BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A dispute between Attorney General Jeff Landry and a former state senator over who should represent a Louisiana licensing board doesn’t belong in court, a state appeals court has decided.
Former Sen. Larry Bankston, who served 41 months in federal prison for a 1997 conviction in a video poker-related bribery scheme, sued Landry’s office last year after the attorney general refused to extend Bankston’s contract as legal counsel for the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. Landry later appointed one of his office’s lawyers to represent the board.
The Advocate reports state District Judge Wilson Fields in August rejected Landry’s argument that Fields lacked jurisdiction in the dispute. The Baton Rouge-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeal on Thursday reversed Fields.
“The attorney general is the chief legal officer of our state, and the courts have repeatedly affirmed my authority,” Landry said in an email response praising the ruling.
Bankston’s attorney, Mary Olive Pierson, intends to appeal to the state Supreme Court. Pierson said Bankston should be allowed to test in court the reasons Landry gave for refusing to approve Bankston’s contract extension.
The contract disagreement is another in a string of clashes involving Landry, a Republican, and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration. Bankston is an ally of the governor. The Edwards administration accused Landry of playing politics.
Landry questioned whether a convicted felon who was temporarily disbarred should be allowed to work for the state. Landry’s office also later raised conflict-of-interest concerns with Bankston.
Bankston issued a legal opinion that initially disqualified the top two bidders for a huge contract to manage Louisiana’s flood-recovery program and that seemed to benefit a bidder whose affiliate employed Bankston’s son.
The son’s firm was not named in the bid package, and Bankston said he was unaware that the company had a relationship with any of the bidders when he wrote his opinion. Pierson called the attorney general’s claim of a conflict of interest “fake news.”
The contract was rebid.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.