Joe Waggonner - His Chosen Successor, "Buddy" Leach

His Chosen Successor, "Buddy" Leach

Several candidates ran for the seat that Waggonner vacated, including two state representatives, Claude "Buddy" Leach, Jr., of Leesville in Vernon Parish and Loy F. Weaver of Homer in Claiborne Parish. Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, son of Governor Edwin Edwards's commissioner of administration, entered the race, as did a lone Republican, Jimmy Wilson, a former state legislator and former mayor of Vivian in north Caddo Parish, who had recently switched parties. Waggonner endorsed Leach, who ultimately defeated Wilson in the general election by a margin of 266 disputed votes. However, Leach was unable to cement his hold on the district and was unseated in the 1980 general election after a single term by Roemer. That 1980 House election was sometimes called the "battle of the Buddys" waged between the wealthy Democrats Leach and Roemer. Waggonner's seat remained Democratic for nine years after his retirement, when a Democrat-turned-Republican, James Otis McCrery, Jr., then of Leesville but a Shreveport native, won it in another special election held on March 8, 1988. (McCrery retired in January 2009 and was succeeded by the Republican John C. Fleming, a physician from Minden in Webster Parish.)