Louisiana SB425: The Malfeasance Bill Nobody Can Define | Black Source Media

State Senator Jay Morris wants to make it easier to kick elected officials out of office. The only problem is he hasn’t gotten around to defining what they’d be getting kicked out for. Don’t worry though. He says you’ll just know.

TL;DR — The Short Version

Louisiana SB425 would let the Legislature remove elected officials — mayors, sheriffs, council members, you name it — for “malfeasance or gross misconduct” without defining either term. A ⅔ vote of the House or Senate sends the accused to a civil trial before a Supreme Court-appointed judge. The public has no role. No crime required. No definition required. The bill’s sponsor says you’ll just know malfeasance when you see it. In a state with a Republican supermajority and a lot of Black and Democratic officials, critics have some thoughts about that.

Key Points

• SB425 by Sen. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe) allows a ⅔ legislative vote to pursue civil removal of elected officials for “malfeasance or gross misconduct”
• The bill does not define malfeasance or gross misconduct — Morris says it’s self-evident, like broccoli
• Officials removed would face a civil trial before a judge appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court
• Governors, lieutenant governors, and judges are exempt — everyone else is fair game
• No crime required, no public vote required, no recall signatures from Bugs Bunny required
• Companion bill SB479 targets judges specifically — simple House majority, ⅔ Senate vote, and a sitting judge is gone
• Louisiana’s Republican supermajority has Democrats concerned the bill is a partisan removal tool in disguise

Do you know anybody in the market for a malfeasance detector?

I’ve been working on the concept. About the size of your phone. You carry it in your pocket, just like your phone. When it gets near a politician guilty of malfeasance, it starts buzzing. Simple as that. No lawyers. No definitions. And no ambiguity.

I ask because Louisiana is about to need a lot of them.

What SB425 Actually Does — And Doesn’t Do

State Senator Jay Morris out of West Monroe has a bill moving to the Senate floor this week. SB425. On paper it sounds reasonable enough: give the Legislature a new tool to remove elected officials who commit malfeasance or gross misconduct.

The Bill — SB425 by Sen. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe)

A ⅔ vote of either the Louisiana House or Senate initiates a civil removal suit against any elected state or local official. A judge appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court oversees the trial. If found guilty of “malfeasance or gross misconduct,” the official is removed from office. No criminal conviction required. No public vote required. Governors, lieutenant governors, and judges are protected by the Louisiana Constitution and are exempt. Everyone else — mayors, sheriffs, district attorneys, council members — is on the menu.

No more funding recalls. No more gathering signatures. But, also no more ending up with “Bugs Bunny” and “Fred Flintstone” on your petition. Now all you need is a friendly state legislator and enough colleagues to get to ⅔.

The public? Not involved. Sit down. Adults are talking.

“He says it’s obvious. People will just know malfeasance when they see it. Like broccoli.”— SB425’s definition of malfeasance, essentially

Senator Morris Has Not Defined Malfeasance — And He Is Fine With That

Here is where it gets interesting. As of this writing, Senator Morris has not defined what “malfeasance” means in his bill. He doesn’t think he has to.

His position is that malfeasance is obvious. People just know it when they see it. Like broccoli, he might as well say. You don’t need a scientist to tell you what broccoli is. You see it. Yep, you know.

This is a reassuring philosophy when you are standing in the produce aisle. It is a somewhat more troubling philosophy when you are handing one-third of a legislative body the power to end another politician’s career without a crime, without a trial jury, and without a definition of what they supposedly did wrong.

Democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee were not entirely comforted by the broccoli theory. “What safeguards do we have in here that would prevent political abuse or temptation of a political party?” asked one member. A fair question. Senator Morris noted that the Legislature already has impeachment power and has not abused it. Also fair. Cold comfort, perhaps, but fair.

The more pressing concern is this: Louisiana has a Republican supermajority. Getting to ⅔ in either chamber is not a heavy lift when you are already at ⅔. And the officials who are not governors, not lieutenant governors, and not judges — the ones who are actually exposed under SB425 — skew heavily Democratic. And heavily Black. Some would add, heavily female.

Senator Morris says those concerns are unfounded. He says it with confidence. The malfeasance detector in my pocket, however, is already warming up.

The Detector — A Product Pitch for Troubling Times

New Product — Available Soon, Probably

The Malfeasance Detector™. Pocket-sized. Intuitive. No definitions required.

Simply carry it near any elected official. If it buzzes, you know. The detector will come pre-tuned — out of the box — to identify malfeasance in Democrats, Black politicians, and, at the discretion of the user, a select number of Republicans who have gotten too comfortable.

No crime required. No burden of proof required. Nope n

o Bugs Bunny signatures. Just a buzz and a ⅔ vote, and you’re in business.

Note: Detector not calibrated for governors, lieutenant governors, or judges. Those are protected by the Louisiana Constitution. The manufacturer assumes no responsibility for malfeasance committed by the aforementioned, as detection in those cases would serve no actionable purpose under current law.

I talked to Chat about building it. It says it can. Cool invention. The only technical challenge is calibration. What exactly makes the thing buzz? How does it know?

Senator Morris would say: don’t worry about it. It’ll buzz when it needs to.

Now Meet SB479 — SB425’s Equally Interesting Companion Bill

Good news for anyone who finds SB425 too vague: Senator Morris has a companion bill. SB479 targets judges specifically, and this one actually has a definition. Malfeasance, gross misconduct, incompetence — it’s all in there.

The mechanics work like this: a simple majority in the House, a ⅔ vote in the Senate, a trial, and a sitting judge is removed from the bench. The governor certifies the removal. What happens if the governor doesn’t certify? The bill doesn’t say. That’s a detail for another session, apparently.

Senator Morris cited several high-profile crime cases in Orleans Parish as his motivation. A UNO student shot during a robbery. A French Quarter tour guide killed. A tourist killed in the Marigny. Real tragedies. Real failures by the system. His argument: judges who make bad decisions in those cases should face consequences.

His critics’ argument: “bad decisions” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. And “incompetent” — the standard SB479 sets for removal — is defined by whoever controls the ⅔.

In a Republican supermajority Legislature that has repeatedly pointed at Orleans Parish courts as the source of Louisiana’s crime problem, the judges most likely to be looking over their shoulders under SB479 are, shall we say, not randomly distributed across the demographic spectrum.

The Philosophical Problem With Both Bills — And With Louisiana

Here is the thing that is easy to miss when you are laughing at the broccoli theory. Both SB425 and SB479 are responses to a real problem.

Louisiana does have elected officials who commit malfeasance. It does have judges who make decisions that get people killed. Accountability in this state is genuinely broken in ways that frustrate everyone, regardless of party. The existing recall process is a mess. Impeachment is cumbersome. Something needs to change.

The problem with Senator Morris’s solution is that “something needs to change” and “give the supermajority partisan removal power with an undefined standard” are not the same thing. One is a diagnosis. The other is a prescription that could cure the patient or kill them, depending entirely on who is holding the syringe.

Now, I know what you are thinking about SB425 specifically. Why would legislators vote for a bill that leaves themselves exposed? It’s like a U.S. Congress passing term limits. It never happens. All I can tell you is that it’s partisan times, and people are not always thinking clearly about which side of a weapon they are standing on.

“Keep your legislators close and your malfeasance detectors closer.”— The only reasonable advice available at this time

The Bottom Line on SB425 and What Comes Next

SB425 heads to the Senate floor. SB479 is close behind. Both will generate debate, legal challenges, and no small amount of theater in the Louisiana Legislature. Whether either becomes law, and what happens if it does, depends on questions that Senator Morris has not yet answered and may not intend to.

What is malfeasance? You’ll know it when you see it.

Who gets removed? The ones the ⅔ decides to remove.

What safeguards prevent abuse? The good intentions of the majority.

These are troubling times. No one in office can be fully trusted. The recall process is broken. The definition is missing. The supermajority is supermajority-ing. And Senator Morris is confident that broccoli is obvious.

My advice stands. In lieu of SB425, keep your legislators close and your malfeasance detectors closer.

Pre-orders open soon.

Disclaimer: The Malfeasance Detector™ is a satirical device and does not exist. Yet. Cooper’s Collage is an opinion column. The views expressed are those of the author. Any resemblance to actual legislative strategy is, unfortunately, entirely intentional.

KC

Kenneth Cooper — Columnist, Cooper’s Collage | Black Source Media

Kenneth Cooper is Black Source Media’s sardonic observer of Louisiana politics, Saints football, and the human comedy of watching powerful people fail predictably. His column runs Sundays. He has been watching Louisiana do Louisiana things for long enough to no longer be surprised by any of it. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no.