Dave Treen - States' Rights Party Elector Candidate, 1960

States' Rights Party Elector Candidate, 1960

In 1960, Treen opposed the election of both Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy as president and ran as an elector for the Louisiana States' Rights Party, which supported Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. In addition to Treen, the States' Rights electors included former State Senator William M. Rainach of Claiborne Parish (a defeated 1959 gubernatorial candidate) and Plaquemines Parish Judge Leander Perez, who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church because of his outspoken opposition to racial integration. Another elector was the "Radical Right" figure Kent Courtney of New Orleans and later Alexandria. Still another was the anti-Long former Congressman Jared Y. Sanders, Jr., of Baton Rouge, son of former Governor Jared Y. Sanders, Sr.

Treen made it clear that his states' rights group was not affiliated with the National States' Rights Party, a group considered neo-Nazi, and, in Treen's words, "a disgrace to the term 'states rights.'" Treen's elector slate polled 169,572 ballots (21%) statewide. Jefferson Parish, Treen's residence, which would later support him in most of his campaigns, rejected the States' Righters and instead supported Kennedy with 51.8%. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. electors received 230,980 (28.6%) in Louisiana, and Kennedy-Johnson won the state's ten electoral votes with 407,339 (50.4%). One of the Kennedy electors was popular State Attorney General Jack P.F. Gremillion, a part of the Earl Kemp Long organization, who would fall to scandal a dozen years later. Another was Edmund Reggie of Crowley, Louisiana, a confidant of future Governor Edwin Edwards and future father-in-law of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.