All of a sudden there is a gigantic hue and cry over a bill at the Louisiana legislature by Sen. Jay Morris which is a fairly obvious reform measure, seeking governmental efficiencies where they can easily be found.

The bill is SB 256, and it would consolidate the separate civil and criminal clerks of court in Orleans Parish into a single elected clerk and shift administrative and funding responsibilities accordingly.

Orleans Parish is the only place in the state where there is a clerk of court for civil cases and another one for criminal cases. Orleans isn’t the most populous parish in the state; it’s third (363,000) behind East Baton Rouge (458,000) and Jefferson (431,000). And East Baton Rouge and Jefferson manage just fine with one clerk of court handling everything which goes through their judicial systems.

Not only that, in the other parishes around the state the local government funds the clerks of court. In Orleans, somehow state government funds the criminal clerk’s office.

Which is a testament to Orleans’ former political power from back in the days when Louisiana was a Democrat-dominated state and Orleans’ bloc Democrat vote would elect all the statewide officials.

Except none of that is true anymore, and there is no reason why taxpayers in Bunkie and Lake Providence should be funding a second clerk of court in New Orleans.

So why are we about to have a knife fight on the floor of the House of Representatives when this bill, which passed the Senate 25-11 earlier this month and came out of committee on Thursday of last week, hits the full House?

All the best reasons, that’s why. Which really means all the worst reasons.

If Morris’ bill passes and Gov. Jeff Landry signs it, which he absolutely will…

…the criminal clerk of court in New Orleans will go away and the Orleans Parish Clerk of the Civil District Court, whose name is Chelsey Richard Napoleon, would take over the whole thing. Like we said, that would make for standard treatment for Orleans Parish vis-a-vis the rest of the state.

But it would be very inconvenient for Calvin Duncan.

Who’s Calvin Duncan? Well, he just got elected as the criminal clerk of court in Orleans Parish and next month he’s supposed to start his new job. And Calvin Duncan is raising a very big stink about not getting what he ran for.

Two weeks ago when the bill went through its committee hearing in the Senate, Duncan accused Morris and the Republicans of “trying to ruin my life” over the bill.

It’s all about him, you see.

Duncan took out Darren Lombard, who was the incumbent, in a 68-32 vote in a low-turnout election earlier this spring. It’s understandable that he’d be upset about raising money, running a campaign, winning and then ending up with a goose egg for his trouble, but Calvin Duncan’s problems aren’t really our problems, are they?

Except Duncan called it a “slap in the face” to the voters of Orleans Parish (what about the voters of the state of Louisiana who are paying for a criminal clerk of court in Orleans without having any say as to who has the job?) and an attempt by Gov. Landry and allies to “overrule the voters and dictate what happens to us.”

Rep. Kyle Green (D-Marrero) complained that Morris’ bill “undermines democracy and fundamental fairness” and sets a “very dangerous precedent,” noting that “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

We’re not sure Green wants that wisdom applied across the board given how many things happen in Orleans Parish that shouldn’t.

The committee hearings in both the Senate and the House – and especially the House – were the classic “idiots in red t-shirts” moments, with an endless procession of screamy Democrats accusing Jay Morris and Jeff Landry and everybody else supporting Orleans Parish having a single clerk of court of all the usual things.

It’s racist to make Orleans Parish make do with only one clerk of court, you see.

And it gets worse, because Calvin Duncan spent 28 years in jail following a murder conviction, only to have the conviction vacated in 2011. He managed to become a lawyer even despite all of that and he’s being held up as a great human interest story.

Except he comes off as a little “me-me-me,” frankly. Duncan testified he “sincerely and honestly believe[s] I am being targeted” by Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who opposed Duncan’s efforts to get a check from the state over his wrongful imprisonment. Murrill isn’t a big Calvin Duncan fan.

You can excuse Duncan if he’s taking this personally. Sen. Royce Duplessis, on the other hand, is just obnoxious. And all Duplessis has are race cards in his deck. Duplessis (D-New Orleans) framed it as white Republicans seizing power from a black elected official in a majority-black city and parish—the one with the highest proportion of black elected officials in Louisiana.

Seizing power from black elected officials? Here’s a picture of Chelsey Richard Napoleon…

I dunno, she seems like a black elected official to me.

Duplessis likened Orleans Parish having the same number of clerks of court as every other parish in the state to post-Reconstruction denials of office to black officials – by Democrats back then, dontchaknow – and he said history would record “what side are you on?”

The side of not having people in Ferriday having to pay taxes to fund entry-level politicians in New Orleans? There are black people in Ferriday, you know.

Duplessis put up an amendment to delay the merger until after Duncan’s term ends in May 2030. That got rejected. He’s been screeching about racism ever since, but nobody expects anything different from Royce Duplessis.

Dillard University professor Robert Collins and others described it as a partisan power grab by the Republican supermajority to reduce Democratic (and black) representation in New Orleans. Which is partially right – it was a power grab by the Democrat supermajority back in the day to put an extra Democrat elected official on the state’s payroll, and now it’s a power grab to take that away. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good-government reform measure. As for reducing Democrat and black “representation” in New Orleans, we would refer Professor Collins to that pic of the honorable Miz Napoleon. Black representation among clerks of court in Orleans Parish would remain at 100 percent if Morris’ bill is signed by the governor.

Our favorite quote about this is from Rep. Mandie Landry (D-New Orleans), who called the restructuring “dangerous government overreach” done “in bad faith” because “powerful people don’t like him.”

This is the same Mandie Landry who is trying to pass a bill that would CRIMINALIZE people using AI in political ads and other messaging unless they splash a garish “GENERATED WITH AI” masthead on their TV ads and mailers and email blasts, and she wants to bitch about government overreach. Give us a break, Mandie.

Especially when we’re talking about making fewer elected politicians rather than more. Which is sort of like the opposite of government overreach.

And they’re screaming that if the state isn’t paying for a second clerk of court in New Orleans, it’ll mean budget cuts. But nothing stops Chelsey Napoleon from going to the voters of Orleans Parish and looking for a sales or property tax bump for her office.

Morris’ legislative package is also aiming  to cut down the number of judges in New Orleans. There are entirely too many judges there and have been for a long time. Orleans Parish is staffed for judges like it still has 600,000 people in it; the population is basically 60 percent of that number now, and the economic activity going on in New Orleans is down a good bit as well. It only stands to reason that the payroll of the government in the city be downsized accordingly.

Oh, but no. To do that is “racist governmental overreach.” And it’s mean to Calvin Duncan.

Whatever. Nobody ought to listen to these people.

And Calvin Duncan can take solace in the fact that there are still oodles of jobs for politicians coming up all the time in New Orleans. In the meantime he can drum up a living as a lawyer just like thousands of other folks do. A guy who spent 28 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit would seem to be tougher than to complain that his life is “ruined” if he can’t take office in a ministerial low-level elected job paying 145K a year. It’s a cush gig, sure, but he can probably make more than that running around the countryside giving speeches about how racist Jay Morris and Jeff Landry are for blowing up his job before he could take it.