John Sidney Garrett - The 1975 State Senate Campaign

The 1975 State Senate Campaign

In 1975, former Representative Garrett entered an eight-candidate, all-Democratic field in a bid to succeed the retiring conservative State Senator Harold Montgomery of Doyline in Webster Parish. Garret stressed his past support for state centralized purchasing to stop duplication and the implementation of the Code of Ethics in the McKeithen administration. Garrett stressed his past support for education, including the four-year status of Louisiana State University at Shreveport and Southern University at Shreveport as well as the establishment of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport. He also urged the implementation of a statewide community college system.

Garrett outspent his opponents in the race, having raised $25,248 in the primary, including three $1,000 contributions from Minden contractors James Madden and James M. Winford and from Garrett's aunt, Mrs. A.C. Smith of Minden.

The since defunct Shreveport Journal endorsed Garrett's principal opponent, Democrat Foster L. Campbell, Jr., at the time a business teacher at Haughton High School in Bossier Parish. The Journal editorially charged that Garrett as a representative "voted for millions of dollars in new taxes and pork barrel political bond issues ... for the prevailing wage law of 1968 set the gears of inflation ... and has resulted in all state projects costing an estimated additional 20 percent ..."

Garrett, in a newspaper advertisement, accused the Campbell family of seeking to create a political dynasty, with various Campbells having been the Webster Parish school superintendent or a district judge or an appeals court judge.

Garrett stressed his co-sponsorship in the House of the code of ethics for public employees, a centralized purchasing bill to stop duplications, and a listing of all state employees with their salaries. "Many persons whose employment was questionable resigned," Garrett said. Garrett also had co-sponsored the establishment of Louisiana State University in Shreveport and the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport, which was created from the former Confederate Memorial Medical Center.

In the showdown on December 13, 1975, Campbell defeated Garrett by a large margin, 15,739 to 6,417. The third-place primary candidate, Minden businessman Houston R. Morris, who had run unsuccessfully for state representative in 1971, endorsed Garrett in the general election, as did other rivals Patrick H. "Pat" Jones and Wade Baker. Garrett's former legislative colleague, Parey Branton, and the Minden educator, Ralph Lamar Rentz, Sr. (1930–1995), also ran for the state senate, but both trailed in the primary results.

In 2002, Campbell, after twenty-six years in the Senate, was elected to the PSC, a race that Garrett had lost in the 1966 Democratic primary runoff. Campbell was thereafter an unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the 2007 jungle primary, having placed a weak third.

One of Garrett's grassroots supporters was Buster L. Benefield, who knew Garrett since they were boys growing up in Claiborne Parish. He described his friend as "wealthy, honest, and he and his wife were just good people. It was my privilege to campaign for him."