section to challenge to the district and system then governing the election of judges the baton rouge city court was mooted by the passage of act three seventy four act three seventy four replaced the challenge district in system  below the only issue really was just whether there was an abuse of discretion in declining to vacate precisely your honor and the answer is yes for two reasons first the district court misread and misapplied the supreme court's decision in bank the circuits decision in staley when it held the plaintiffs were required to make a showing beyond lewdness and lack of fault no decision of the supreme court of the circuit since bank or his held as much the district court also there are multiple factors to be relief is not at fault for the movement's fault favors thank you and that's because it would be an equitable to force a party to acquiesce in an adverse judgment rendered on reviewable by circumstances beyond the parties control thank  also went on to explain that the public interest is and i quote best served by bit by bake it or when the party seeking relief is not responsible for the newness so those are the two factors and here plaintiffs clearly to file a rule sixty motion but as your honor points out the circumstances were entirely out of plaintiff's control and it would certainly be inequitable if the test were to be different simply because the case was mooted no evidence in the record to conclude that it caused the passage of act three seventy four and that's at page seven one three six of the record no defendant argued below that the district court had that influence and in fact on appeal the state defendants affirmatively reject any such causal connection and that's what he does thirteen to fourteen of the state defendants brief it seems to me the vet argument cups against you that is to say if there's an argument that the district court's order or judgment  of a district court decision having limited effect was a basis to deny baker this circuit would not regularly vacate district court decisions for this but more importantly the district  harm that bank or identified is not whether or not the district court decision has brought effect or not the harm is the loss to the plaintiff of the fundamental right to appeal an adverse judgment which exposes them at that may well be your honor but the outcome here should be the same whatever the posture of the case plaintiff certainly haven't waived the argument that the case was  and that's important consideration absolutely honor and i would agree with you that whatever the procedural posture of the case that the court has available to it the remedy of vacating that or have a factor on that or not but to your honor's point there there really is no basis in the record to conclude that the district court clause the passage of act three seventy four but even if there were a basis that in of itself it is not a basis to deny out h b seventy six which was the bill in roll by the house and ultimately signed into law by the governor started long before the district court issued its two nine judgement and the two day trying around between the june ninth judgement of h b seventy six would certainly be a record for a decision to close the legislature to act so i agree with your honor if if it's an appropriate consideration then the double problem here is that there is no was identifying the supposedly limited of the act on the judgment to third parties as a basis to deny they get or let me point out that that is in direct tension with the idea that it's important to have precedence for the public to follow and then to say  but at the same time this opinion sounds likely to have any such effect but that factor too is belied by by the on the record as we noted in our brief the district court's two nine judgement has already been cited in another voting rights binding precedent in the circuit and can't be overridden within the circuit but district court opinion even understand if this is as it is a small district with only one division but even in a district with multiple with many more judges and many more divisions there's no such thing as district law established by a district judge's opinion so it is only persuasive authority or an persuasive depending on primary concern situation as identified by the supreme court in bank or and that is the harm that they've suffered with that that's when i asked the question you just said that there was an important interest because the case of been cited and i was just pointing out and i'm important influence on what i meant to what i meant to identify is that to the extent the court held that the limited effect of the judgement was a basis to deny they could or that's not supported by the record but more importantly there is not a single case where the limited effect of a judgment has been sufficient to outweigh both full and public interest and shifty equities against baker the effect of a judgment has only ever been cited for the party seeking ba in harris versus city of houston in both of the eighteenth tee verses dallas and austin cases this court has vacated district court decisions that have been mooted on appeal and in those cases the court never suggested that the fact that the underlying opinion was a district court opinion made any difference in the balancing of the equities so certainly reaching that conclusion would be consistent here but there are no further questions i would ask that you reverse gosh please the court minus christina pac i'm here on behalf of the appellee society event ridge the parish beveridge and the mayor president of the city parish i think first of all i would like to clarify a bit of of the record of what happened below initially the the entire judgment there was no distinction by the appellants as to the portions of the judgment that might have been rendered moot by the legislation and the other portions of the judgment which were not affected at all biologists lation the trial court determined that a portion of their claim was moot that portion being the section two climes where they sought prospect of relief these plaintiffs were questioned extensively by the court during the closing argument whether they were still claiming constitutional violations and other statutory violations and they made it very clear to the court that they were not abandoning those climbs and therefore the court ruled on those climbs and the court ruled against the plaintiffs on all of those climbs in the  the only claim that the court found was mooted by the legislation was the prospective relief climbs under section two it specifically found that the the section one thousand nine hundred three in one thousand nine hundred six climes which the plaintiffs continued to are had not been affected by the legislation the pellets have not disputed or challenge that finding here so therefore at the time that they asked the court to vacate although they were asking for the entire judgment vacated the the the ruling was only the mooted part of the judgment would even it was even eligible for vacate your so there were issues that could have been appealed that were not appealed and there was even an opportunity the chair would be automatic there'd be no other choice for the district court and that flies in the face of the stately decision that says vacate you're supposed to be determined on a case by case basis governed by the stacks of particular case and not inflexible rules because they sought monetary damages and they saw attorneys fees and initially and that was denied and initially they saw a bail out a bail and they wanted the entire state of louisiana to be put back under the pre clearance provisions because of claim that this was enacted with intentional discrimination and continued to be enforced with into new disc continuing discrimination the only claim that they abandoned was the bail incline but the remainder of the claims were not abandoned and again what is the effect well you're still going to have the judgment out there the portion of the judgment that's been cited by another district court which is judge brady who is an element same district the portions that he sided have nothing to do with the section two portion it talks about whether or not expert opinions would be stricken or allowed based on some of the the missing of deadlines but the bottom line is the only portion of the opinion that would have been vacated is a very small portion and it's very limited to its facts the court itself indicated that there there's there was only want to lection be relying on and that was insufficient evidence but that another election could have a different result and again part of the instruction of the court to the legislature was because of his finding that it was just an insufficiency of evidence that they were encouraged to do something that was not the first time the court encouraged them to do something in fact the court of been encouraging them the legislature to take action for the three years of the case have been pending i think the court recognized that his decision did influence the legislature based and the quickness with which they acted after the decision came down so i don't think the fact that there's nothing in the record well there was plenty in the record if you look at the record where the judge had excoriated the legislature when they were parties to this case before they were dismissed to do something and then again when he was deciding that there was not sufficient evidence under the section to klein's again encouraging the legislature to do something and i think the court recognized that there would be an undermining of the in the interest of justice if the court suggests suggest the legislature do something and then vacate the judgment as a district court encouraged to change the law throughout the duration of the judicial proceedings and in terms of what's in the record the legislative history in past attempts to change the method of election judges of  the record and there is actual testimony from legislate tours in florida bay where they said they were waiting to see what the judge is going to do in this case so that is in accurate representation to the extent that this court based on  comments that you made maintains that perhaps the district court was without jurisdiction to determine the mutinous and that it should have been raised on appeal you know we agree at this point that the issues that the plaintiffs thinks is  or and also you know it any every stage of the proceeding the court has to determine whether or not there's article at the reader's every stage of the proceeding the court has to determine whether or not there's article three  n to hear the proceeding and i just want to point out that while there was a change in the method of judges there still exists to this day too sections for that court whereas at the beginning and inception of this lawsuit there were five subdistricts there still exists today four subdistricts and whether or not this this judgment is given prospective  is very important for the public interest one because of the seriousness of the allegations that the plaintiff that the plaintiffs fail to prove as stated in the judgment that there they did not prove intentional discrimination as it relates determined that the plaintiffs produce no evidence of intentional discrimination in terms of the public interest had they been successful they could have possibly gotten the relief they wanted which was the section three c bell and i have to disagree that they abandoned not in fact the june ninth district court judge specifically denies the section three ballot but that would have had a huge impact on louisiana because it would i'm a louisiana subject to preclearance when lightning under section fall because section four was declared unconstitutional there is not that requirement and so there is a muted and describes then intentional discrimination right there so it was not the intent of the court to meet that time of the voting  would in fact all of that you know all those issues you know chuckle under with regard to voting rights act and considerations you know when you when you are looking at say to the totality of the circumstances so so sure you know that when there's lack of evidence in the record we started early you know when they have failed to maintain the plane there was no excuse you know not to kill some of these issues and vacate our cannot and is not allowed under the law to be a remedy when a party fails to appeal there's no manifest injustice here we have a situation you're saying they had to call opportunity to appeal and  not did not and they're using vacay or as a way to get out of this adverse judgment they're there they lost they still had the legislature change the districts it's a some degree and so where's the manifest injustice right sure but the thing is to the extent that you would have made the same determination as you may not have i'm sorry you know you may not if the court may or not to me the same issue with regard to the maintenance and i think that this court has at every stage of the judicial notice and look at the law as it exists today and see that there that the court is still divided into two sections are get your point you want to understand that you want the benefit of that judgment well you know it's been eight years long battle and you know there you have to consider the fact that there's a public interest versus you know that there the court the court recommended to the legislature that there be a change the legislature made the change there certainly would be  concerns and you know perhaps criticisms of the court it may be the legislature didn't take that into consideration there's been no manifest injustice to the extent that the plaintiffs have seen a change in the judicial action system louisiana secretary of state on just briefly because only a couple minutes before they are in the argument question whether there are more than two factors to be considered and i can give you the cite there are in fact seven factors that this court has said you  consider and that's out of the edward age bowling company versus banning company case is six federal third three fifty also plaintiffs counsel had discussed the fact that there is no evidence in the record that the judge influenced the legislature to ask when in fact in open court on several occasions the court talked about his disappointment that the case had gone forward this fall without the legislature acting  so i would just ask the court to look carefully at the record and to know what the judge said in his ruling denying the mission to vacate where he missed that he specifically and curse the legislature act as he did state that publicly several times throughout the litigation briefly i just want to touch on the secretary of state's involvement in this matter throughout this litigation we've maintained that the secretary of state has purely a ministerial role he's responsible for implementing the laws passed by the legislature and signed by the governor he does not have the authority to pass laws he does not pass laws he abides by any decision that comes out of the binding corps in the laws of the legislature this decision should not be vacated it was very fact specific the court determined based on all the allegations gracing the secretary of state that the plaintiffs could not thank your honor reference to plaintiffs constitutional claims into evidence of intention discrimination or red herring we're not seeking bake it or with respect to doing giant nine judgment as it relates to the constitutional claims and the constitutional cla s as my colleagues have pointed out were denied on totally independent grounds so this court could and should vacate the do nine judgment as it relates to section two claim without any fear that it would in fact the district courts disposition of the constitutional  supreme court have vacated a big decision in every instance where the party seeking relief is not responsible for the newness and that's because of the fundamental unfairness of keeping that judgment on the books so whether or not  would like to keep the judgment is really beside the point and if anything emphasizes the importance of granting baker in this case and emphasizes the potential prejudice to my clients of leaving that judgment on the books