Garrett in The Legislature
Garrett succeeded the segregationist Representative William M. Rainach, who went on to serve in the Louisiana State Senate and was a 1959 Democratic gubernatorial contender. Garrett was originally a segregationist as well who like Rainach had chaired the Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation. In support of the segregationist White Citizen's Council, begun by Rainach, Garrett told an audience in Minden that the "segregation problem is the most serious you will face in your lifetime. The Black Monday (Brown v. Board of Education) ruling of the Supreme Court was a political, not a legal decision." Garrett said the Citizen's Council must operate not as "the Ku Klux Klan ... but within the laws of the state and the nation."
Otherwise, Garrett was a low-key business-oriented legislator who specialized in constituent services and maintained a wide networking of friends and supporters to retain his seat for six consecutive four-year terms. At times, his district included a portion of neighboring Webster, including the parish seat of Minden, and Bienville parishes.
In his last term, Garrett was in a two-member district with conservative Democratic Representative Parey Pershing Branton, Sr., of Shongaloo. In the 1967 primaries, Garrett and Branton defeated three other Democrats, former Springhill Mayor Charles E. McConnell and Sarepta native Henry Grady Hobbs (1923-2012) of Minden, both attorneys, and James William "Tinker" Volentine (1915–1982), a Minden businessman. McConnell tried again in 1971 and lost to R. Harmon Drew, Sr., of Minden. In 1995, Volentine's granddaughter, Helaine George, later Helaine Barrington of Krum in Denton County in north Texas, was one of two Republican women who failed in an attempt to win the same House seat held at that time by the retired Minden educator, Democrat Everett Doerge, who had first been elected in 1991.
Garrett was recommended to the House as Speaker by Governor McKeithen to fill the vacancy created by the death on November 18, 1967, of Vail M. Delony of Lake Providence, the seat of East Carroll Parish.
Speaker Garrett served on the Louisiana Superdome Commission during the construction of the giant sports stadium in New Orleans. He was an author of the first statewide uniform teacher pay plan and supported legislation pertaining to elementary, secondary, and higher education. He authored the bill which created Lake Claiborne and worked for the appropriations to make the complex a reality.
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