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M o n d ay, S e p t e M b e r 29, 2025
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La. lawyer represents state in top Supreme Court cases One of the biggest is the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act
BY MARK BALLARD | Staff writer
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO BY JEFFREY T. BARNES
Saints running back Kendre Miller is tackled by Bills linebacker Dorian Williams and safety Taylor Rapp during Sunday’s game. Faced with their most difficult challenge yet, the Super Bowl favorites on the road, the Saints fought hard but ultimately fell 31-19 to the Bills on Sunday in Orchard Park, N.Y. The Saints improved greatly from an embarrassing performance in Seattle last week and even appeared for a moment to take the lead in the fourth quarter, but a replay review and some highlight plays from reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen allowed Buffalo to put the game away. The Saints are 0-4 and return home to face the New York Giants and New England Patriots in the next two weeks. ä SEE COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE SAINTS GAME. PAGE 1C
WASHINGTON — A mere decade ago, as an LSU law student, J. Benjamin Aguiñaga paced the parking lots around Tiger Stadium, going over legal arguments in his head. “At some point between those evening walks and my own moot court adventures, I developed a love for brief writing and oral advocacy. So, I set out to try to build a strong résumé for an appellate career,” Aguiñaga told The Texas Lawbook, a law Aguiñaga firm publication, in 2022. He graduated from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU in 2015. He quickly assembled a resume of clerkships with nationally prominent federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Then, in January 2024, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill named him the state’s solicitor general. Now, at 35 years old, Aguiñaga is at the center of several of the state’s federal lawsuits that could have seismic implications across the country, on issues ranging from gun control to abortion to voting rights. “He called me out of the blue one day,” Murrill said, adding that Aguiñaga is “a great writer” and came recommended by the judges he Murrill had worked for. “If all three had picked him, then I didn’t think that all three could be wrong,” she said. “That’s the kind of person I was looking for to be solicitor general.” Aguiñaga declined to comment for this report.
ä See LAWYER, page 5A
Duplessis plans to end the ‘chaos’ at City Hall The energetic state senator ‘I am truly part of the moves fast, but the rapid-fire slew of campaign events never leaves fabric of New Orleans’ enough time for all the hellos and
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
It was well past time for Royce Duplessis to leave his fifth campaign event of the day — a Saints game watch with dozens of supporters at the Five O Fore golf driving range — and scramble to the next one.
WEATHER HIGH 93 LOW 75 PAGE 6B
goodbyes. The exchanges typically come with a handshake, a hug and introductory questions familiar to New Orleanians: Who’s your mom, dad, uncle? Who was your coach at Pontchartrain Park? Duplessis tries to chat with as many people as he can. All those simple questions, he says, are important.
a reputation for sharp speeches as a legislator at the State Capitol, Duplessis has made a bet on the apN.O. MAYOR peal of both his “native son” backä Coming Tuesday: Helena Moreno ground and outsider status at City Hall in his campaign to become New Orleans’ next mayor. He’s “I do believe that New Orleans trying to catch up to — and draw a deserves to know that one of its contrast with — the race’s consenown can lead it,” said Duplessis, sus front-runner Helena Moreno, who donned a Saints polo for that who moved to New Orleans as a Sunday event. “I am truly part of young adult and has helped lead it the fabric of New Orleans.” ä See DUPLESSIS, page 4A Armed with a boyish smile and
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