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Mary Landrieu

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Mary Landrieu
United States Senator
from Louisiana
Incumbent
Assumed office
1997–Serving with David Vitter
Preceded byJ. Bennett Johnston
Succeeded byIncumbent (2009)
Personal details
Nationalityamerican
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseFrank Snellings

Mary Loretta Landrieu (born November 23, 1955) is the senior Democratic United States senator from the state of Louisiana. She is the daughter of former New Orleans mayor Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu and the sister of current Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu. By national standards, Landrieu is one of the more conservative Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

Mary Landrieu was born in Arlington, Virginia, and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Ursuline Academy of New Orleans. She graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1977 where she was a member of Delta Gamma sorority. She was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1980 to 1988. She then served as Louisiana state treasurer from 1988 to 1996. Landrieu was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1995 gubernatorial race in Louisiana — she finished third in the state's qualifying primary (sometimes referred to as the "jungle" primary) — thus failing to make the run-off which effectively becomes the general election in Louisiana. The eventual winner was Democrat-turned-Republican Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr..

Landrieu and her husband, attorney Frank Snellings (born 1949), who grew up in Monroe, have two adopted children, Connor and Mary Shannon.

Disputed Senate election

Landrieu was elected to the U.S. Senate seat previously held by John Bennett Johnston, Jr., in 1996. She defeated the Republican candidate Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge by 5,788 votes out of 1.7 million cast, the narrowest national result of the 33 races for the U.S. Senate that year and one of the closest election margins in Louisiana history. At the same time, Democrat William Jefferson Blythe "Bill" Clinton carried Louisiana by a considerable margin — 927,837 votes to 712,586 cast for Republican Robert J. "Bob" Dole.

Jenkins refused to accept defeat and charged massive election fraud, orchestrated by the Democratic political organization of New Orleans, which provided Landrieu's narrow margin of victory. He took his case to the Republican-majority U.S. Senate and petitioned for nullification of the results of the Senate election and ordering new balloting. In a hearing, carried live by CSPAN, the Senate Rules Committee in a party-line 8-7 vote agreed to investigate the charges. The decision briefly placed Landrieu's status in the U.S. Senate under a cloud.

The investigation dragged on for over ten months, angering the Democrats and exacerbating partisan friction in the day-to-day sessions of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee to which Landrieu was assigned as a freshman member of the 105th Congress. Finally, in October 1997, the Rules Committee issued a report noting numerous instances of major electoral irregularities, but concluding that a new election at that late stage would place too onerous a burden on the state of Louisiana and recommended letting the election result stand.

The Landrieu-Jenkins contest was not the only U.S. Senate election in 20th century Louisiana in which the results were hotly disputed. Future Senator John H. Overton of Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, claimed the renomination and hence reelection of Senator Joseph E. Ransdell of Lake Providence, the seat of East Carroll Parish, was tainted. In 1932, Senator Edwin S. Broussard of New Iberia claimed that his primary defeat by Overton was fraudulent. In both cases, the Senate seated the certified winners, Ransdell and Overton, respectively.

Landrieu as senator

Landrieu narrowly won re-election in the 2002 mid-term election. She defeated Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans. Without her large base from Orleans Parish, Landrieu would have been unseated. Some experts and pundits had considered Landrieu as a possible running mate for presidential candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election before Kerry's selection of then Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. With the departure of John B. Breaux from the Senate in December 2004, his seat being taken by Republican David Vitter, Landrieu became Louisiana's senior senator. She faces voters again in 2008. Terrell ran for Louisiana attorney general in 2003 and was defeated by Charles Foti, a Landrieu supporter from Orleans Parish.

Gang of 14

Sen. Landrieu (center) joins Women of the Storm from the Gulf Coast .

On May 23, 2005, Landrieu was among the Gang of 14, the group of moderate senators who forged a compromise on the use of the judicial filibuster and blocked the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called nuclear option over the organized filibustering by Senate Democrats of judicial nominees in the U.S. Senate. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance" and the three most conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate.

Landrieu supports eliminating the estate tax permanently, and voted for the tax cut passed in 2001. On November 17, 2005, she was one of only four Democrats to vote against repealing the portions of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 that more liberal Democrats have charged unfairly benefit the wealthy. She voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. In 2004, Landrieu was one of only six Democrats to vote against renewing the ban on semi-automatic firearms. She has been one of the few Democrats to support drilling in the ANWR.

Landrieu voted for the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, but in 2006, she opposed Samuel Alito, though she did vote in favor of cloture to send the nomination to an up-or-down vote.

Subsequent to the 2006 midterm election, in which the Democratic Party gained control of both houses of Congress, Landrieu announced (along with Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine) the formation of a "centrist coalition" of moderate senators of both parties, the goal of which they announced to be reducing partisan rancor in the new Senate.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina destroyed Landrieu's lakeside New Orleans home. The senator has become a national spokeswoman for victims of the hurricane and has complained of "the staggering incompetence of the national government." In an interview with Chris Wallace, Landrieu called the evacuation of New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina "the best evacuation." She also commented that "most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day."

Critics have condemned Louisiana's representatives over the state's handling of the Katrina crisis. However, FEMA contracted with Innovative Emergency Management for the now-infamous "Hurricane Pam" exercise which predicted a 70 percent evacuation rate in New Orleans. State officials ended up coordinating the evacuation of 80 percent of the city, far exceeding professionally-projected figures.

Election History

United States Senator, 1996

Threshold > 50%

First Ballot, September 21, 1996

Candidate Affiliation Support Outcome
Woody Jenkins Republican 322,244 (26%) Runoff
Mary Landrieu Democratic 264,268 (22%) Runoff
Richard Ieyoub Democratic 250,682 (20%) Defeated
David Duke Republican 322,244 (12%) Defeated
Others n.a. 249,913 (20%) Defeated

Second Ballot, November 5, 1996

Candidate Affiliation Support Outcome
Mary Landrieu Democratic 852,945 (50%) Elected
Woody Jenkins Republican 847,157 (50%) Defeated

United States Senator, 2002

Threshold > 50%

First Ballot, November 5, 2002

Candidate Affiliation Support Outcome
Mary Landrieu Democratic 573,347 (46%) Runoff
Suzanne Haik Terrell Republican 339,506 (27%) Runoff
John Cooksey Republican 171,752 (14%) Defeated
Tony Perkins Republican 119,776 (10%) Defeated
Others n.a. 41,952 (3%) Defeated

Second Ballot, December 7, 2002

Candidate Affiliation Support Outcome
Mary Landrieu Democratic 638,654 (52%) Elected
Suzanne Haik Terrell Republican 596,642 (48%) Defeated

References

  1. "La. Senator Returns to Capitol to Denounce Bush". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  2. "Governor: Everyone Must Leave New Orleans". Associated Press. Retrieved 2006-08-31.

External links


Political offices
Preceded byMary Evelyn Parker Louisiana State Treasurer
1988-1996 		Succeeded byKen Duncan
Preceded byJ. Bennett Johnston, Jr. U.S. senator (Class 2) from Louisiana
1997- 		Succeeded byIncumbent
Louisiana's current delegation to the United States Congress
Senators
Representatives
(ordered by district)

Template:Gang of 14

Current United States senators
President: ▌ Kamala Harris (D) ‧ President pro tempore: ▌ Chuck Grassley (R)
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