Dave Treen - Election As Governor, 1979

Election As Governor, 1979

In 1979, Treen retained John McKeithen's former campaign manager, Gus Weill of Baton Rouge, who in 1958 had established the first political public relations firm in Baton Rouge. Treen ran that year in the nonpartisan blanket primary for governor, only the second such election held in Louisiana. He finished with 297,469 votes, almost the exact numbers posted by Charlton Lyons in 1964—284 fewer votes in fact than Lyons had in a two-candidate field. The second spot was hotly contested between Public Service Commissioner Louis Lambert of Ascension Parish (282,708 votes) and outgoing Lieutenant Governor James E. "Jimmy" Fitzmorris, Jr., of New Orleans (280,412 votes).

In the Treen-Lambert general election, the defeated Democratic candidates, including the disappointed Fitzmorris, House Speaker E. L. Henry of Jonesboro, and State Senators Paul Hardy of St. Martinville and Edgar G. "Sonny" Mouton, Jr., of Lafayette, all endorsed Treen. Their support helped him to defeat Lambert by 9,557 votes. Treen received 690,691 (50.3%) to Lambert's 681,134 (49.7%). He won 22 parishes in victory, compared to 27 parishes in defeat in 1972. Only ten parishes that had voted for Treen in 1972 stuck with him in 1979. His strongest parishes in victory were all in south Louisiana: Plaquemines, Lafayette, St. Tammany, and Iberia.

In the losing 1972 campaign, all of Treen's strong parishes were in north Louisiana. The election of 1979 seemed to indicate that Lafayette would in time replace Shreveport as the new growth center of the Louisiana GOP. Treen's victory came from Republican inroads made in the Edwards stronghold of Acadiana, particularly Lafayette, Iberia, Terrebonne, Acadia, and St. Martin parishes, where the GOP nominee overcame large deficits from 1972 to win in 1979. Treen received only 3.1% of the black vote in victory, nearly identical to his black support in 1972 in defeat.

In March 1980, aged 51, Treen became the 51st governor of his state. He made full use of his power to appoint members of state boards and commissions. He named the Alexandria businessman and philanthropist Roy O. Martin, Jr., to the Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry. He named John Henry Baker to the Louisiana Athletic Commission, since renamed the Louisiana State Boxing and Wrestling Commission. Martin and Baker were both delegates to the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit, Michigan. He named the Louisiana Tech University English professor Robert C. Snyder to the Louisiana State Ethics Commission, a position that Snyder held for twenty-six years, including a stint as chairman.

Treen reappointed Shreveport attorney Robert G. Pugh to the Louisiana Board of Regents created by the Constitution of 1974, which Pugh had helped to write. Pugh, who was an advisor to Treen on numerous issues, also presented a plan to preserve coastal wetlands through a tax on energy, but the legislature declined to approve it. He appointed Robert DeBlieux, the outgoing Democratic mayor of Natchitoches as the state's chief preservation officer. DeBleiux had been instrumental in obtaining designation of the Natchitoches Historic District in the middle 1970s. When Treen assumed office, only 10 of the 105 members of the Louisians House of Representatives were Republican, and all 39 state senators were Democrats.