (R) told the Associated Press that abolishing Duncan's office would boost "government efficiency" and help with "cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years," Capital B News reported. That characterization of the parish is the governor's. It appears here as the rationale he offered, not as a finding: no document reviewed for this piece tests it.

The bill's author argued narrower ground on the floor. "This bill is to provide some efficiencies," Sen. Jay Morris (R-Monroe) said during Senate debate, according to The Lens, which reported that the full Senate voted 25-11 that day to pass Senate Bill 256. In the excerpt available to this desk, the line stands as a statement, with no question attached to it.

What the record shows

Senate Bill 256 became Act No. 15. The Legislature's bill page for the measure lists Sen. Jay Morris as its author and gives the subject in a single summary line: the bill "Provides for a clerk of court in Orleans Parish." The rest of that page is an action log, and the dates are where the efficiency argument meets friction.

The bill was prefiled on Feb. 26, 2026 - roughly three months after the election it would unwind - and provisionally referred to the Committee on Judiciary A. The Senate passed it on April 8 by 25 yeas to 11 nays. A committee reported it favorably on April 20 by 8-5-1. The House gave it final passage, amended, on April 23 by 63 to 28. The Senate concurred in the amendments on April 29, again 25-11. The governor signed it on April 30, and the same page records the act's effective date as that same day: "Effective Date: April 30, 2026."

An immediate effective date is a drafting choice, and the reason given for this one named an individual. "Otherwise we'd probably have to pay him for four years in a job that's going to be eliminated," Morris said, The Lens reported. FOX 8, describing the Senate debate, renders the same reason in its own words: making the law take effect immediately would let the state finish the consolidation before Duncan took office. Two accounts of the Senate debate put one person at the center of the timing. In the excerpts available to this desk, the only quantity the sponsor is recorded as attaching to the efficiency is a single salary across a single four-year term.

Early May, in 48 hours

The litigation moved faster than the consolidation. On April 30, Capital B News reported, the governor signed the law transferring the criminal clerk's responsibilities to the Orleans Parish clerk of civil court. On May 3, a federal judge in Baton Rouge ruled the legislation eliminating the position unconstitutional and issued a temporary restraining order while the case continued, the outlet reported. Duncan reported to work on May 4; later that day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit blocked the lower court's ruling.

The state court file

The parallel state case is captioned Gary Crockett v. State of Louisiana; Jeff Landry, in his Official Capacity as Governor of the State of Louisiana, et al., No. 2026-CD-00594. The document this desk could read is not the merits ruling: it is the Louisiana Supreme Court taking the matter up on its own motion and ordering a temporary injunction in the same order, framing the question as whether Act 15 of the 2026 Regular Session "violates any provisions of the Constitution."

A separate writing in that document objects to the procedure, calling the step overreaching and describing the appearance of prejudging the case by injuncting in the same order. The snapshot does not identify which member of the court wrote it. Its argument is two words long: "Process matters." Before an injunction issues, the writing states, a hearing should be held in the trial court so the parties can do their job.

The merits ruling that followed is known here only through the ACLU of Louisiana, which represents Duncan and is therefore a party's account. In its June 1 statement, the organization said a majority of the court upheld Act 15 and three justices dissented. Chief Justice Weimer, in the passage the group quotes, wrote that the legislative action "makes a mockery of the electoral process by completely obliterating the constitutional effectiveness of the people's vote." Justice Griffin, as quoted in the same statement, warned that the ruling "allows the legislature to nullify the results of any election it disagrees with."

The ACLU describes what Justice Guidry called an internal contradiction the majority refused to confront: Act 15 states the position must be filled by election, the group's statement says, yet the Legislature appointed someone without one. The statement adds that the decision issued without oral argument, without a trial court ruling and without intermediate appellate review.

Who is asking

Duncan's biography is part of why the case drew national coverage. Capital B News reported that he was freed in 2011 after serving more than 28 years in prison, and that in 2021 a judge threw out his conviction, ruling it unconstitutional. The ACLU of Louisiana, which continues to represent him in federal court, describes him as a Black man wrongfully imprisoned for nearly three decades who earned a law degree after his release and then won an election by a landslide. In a press release quoted by Capital B, Duncan said he would not quit until he had done the job voters elected him to do.

Landry did not respond to Capital B News's request for comment, that outlet reported. Morris's statements here are drawn from The Lens's account of the Senate debate and from FOX 8's summary of it.

What resolves next

The checkable record from here sits on one docket. The amended complaint was filed Aug. 14 in the Middle District of Louisiana, and Act 15 has carried an effective date of April 30, 2026, since the day it was signed. Analysis, grounded in the dates above: the efficiency the sponsor quantified on the floor was one salary over one term, while the log shows a bill prefiled three months after the vote it displaced and made effective the day it was signed - a sequence about timing more than administration.

A falsifiable prediction, checkable on the federal docket: the state defendants will have filed a response or a motion directed at the Aug. 14 amended complaint on or before Nov. 14, 2026.