Louisiana Voice

A lot of people missed the significance attached to State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson’s reelection campaign of 2019 when she attempted to disqualify her opponent. The courtroom battle between her and challenger Allen H. Borne, Jr., a New Orleans attorney, should have produced a flood of questions from the media, the state ethics board and the LOUISIANA JUDICIARY COMMISSION.

But it didn’t because a lot of people dropped the ball.

Here’s what happened.

Borne did not sign the qualifying papers for the election, sending instead his agent to do so and Carter Peterson seized on that technicality to challenge his candidacy. She sued and won at the district court level.

He appealed to the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeal and one of the members of the three-judge panel which heard the appeal was Judge Regina Bartholomew Woods. Guess who served as a co-chair of her election campaign? Why, none other than Karen Carter Peterson.

And, surprise – the appellate court upheld the civil district court in denying Borne a place on the 2019 ballot. It took a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling to overturn the two lower courts but by then, Borne was late getting to the starting gate and he never really had a chance, losing by an overwhelming percentage point margin of 79-21.

It gets better.

Dryades YMCA, thanks to the efforts of Carter Peterson, was approved for $2.8 million in PRIORITY 1 FUNDING (See page 80) last year with another $5.1 million slated for Priority 5 funding for an ambitious expansion program.

In its Non-Government Organization (NGO) REQUEST FOR FUNDING, Dryades answered “None” to the question “[Is] any elected or appointed state official or an immediate family member of such an official is an officer, director, trustee, or employee of the recipient entity who receives compensation or holds any ownership interest therein[?].

While the Dryades response was technically accurate, Kenneth Carter, who died last year, and Sidney Cates IV each served on the board of the organization in the past and current board member Darren Mire is President of BOLD, the organization which Sidney Cates V serves as Political Director.

There’s more.

Sidney Cates IV and Carter Peterson’s father, Kenneth Carter, were once partners in a firm hired by the New Orleans City Council to regulate energy companies in the city.

Moreover, Kenneth Carter was a co-founder of the Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), a political organization based in Central City. Sidney Cates V is the political director of BOLD which endorsed Cates IV in past elections.

Sidney Cates IV is a former member of the Dryades YMCA board and when Nu-Lite Electrical Wholesalers FILED SUIT against Dryades YMCA and others for breach of contract in 2013, the case was assigned to – you guessed it – Sidney Cates IV.

There is no question that Judge Woods should have recused herself from hearing Borne’s appeal and Cates IV certainly should have bowed out on the Nu-Lite litigation.

She didn’t and he didn’t and that in turn illustrates in glaring terms the shortcomings of the Louisiana Judiciary Commission and the Louisiana Board of Ethics.

The purpose of all this is not to lament Borne’s loss or to consider the merits of a contract dispute but to point out the underlying political power structure in New Orleans and the Louisiana Legislature and how it may well determine who the next U.S. Representative from Louisiana’s 2^nd Congressional District will be.

The obvious influence of Sen. Peterson in obtaining an appropriation of $7.9 million for a non-governmental entity like the Dryades YMCA on which Judge Cates’s father once sat as a board member and in which capacity BOLD President Darren Mire still serves underscores the incestuous political status quo in the Crescent City.

And that’s the atmosphere heading into Saturday’s congressional election between Carter Peterson and State Sen. Troy Carter.

It’s not something the state should be proud of.