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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — They are three judges on a conservative appeals court, nominated by conservative Republican presidents — two by Ronald Reagan and one by George W. Bush.
But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that means they are in accord on all matters. One of them took the other two to task for their recent ruling on a Louisiana abortion clinic law. “It is apparent that when abortion comes on stage it shadows the role of settled judicial rules,” Reagan nominee Patrick Higginbotham said in his recent dissent attached to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
The law requires that any doctor who performs an abortion have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion is done. Backers of the law said it ensures the health of women. Opponents cast it as a ruse by anti-abortion forces that could lead to clinic shutdowns.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles of Baton Rouge blocked the law in 2017. His ruling cited U.S. Supreme Court ruling knocking down a similar rule in Texas, and his own analysis of the facts.
The Louisiana case record “does not contain any evidence that complications from abortion were being treated improperly, nor any evidence that any negative outcomes could have been avoided if the abortion provider had admitting privileges at a local hospital,” deGravelles wrote. He also said the law “would increase the risk of harm to women’s health by dramatically reducing the availability of safe abortion in Louisiana.”
Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, another Reagan nominee, in an opinion joined by Bush-nominee Edith Brown Clement, said deGravelles — “albeit with the best of intentions and after diligent effort” — got it wrong.
While they didn’t legal fault with his finding that the benefits of the law were minimal, they said the burden such a law imposed on seekers of legal abortion in Louisiana was not substantial, unlike in Texas, where all but eight of 40 clinics closed.
Smith’s 45-page opinion included an analysis of claims that the law would force the shutdown of one or two of the three clinics operating in the state. “Here, only one doctor at one clinic is currently unable to obtain privileges; there is no evidence that any of the clinics will close as a result of the Act,” Smith wrote. “In Texas, the number of women forced to drive over 150 miles increased by 350%. Driving distances will not increase in Louisiana.”
Smith’s opinion disputes the conclusions of the district judge regarding the effect the law would have on abortion clinics and the doctors who work at them, repeatedly calling the findings erroneous.
In his dissent, covering 30 pages, Higginbotham disagrees. He criticizes Smith and Clement for “essentially conducting a second trial of the facts” and later saying “it is apparent that the majority here swiftly retries the case failing to credit findings that were not ‘clearly erroneous.’”
What next? As evidenced in the ruling and dissent, that is in dispute.
The law’s supporters have always held that the law simply enhances health and safety. Attorney General Jeff Landry said the law was based on “common sense.”
If the ruling stands, “many doctors in Louisiana will no longer be able to provide abortion services, forcing women to forfeit their constitutional rights to access safe and legal abortion,” Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a news release.
The law’s opponents will likely seek a rehearing before the full court. And it’s possible the Supreme Court might be asked to weigh in on the admitting privileges question again. Or, perhaps the question will become moot in Louisiana, which is poised to make abortion illegal if the replacement for retired Justice Anthony Kennedy joins four justices in allowing states to do so by reversing Roe v. Wade.
Kevin McGill is an Associated Press reporter in New Orleans.

The Diocese of Lafayette disclosed Monday it had received a sexual assault allegation against a priest nearly a quarter-century ago but only removed the priest from active ministry last weekend after a review board determined the complaint had “the semblance of truth.”
Monsignor Robie Robichaux is accused of abusing a teenage girl between 1979 and 1981, when the victim was 16 or 17 years old. Bishop Douglas Deshotel announced at a Monday news conference that Robichaux had been placed on administrative leave but refused to take questions from reporters. He did not say what action any of his predecessors took, if any, when the allegation was first made two dozen years ago.
Deshotel said Robichaux is the head of the diocesan marriage tribunal, a church court, and Robichaux is also listed as chancellor on the website of Sts. Leo and Seton Catholic School in Lafayette. Deshotel did not mention Robichaux’s position at the school and diocesan officials did not respond to further questions Monday afternoon.
The allegation was first made in 1994 and in 2004 the victim requested in a notarized statement that Robichaux be removed from the ministry based on church policies adopted in 2002, Deshotel said. Bishops adopted the policies that year in response to clergy sex-abuse cases nationwide.
Deshotel said he was first made aware of the allegation on Sept. 18, then referred the matter to the church’s Sexual Abuse Review Board. It’s not clear how Deshotel learned of the allegation, but he indicated the victim had once again come forward.
After receiving the notarized victim statement in 2004, former Bishop Michael Jarrell obtained a determination from the church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the victim was considered an adult under canon law at the time of the alleged abuse, Deshotel said. However, Deshotel added, the victim would have been considered a minor under state law.
It’s not clear what, if anything, Jarrell did after receiving the determination that the victim was considered an adult under canon law. Deshotel said Jarrell should have referred the matter the Layperson Sexual Abuse Review Board, but he did not elaborate as to why the former bishop did not.
It was not immediately clear what the allegations entail. Asked about next steps in the disciplinary process, including the length of Robichaux’s leave, a diocese spokeswoman said those details are still being worked out.
A receptionist in Robichaux’s office said he was not available and would not make any statements.
The allegation against Robichaux is third involving the Lafayette Diocese to surface publicly for the first time in the last four months. Michael Guidry, a former priest at St. Peter Church in St. Landry Parish, confessed in June to abusing a 16-year-old altar boy three years ago.
The sweeping Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing allegations in six dioceses in that state revealed that one of the accused former priests, John Bostwick, was transferred to Lafayette in 1992, after Bostwick had refused to get church-ordered counseling.
Bostwick came at the invitation of former Bishop Harry Flynn, according to the Lafayette Diocese. Bostwick was removed in 1996 after an investigation of allegations he abused minors in Virginia in the early 1980s.
Meanwhile, allegations against Kenneth Morvant, the late pastor of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville, resurfaced in the news last month when 11 plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit moved their case to the 15th Judicial District Court.
The federal suit accused Morvant of repeatedly abusing the male victims in the 1970s.
The recent news has strengthened calls on Deshotel to release a list of names of priests who were accused of sexually abusing children in the 1980s. The diocese in 2004 disclosed that 123 accusers had received a total of $24.4 million in legal settlements related to allegations against 15 priests, but has never released the names of the priests.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has held his elected, although initially appointed, position for a dozen years. He has been elected to three full terms, and he’s aiming at another one.
Donelon has also faced opponents in the past, and next cycle may host another. Politicos say Tim Temple of DeRidder is being encouraged too consider the race. The president of Temptan, his father was Aubrey T. Temple Jr., the founding chairman of the board of LWCC.
According to his Committee of 100 biography, “Mr. Temple’s experience started within the insurance industry and is both broad and comprehensive.”
In his last campaign finance report filed in February, Commissioner Donleon was sitting on a $204,000 war chest.

Political History: The
Bayou State rocket man
In the history of American space exploration, the contributions of Shreveport’s Thomas Overton Brooks are often overlooked. As the first chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, he steered the United States toward the stars and helped create the modern space program.
Politics — and not so much the planets and the stars — was in his blood. He was born into a family of distinguished officeholders, and the extended tree held a former congressmen, U.S. senator and governor. Overton even served on Capitol Hill alongside his upper chamber uncle, John H. Overton.
Originally a Baton Rouge native, Brooks served in the Army during World War I before returning home to attend LSU Law School. After graduating in 1923, he moved to Shreveport and started a private practice, allowing the law to become his own entry into politics.
He was soon active in Caddo Parish elections and won a lucrative appointment in 1925 as a federal court commissioner (modern-day magistrate).
Eleven years later, Brooks entered a crowded race for the open seat in the Bayou State’s 4th Congressional District.
His family called in a few favors, assisting with building a campaign structure and war chest. His upper chamber uncle also secured the endorsement of the populist Long faction.
After the backlash over the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, Speaker Sam Rayburn tapped Brooks to chair a new committee that was going to be charged with creating a space program and overseeing government-sponsored scientific studies.
According to his biography that was prepared by the House, “Chairman Brooks immediately took the initiative, seeking to personally direct everything under the Committee’s jurisdiction.”
During his tenure, Congress successfully passed the legislation creating NASA and set the rules and guidelines that the agency currently operates under.
A particular sticking point for Brooks was ensuring that space exploration remained in civilian hands rather than operating as a military endeavor.
Then there were Brooks’ social politics. Upon being elected, he immediately aligned himself with conservative Democrats in the House, such as Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
In 1956, he signed the infamous Southern Manifesto, a segregationist pledge.
Like many from his generation, Brooks moderated his racial views later in life.
During the following term, he even cast a controversial vote that allowed then-President John F. Kennedy’s civil rights legislation to move to a floor vote.
In reaction, a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on the lawn of the congressman’s home in Shreveport.
Brooks succumbed to a heart attack and died on September 16, 1961, just weeks after the launch of the first manned missions into space.
In 1984, the Science, Space and Technology committee honored its first chairman by having a painting of Brooks commissioned for their hearing room, which is attached to this story.
From the walls, he still keeps a watchful eye on committee members, including two fellow Louisianans, Congressmen Ralph Abraham and Clay Higgins.

They said It
“We’re about 99 percent certain that we’ll have a Trump. We’re just not sure which one.”
—Former State GOP Chair Roger Villere, on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference that slated for New Orleans
“I felt strongly someone needed to get the truth to CNN’s flailing audience.”
—Attorney General Jeff Landry, on his CNN interview on the Affordable Care Act, in Parish News of Acadiana
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Jeremy Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.

David “DD” Douglas, 62, a resident and native of Patterson, La. passed away Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018 at 9:07 a.m. at Teche Regional Medical Center.
Visitation will be observed on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018 at the St. Luke Baptist Church, 1709 Harry St., Patterson, La., from 8 a.m. until funeral services at 11 a.m., with Reverend Keith Verrett, Officiating. Burial with East St. Mary Funeral Squad Military Honors will follow funeral services in the Home Industrial Cemetery in Patterson, La.
Memories of David or “DD or The Boogie Child,” as he was known to many, will forever remain in the hearts of his wife Dorothy F. Douglas; two sons, Dwayne Blackburn and Toma Lee Favors; two daughters, Crystal Hartman of Patterson and Umeka Richards of Morgan City, La.; thirteen sisters, Mrs. Clarence (Ada) Lightfoot, Billie Douglas, Emily Perro, Alberta Williams, Anna Favors, Loretta Badon, Barbara Daniels, all of Patterson, La. Mrs. Vernon (Mary ) Prittchet of NC, Mrs. Jackie (Alma) Shields of Baldwin, La., Mrs. Allen ( Patricia) English, Mrs. Curtis (Delores) Brooks, Mrs. Joseph (Joyce) Fine all of Franklin, La. and Florence Washington of Lafayette, La.; six brothers, Benjamin Dugar of Tallahassee, FL, Willie (Gwendolyn) Douglas and Charles Levine both of Patterson, La., Gregory Levine of Portland, Maime, Leroy Favors and Dan Gant both of Morgan City, LA and Charles Favors of Los Angeles, CA; one brother-in-law, one sister-in-law, ten grandchildren, one great-grandchild; his god children, and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.
David was preceded in death by his parents, two sisters, and two brothers.
Jones Funeral Home of Morgan City-Franklin-Houma-Jeanerette in charge of arrangements.
Visit www.jones-funeral-home.com to send condolences to family.