This week, Hy and Christopher take on the rise of AOC’s presidential chances and the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party. Is it a LEFT-WING mirror of MAGA?
We also talk about development along Lake Pontchartrain and at West End, as well as Jefferson Parish’s seemingly permanent lack of a bond rating.
But most of the show centers around Jeff Landry’s attempt to take over the New Orleans court system, and how any legislative special session hinges on Rep. Stephanie Hilferty. The Lakeview Republican could cast the tiebreaking supermajority vote to change the Orleans courts.
On July 22, Gov. Jeff Landry declared that he planned to call the Louisiana Legislature into a special session to take more control of the Orleans Parish court system. His comments came after a grand jury indicted Attorney General Liz Murrill on July 2. While the charges were later dropped, infuriated GOP state leaders still labeled the indictment ‘without basis’ and ‘politically-motivated’.
As a result, lawmakers “want to look at ways that they can take more control of the court system in the city of New Orleans,” Landry exclaimed during a press conference at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge last Wednesday.
The controversy came as a result of Landry’s success in his legislative efforts at the beginning of the year to merge the offices of Orleans Criminal District Clerk and Civil District Clerk. Act 15 was written into law at Murrill‘s request, due to the AG’s fear of exonerated felon-turned-activist Calvin Duncan being sworn into his elected post as criminal clerk.
The former jailhouse lawyer won 68 percent support from New Orleans voters in the November election, defeating incumbent Darren Lombard, yet Act 15 abolished the Criminal Clerk’s office just days before Duncan would have taken office. Subsequent efforts by the Mayor and New Orleans City Council to appoint him into an interim merged clerkship launched a war of words between the AG and city government.
Murrill maintained that Act 15 specified that the criminal clerk’s position had been merged under the auspices of Civil Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon. Murrill warned in letters sent to the Mayor, DA, and Councilmembers in May that any efforts to deny Napoleon that merged position violated state’s usurper laws and opened city officials to criminal prosecution.
Their reaction to the letters brought about allegations of abuse of power and criminal threats by the AG which eventually led to an 16 indictments of Murrill by local grand jury. Special prosecutor Laurie White later declined to prosecute the eight counts of public intimidation and eight counts of malfeasance in office, yet Murrill replied to the controversy in a written statement, “This case should have NEVER been started because there was NO crime. This outcome will not deter my efforts to get to the bottom of this. The irresponsible and illegal actions that led to this abuse of the criminal justice system need to never happen again.”
Murrill later claimed to have “lost faith” with Mayor Helena Moreno and DA Jason Williams as they branded the AG “a criminal”.
At nearly the same time, Judge Tarvald Smith of the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish blocked Act 748 of the 2026 legislative session that would eliminated three Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judgeships, slashing the judicial bench from 12 to 9. Smith’s ruling offered a temporary reprieve for Judges John Fuller, Simone Levine and Rhonda Goode-Douglas who are slated to lose their seats, leaving open the possibility that each could run for re-election for those seats again. (The period to sign up to be a candidate in judicial races is Aug. 5-7.)
Act 748 arose from a bill sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe which also eliminated four other judgeships from the city’s juvenile and municipal and traffic courts, ostensibly to bring the size of the New Orleans courts in line with parishes of similar population size.
The legal challenge centers around the fact that Act 748 did not receive a 2/3 majority of both houses of the legislature as the state constitution requires, Fuller’s attorney Jerome Matthews Jr. contended. The Landry Administration countered that the 1974 Constitution contains special provisions dealing strictly with Orleans Parish and its courts, so a supermajority was “not required”.
Now faced with a judge overturning the governor‘s earlier legislative intentions, Landry looks to call a special session—or at least so he contended in a press conference originally called to deal with the potential impact of Tropical Storm Bertha.
That’s where the vote of New Orleans’ only elected Republican Rep. Stephanie Hilferty of Lakeview may prove crucial. In a 73-32 partisan breakdown in the 105 member Louisiana House of Representatives, her vote could constitute the 2/3 majority threshold necessary to make permanent changes to the Orleans court systems— from number of judges to operational independence.
For Hilferty, such a vote could not come a worse political time as she runs for a term on the Public Service Commission this autumn with extensive Democratic support in the city. Many of her closest supporters, including most of the Orleans political establishment, would instantly turn against her. Refusing to vote for such a gubernatorially-backed court realignment would condemn her to strong permanent opposition from the Landry administration and his allies.
Hilferty can only hope that such a special session may not come to pass this fall. Neither Senate President Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) nor speaker House Speaker Phillip DeVillier (R-Eunice) have commented on the potential legislative call.