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An appeal can go forward that could lead to Louisiana redrawing congressional districts following a U.S. Supreme Court decision announced Monday morning.

The Louisiana case, Ardoin v. Robinson, had been “frozen” by the high court last summer, allowing the midterms to proceed. At issue in decisions by lower courts was whether voting power of Blacks had been weakened.

The case in the Bayou State was held until a decision on a case in Alabama was reached. In that, justices did release a 5-4 opinion earlier this month that favored Black voters.

The appeal of Ardoin v. Robinson can proceed at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, meaning before next year’s congressional elections.

The case was brought by civil rights groups alleging that the maps drawn by the Legislature in the wake of the 2020 census should have allowed for another majority Black congressional district because the new map diluted the Black vote and was in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Blacks account for a third of the state’s population.

Monday’s decision was one of a number of cases the justices rendered decisions on, though there were no opinions released. These were orders of the court, in many cases deciding that the justices would not take up the cases.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans and the incumbent in Louisiana’s only Black-majority congressional district, praised the Supreme Court’s action.

“Louisiana’s population rose 2.7% since the 2010 census and has grown more diverse in the past decade with Black residents making up 31% of the state,” Carter said in a statement Monday. I have said it before, and I will say it again – math is math.
We must begin to overcome our tarnished past and move toward fair maps that follow the math and give Black Louisianans the opportunity to elect a Black candidate. Let’s finally get this right.”

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to Texas and Louisiana Friday in a lawsuit over a Biden administration policy that’s helped effectively end most deportations of foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally.

Rather than rule on the merits of the case, in United States v. Texas, the court ruled 8-1 that the states didn’t have standing, or a legal right, to challenge the policy.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the sole dissent, arguing the justices ignored “a major precedent.”

He wrote, “The Court holds Texas lacks standing to challenge a federal policy that inflicts substantial harm on the State and its residents by releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes. In order to reach this conclusion, the
Court brushes aside a major precedent that directly controls the standing question, refuses to apply our established test for standing, disregards factual findings made by the District Court after a trial, and holds that the only limit on the power of a
President to disobey a law like the important provision at issue is Congress’s power to employ the weapons of inter-branch warfare – withholding funds, impeachment and removal, etc.

"I would not blaze this unfortunate trail. I would simply apply settled law, which leads ineluctably to the conclusion that Texas has standing.”

Last June, a federal judge in Texas, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, ruled in favor of Texas and Louisiana, arguing they would incur costs due to the federal government’s failure to comply with federal immigration law and deportation policies.

The judge ruled the states had standing to sue because of these costs. He also vacated the deportation policy, arguing it was unlawful.

The Biden administration appealed to the 5th Circuit, which again handed a victory to the states by declining to stay the lower court’s ruling.

The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted cert.

Last fall, the court heard oral arguments and on Friday ruled the states lacked Article III standing.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a different opinion saying the states didn’t have standing for a different reason than the one Kavanaugh gave.

He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett also wrote her own concurring opinion and was joined by Gorsuch.

At issue is a final memorandum, “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law,” issued by Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, drastically altering deportation policies, including limiting issuing detainer requests for
dangerous criminal aliens.

In Mayorkas’ final September 2021 memorandum, he also challenged federal law established by Congress that illegal entry is a crime in itself and a deportable offense.

The policy states: “The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.

"We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”

Many news organizations reported the Supreme Court ruling would allow the administration to prioritize deporting violent criminals.

But under the current administration, deportations immediately dropped by two-thirds in the first fiscal year of the administration, according to CBP data.

In fiscal 2021, deportations also dropped to the lowest level since fiscal 1996 despite record-high illegal entries.
Mayorkas’ policy also followed President Joe Biden’s directive, who after taking office ordered a “pause” on deportations.

Last July, 19 attorneys general filed an amicus brief expressing support for Texas’ and Louisiana’s lawsuit, arguing Mayorkas violated federal law and DHS’s actions negatively impacted their states and jeopardized the safety and welfare of Americans.

The AGs argued, and still maintain, “The Amici States and their citizens continue to suffer significant costs from illegal immigration – including billions of dollars in new expenses relating to law enforcement, education, and health care programs – as a direct result of Defendants’ failures to enforce immigration law.

"Those harms are exacerbated by DHS’ increasingly brazen disrespect for the requirements of our nation’s immigration laws and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“The border is in crisis,” they argued. “This DHS Administration is lawless. And the States continue to suffer escalating irreparable harm as the border crisis continually intensifies to successive, ever-more unprecedented levels of illegal crossings.”

Shirly Marie Francis, 75, a native of Berwick and resident of West Monroe, died Friday, June 9, 2023.

She is survived by her sister, Sally Terro of Sulphur; brothers, Jimmy Francis of Kisatchie, Shelby Francis of Lake Charles, Donald Knight of Moss Bluff and Richard Knight of Ragley; daughters, Sharon Dowden of Leesville and Karen Higuera; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her father, mother and stepfather.

A memorial will be Saturday, July 8 at 2 p.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Patterson.

They still happen occasionally, but gas well fires are not nearly as common as they were in earlier days in the oil field, and, it seems, not nearly so spectacular.

The “gasser” that caught fire near the Calcasieu Parish community of Iowa in July 1933, drew hundreds of people to see the spectacle, according to the Jennings newspaper. The paper in Welsh said thousands went to see it. The Associated Press didn’t give a number, but said cars were “streaming constantly” from Lake Charles to the site. News accounts differed on a few other superlatives, but agreed that the burning well was really something for the sightseers to see.

“Catching fire just before noon yesterday, the Shell Petroleum Company’s F. Heyd No. 4 well … soon became the mecca for thousands of sightseers who gazed with awe upon the flaming spectacle and marveled at the terrific force displayed,” the
Rice Belt Journal reported on July 14. “The column of flame is shooting more than a hundred feet in the air.”

“The wild gasser … has caused wild excitement.” The Jennings News said, “shooting a flame of gas two hundred feet into the air. … The giant torch can be seen for miles away and the reflection in the sky from the upheaval has been seen as far away as Morgan City, a hundred miles away, and as far away as Orange, Texas.

“Hundreds of Jennings people paid visits to the well at night, and marvel at the spectacle of the shooting flames and the almost deafening roar of the wild gas surging heavenward. … So bright is the flame that persons are able to read a newspaper as far away as the Old Spanish Trail, several miles from the well. … Houses, trees and fields for miles around the well are placed in a floodlight, brighter than day.”

Shell said the well “went wild” on June 25, when a jet of gas burst to the surface during boring for a core sample. It did not immediately catch fire, but “resisted all attempts to cap it” and sparks caused by gravel rushing up through the pipe finally set it on fire on July 13.

Nobody was hurt in the explosion that set the well on fire, but it blew a crater “as big as a normal house” around the well.

Kinney Brothers, described as “experienced wild well fighters from Tulsa,” were called in and the first thing they did was to fill the crater with mud to put out fires coming from cracks in the drilling pipe and to cool pieces of metal around the rig. The workers wore asbestos suits, but were still able to work near the fire for only a few minutes at a time because of heat so intense that it caused a wooden tool shed 150 feet from the fire to spontaneously catch fire.

“The tremendous heat … prevents an approach ,,, of less than a hundred yards,” the Associated Press reported, “but men going to the base of the flames … will be equipped with asbestos suits and streams of water will be played on them as they do their work.”

The next job for the asbestos clad workers was to build “a pulley arrangement on a cable strung between two poles … on either side of the well.” The firefighters planned to use this trolley to pull a big charge of dynamite over the well. They hoped the concussion from the exploding dynamite would suppress the well fire.

That worked, but only for a while. The well reignited before it could be capped.

The second time, according to the Rice Belt Journal, the firefighters built a runway to the edge of the well to be used to push “a large charge of nitroglycerine” into the crater to snuff out the flames. That did the trick.

A note in the Jennings News of July 18 reported, “The blazing Iowa gas fire was extinguished shortly before noon today by a powerful charge of nitroglycerin.” This time the Kinney Brothers crew was able to cap the well for good.

Nobody reported on how the people living in the area got through the weeks-long episode, but the News did report that cattle grazed at night “baffled by the phenomena” and that hens laid eggs “at night as well as in the daytime.”

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.