Challenging Jerry Fowler
In 1979, Baker announced that he would challenge the Democrat Jerry Marston Fowler, then a Natchitoches businessman, in the race for elections commissioner. Fowler (born 1940) was seeking to succeed his ailing father, Wiley Douglas Fowler, Sr., the former Red River Parish clerk of court and one-time Coushatta mayor. Fowler had been appointed to the post by the late Governor Earl Kemp Long, after Long had quarreled with Secretary of State Wade O. Martin, Jr., by procuring legislative consent to remove the elections office from the domain of the secretary of state. Douglas Fowler was then elected to his first full term in 1960 and then reelected with minimal opposition in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. (The primaries for the three latter elections were actually held late in 1967, 1971, and 1975.) To Louisiana voters, the name "Fowler" became synonymous with the management of elections – the two won a total of ten consecutive elections.
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