HB 911: State aims to take over New Orleans’ courts

Louisiana has long valued keeping government powers close to the people. This principle should guide debates over HB 911 – a bill that would merge New Orleans’ Civil and Criminal District Courts and transfer critical authority to the state. At its core, HB 911 threatens local decision-making and risks state overreach into New Orleans’ courts. Supporters frame it as reform, but the bill’s process elicits concerns about respect for local governance.

HB 911 is sponsored by Rep. Dixon McMakin, a Republican representing a Baton Rouge-area district, and he is the primary sponsor of the 2026 bill restructuring the Orleans Parish courts. Other elected officials are engaging in the takeover effort, according to WDSU-TV6.

Sen. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe) filed several related bills targeting the Orleans judiciary, including SB 256 (merging the clerks of court), SB 217 (reducing the number of civil judges from 145 to 12) and SB 197 (reducing the number of 4th Circuit Court of Appeal judges from 12 to 8), and require a study about the number of judges needed on the criminal side. The Business Report affirms.

Morris’s SB 256 takes aim at one of those “only in Orleans” situations, calling for a single clerk of court to replace the separate positions that serve criminal and civil courts.

Legislators say the bill aims to bring New Orleans’ court structure in line with other parishes in Louisiana and save the state money. The bills, if successful, would combine civil, criminal and juvenile courts into a new 41st Judicial District.

First of all, none of those legislators represents Orleans Parish. Yet they are seeking to redesign courts that serve a community to which they do not belong. Secondly, a study, after the fact, to determine how many judges the criminal courts need, is backwards.

Senator Gary Carter (D-New Orleans) is on the Judiciary Committee. Carter wants to see the data that informed the proposals. He told the media that the information he has seen suggests New Orleans needs more judges, not fewer.

Still, Baton Rouge is imposing a top‑down restructuring on a local court system without the consent of the people who rely on it.

There is also an irony that cannot be ignored. The bill’s number – 911 – is one of the most charged numbers in modern American history. It denotes a day when the nation was thrown into crisis, and institutions were shaken.

While the tragedies of September 11 stand alone, the symbolism of “911” as a national emergency is unmistakable. And HB 911 carries its own warning. If lawmakers succeed in collapsing New Orleans’ Civil and Criminal District Courts into a single, overloaded system, the result will not be efficiency – it will be chaos.

Two courts with different missions, caseloads and administrative structures cannot simply be fused without consequences for the people of New Orleans. Residents may face longer wait times for hearings, delayed justice and increased confusion as local legal processes are altered by state-driven systems. Dockets are already long. Judges are already stretched. HB 911 threatens to create the judicial equivalent of an emergency: a system unable to keep pace with the demands placed upon it.

Retired Fourth Circuit Judge Edwin Lombard has spoken publicly about the risks of such an approach. “When multiple versions of the same structural bill appear and disappear, you’re looking at a strategy, not a coincidence,” he said.

Retired Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson says, “The judiciary exists to protect the people from political overreach – not to become an instrument of it.”

New Orleans deserves the same local control and respect for its autonomy that every parish expects from Baton Rouge.

This article originally published in the March 30, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.