Retired state appeals court Judge Toni Higginbotham and Metro Council member Jen Racca are headed to a runoff in the race for a justice of the peace seat in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Higginbotham got 37% of the vote, Racca got 29% of the vote, Dajuana LeDuff W. Moore got 18% of the vote, Robert Ainsworth got 14% of the vote and Christoph Bajewski got 2% of the vote with all precincts reported.
Higginbotham and Racca will now compete in the runoff election Dec. 12.
The seat is for District 6 that covers a southeastern chunk of the parish, starting in Spanish Town and going to the parish’s southern boundary, including the eastern half of St. George. All five candidates in the race were Republicans.
Justices of the peace in Louisiana are usually attorneys who handle small property claims and approve eviction orders. East Baton Rouge Parish has six justice of the peace courts. These elected officials receive a small public salary; most of each office’s pay and operational funding comes from fees for services rendered by the court.
Higginbotham was a family court judge for 14 years, beginning in 1996. She was then elected as a judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeal, where she served 10 years before aging off the bench in 2020.
Higginbotham points out that since retiring from the bench, she has been routinely working as a fill-in for recused and unavailable judges across Louisiana. She said her age is the only thing her opponents can find to use against her.
“I’m used to a heavy docket, and I’m used to dealing with people, and I’m used to doing it timely. I know I can do it,” Higginbotham said in October.
Racca is an attorney with a diverse legal background in addition to having served on the Metro Council the past seven years. While she could have run for a third term on the council, Racca said she decided to pivot to the justice of the peace seat because she thinks she can tweak the position to serve residents more efficiently.
To her, this means making practical changes to how the district’s heavy caseload is moved and properly connecting those losing their homes through evictions to the city-parish’s readily available resources.
Racca said her extensive legal experience and time on council directly talking to voters has trained her to explain complicated concepts in plain English.
Staff writer Quinn Coffman contributed to this report.