Caddo and Bossier Parish contests for school boards and judicial positions this fall will follow the maxim that if it doesn’t seem broken, don’t fix it.

In Caddo Parish, only one incumbent judge across the First District, Shreveport City Court, and Caddo Parish Juvenile Court drew a challenger. That was the embattled Democrat City Court Judge Sheva Sims. Earlier this year she drew another suspension, her first since 2015, this one for nine months, from the state’s Judiciary Commission, but decided to run again. Two other black Democrats, lawyers Kharmen Davis-Taylor and Trinicia Leonard, have challenged her. The other two incumbent City Court judges, plus newcomer Republican Amy Brainard, faced no opposition.

For District Court, all but two incumbents will walk back into office. Another rookie, Republican Heather Courtney, also will get a free pass, along with her husband, Republican Justin Courtney, on the Juvenile Court bench and his two compatriots. The only competition here will occur for the other open seat, where Republican Hugo Holland will face off against Democrat Treneisha Jackson Hill.

With electoral conditions as they are, Holland, who is white, is favored against Hill, who is black and an assistant district attorney in the First District who worked with Holland early in her career, in the district with about equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans but with a solid white majority. Holland also spent time working in the neighboring Twenty-Sixth District, and in a career spanning nearly four decades became known as an effective if controversial advocate for uncompromising prosecution that opponents allege veered into illegality and was racially-tinged. Hill’s candidacy, which appeared at the last minute, will end up as a protest candidacy but is unlikely to win.

In Bossier Parish, the fiefdom quality of judgeships is even more pronounced. All incumbents, none yet hitting the age ceiling, unlike in Caddo, qualified without opposition.

On both sides of the river as well, term limits kicking in after a 2012 referendum will upend each School Board. In Bossier, the typical orderly, unopposed flurry of newcomers joined all unopposed incumbents, except for the dynastic handoff in District 10 from current Democrat member Samm Darby (who took over from her brother) to her niece, nonprofit administrator Democrat Jassery Darby, who picked up an opponent, retiree Democrat Carolyn Warmsley.

In Caddo, the election also followed its pattern, in this case of at least some competition. There, no fewer than seven members will need replacing, and only two other incumbents and one newcomer will walk into their offices. Of the other nine seats, six are intraparty contests and another is a GOP/no-party matchup in a Republican district.

Concerning the two major party matchups, one is a bit of a push. District 8 Republican Jeri Bowen was at first a Democrat, then no party, as a majority of Board Democrats twice muscled their fellow-traveler into interim positions in the heavily-Republican district. Having adopted the label for this election, Bowen, as an incumbent, seems to have scared off other genuine GOP potential candidates and drawn an even less district-friendly opponent: Democrat Emma Shepard, a serial candidate for education-related offices even more at odds with the presently successful agenda from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on down.

In a sense, this makes the outcome of the District 10 race much less crucial. With their past temporary advantage, Democrats had gerrymandered the districts to create a 7-5 majority, with that district as the linchpin because of its near-majority black electorate. But in 2022 Republican Katie McLain thwarted them by winning it to give the Board even partisan representation. Not deterred, Democrats will try again in the form of black Democrat Michael LaFitte, former Shreveport NAACP president who resigned in part over his role in controversial apartment management.

Insofar as these contests go, only the Caddo Board results could portend any meaningful policy change.