Calvin Duncan Won an Election In New Orleans. Republicans Are Trying to Abolish His Position Altogether

> The basic fact pattern here—government actors preventing a duly-elected Black man from assuming office—has a long, ignominious history in Louisiana. In November 1868, newly enfranchised Black people in New Orleans delivered John Willis Menard 64 percent of the vote in Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district, making him the first Black man elected to the House of Representatives. But a few months later, white members of Congress refused to seat him: Ohio Congressman James Garfield, who would go on to be elected President of the United States, contended that “it was too early to admit a Negro to the U.S. Congress,” and argued that Menard’s seat should be “declared vacant” in order to save his $5,000 salary. > On Sunday, May 3, Duncan won a temporary restraining order that blocked the law from taking effect, allowing him to assume office on Monday morning. And the opinion, by federal district judge John W. deGravelles, called the disenfranchisement of Black New Orleans voters “fundamentally unfair and constitutionally impermissible.” But Louisiana Republicans filed their own emergency petition to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and by mid-morning on Monday, the Fifth Circuit granted an administrative stay, which temporarily lifts the lower court’s order and allows Louisiana to implement the law dissolving Duncan’s position. “I got a chance to be a clerk for like three hours,” Duncan said.