Recall election launched against NOLA Councilman Jared Brossett

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A New Orleans real estate consultant initiated a drive Tuesday to recall City Councilman Jared Brossett, a new blow to a politician who was arrested in June on charges of driving drunk and crashing his publicly leased vehicle head-on into another car.

Anthony Doby, 39, said he asked the Louisiana secretary of state's office to allow the recall effort because Brossett embarrassed New Orleans and lowered the bar for its political class. In a widely shared video just after the car crash, Brossett was observed slurring his words.

"All the elected officials around the city are saying, 'If Jared gets away with it, why can't we?'" Doby said. “That’s not exactly the way that I would want future and current politicians in the city to feel, that they can wander around with bulletproof vests on.”

Doby now has 180 days to collect at least 14,390 signatures from voters in Brossett's District D, or 25% of the current number of registered voters in that district. That target, created by a 2018 Louisiana state law, is lower than the previous one-third minimum that recall efforts for years had to clear.

If enough signatures are gathered, a referendum on whether Brossett must leave office could be held next year.

Brossett was behind the wheel of a city-financed 2019 Chevrolet Tahoe that jumped the neutral ground on Elysian Fields Avenue in Gentilly and careened into a 2019 Nissan Rogue driven by Minghong Lin on June 14. The city -- not Brossett -- leases and insures his Tahoe, which means taxpayers could be left holding the bag for the damages and any possible liability.

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He has been arrested for driving drunk before. He pleaded no contest and agreed to take a course on alcohol and substance abuse after an arrest in Miami in 2006.

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The latest debacle exposed an oversight in City Hall's management of the taxpayer-financed take-home cars, a controversial perk that has cost taxpayers $1 million in vehicle purchase costs alone. The City Council has no policies for its use of the cars, and Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration would not detail last month how 72 public officials had been using them or whether they had personal insurance on them to cover losses. The council is expected to release a draft vehicle policy in the coming weeks.

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