Five months after Calvin Duncan secured 68% of the vote to become the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk, Louisiana Republicans want to abolish the office before he can be sworn in on May 4.
This clash over a Louisiana election stretches beyond just one man’s job, as battles over who gets a voice in U.S. democracy — whose vote meaningfully counts, who gets to exercise power after triumphing in a race — test the durability of Black political power across the South.
Duncan was jailed in 1982, at the age of 19, in a New Orleans murder-robbery case that was built partly on shaky eyewitness testimony. He was sentenced to life behind bars, and during this time, he began studying the law and earned a reputation as a skilled jailhouse lawyer, helping other incarcerated people to overturn their convictions.
Nearly three decades later, right before a hearing to consider more evidence in the case, prosecutors offered Duncan a deal: plead guilty to lesser charges and have his sentence reduced to time served. He did, and in 2011, after serving more than 28 years in prison, he was freed. In 2021, a judge tossed out his conviction, ruling it unconstitutional. He was exonerated.
“That was the second best day of my life,” Duncan told NPR in 2025. “The first best day of my life was when I got out January the 7th, 2011. The second best day of life was August the 3rd, 2021.”
But now, weeks before Duncan is supposed to start his new role, lawmakers in the largely white and Republican Louisiana State Legislature want to eliminate his office.
On April 8, the state Senate passed a bill — Senate Bill 256, which was written by state Sen. John “Jay” Morris, a Republican — that would combine two offices: that of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk, and that of the Orleans Parish Civil District Court clerk. The bill is now pending introduction in the state House. In its present iteration, it would take effect as soon as it’s signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who has expressed support for the bill.
Proponents of the bill maintain that they’re not motivated by race or politics. Landry, who didn’t respond to Capital B’s request for comment, told the AP 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.” And Morris told Verite News that the “surviving clerk” — Civil District Court Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon — “is African American herself, and she’s a woman.”
Still, to opponents, those justifications ring hollow, and what they see playing out is a betrayal of Duncan’s journey — and of the will of the voters.
“He inspired people to believe again — that their vote matters, that redemption is real, and that good people, even those who have been knocked down by the system, can stand back up and be chosen by their community,” Louisiana state Rep. Alonzo Knox, a Democrat, told Capital B. “SB 256 threatens to undo all of that. It sends a dangerous signal that even when the people speak — loudly and overwhelmingly — their decision can be set aside.”
Others see history repeating itself.
Ahead of the bill’s passage in the Senate, state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat, recounted the story of John Willis Menard. He seemed to have won a special election in 1868 and was slated to serve in the U.S. House and represent a district that included New Orleans, but he was prevented from doing so because of challenges to the election outcome.
“I have never seen something so barbaric,” Duplessis told his colleagues from the lectern, arguing that the bill won’t improve efficiency. “Just know that when we’re all done here and we go on with our lives, history has a record, and just like I read the record from 1868, this history, this will be recorded. A century from now, two centuries from now, what side are you on?
Duncan hasn’t responded to Capital B’s request for an interview. But in an earlier press release, he framed the state’s actions as an attempt to neutralize votes.
“Governor Landry and his lackeys want to overrule the voters and dictate what happens to us,” Duncan said. “It’s a slap in the face not only to the people who elected me, but to every voter across Louisiana.”
A power struggle echoing across the South
The push to dismantle Duncan’s office isn’t developing in isolation. It comes as Black political power across the South faces fresh opposition.
By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce a decision regarding Louisiana’s congressional map. Lines were redrawn in 2024 so that the state would have a second majority-Black district. However, a group of “non-African American” voters sued, claiming that the new map discriminates against them.
“There’s been this ‘two steps forward, one step back’ feeling — the pendulum swinging forward and then rapidly backward,” Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, which has represented Black voters during the saga, told Capital B last January. “People all across the state were excited about the voting rights victory we had and about having the additional seat filled by someone the community trusts and respects.”
Louisiana is hardly alone. The fight over the Bayou State’s map is taking place amid a wider redistricting battle. Maryland Democrats’ move to add an additional House seat failed this week due to disagreements within the party. And on April 21 — following a campaign that involved divisive mailers that likened redistricting to Jim Crow schemes — Virginians will vote on a measure that could help Democrats to gain additional House seats.
The vote will come months after North Carolina Republicans approved a congressional map that increases their competitiveness in a district that’s enjoyed Black Democratic representation since the 1990s. It will also arrive months after the Supreme Court gave Texas Republicans the green light to use a congressional map that had been challenged as racially discriminatory.
Additionally, Duncan’s experiences mirror more local battles, including the one faced by Patrick Braxton. He was initially blocked from serving as the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, but later was allowed to take office. He resigned in 2025 after his opponent, who’s white, protested Braxton’s residency and the election.
“Failing to have access to a democratically elected position is violence. It’s indirect relative to some acts of racial terror, but it sends a similar message,” Christine Slaughter, a political scientist at Boston University, told Capital B in 2023, as Braxton’s plight was starting to gain national attention. “The types of suppression have changed, but it still has the intended effect of intimidating voters and officeholders.”
Duncan has made clear that he refuses to buckle to intimidation: “I won’t quit until I’ve done the job the people elected me to do,” he said in the press release.
After spending nearly 30 years in prison advocating for his freedom and more than a decade rebuilding his life, he won the chance to serve his community. Now, he’s being confronted with a new test — this one over whether his victory will endure.
Still, despite it all, Knox said, if you listen to Duncan, “you will not hear anger. You will not hear resentment. You hear grace. You hear commitment. You hear someone who believes deeply in this system — even after it failed him.”
