Republican Party of Louisiana - History

History

The Republican Party of Louisiana was established as the "Friends of Universal Suffrage" on November 4, 1865, by a group of mixed whites, free blacks, and freedmen led by Benjamin Flanders.

The party has shown in recent decades the resurgence characteristic of other southern Republican state parties. From the Reconstruction era to the early 1950s, no Republican won a single electoral vote in any Louisiana presidential election; however, the state went for Republican presidential candidate Dwight David Eisenhower in 1956, the first of nine Republican presidential victories in the state among the 14 presidential campaigns from 1956 to 2008 inclusive. Louisiana's U.S. House delegation has overall had a Republican tilt since the 1990s, and party membership has incrementally increased in both houses of the Louisiana legislature as well as in other political offices around the state. Republicans have held the Louisiana governorship most of the time since election of David C. Treen to that office in 1979, no Republican having been elected governor prior to 1979 since William Pitt Kellogg during the Reconstruction era. Charlton Lyons had made the first serious Republican gubernatorial campaign in 1964 and drew a then record 37.5 percent of the general election vote.

Another major breakthrough occurred in 2004 when David Vitter, a U.S. representative, became Louisiana's first Republican to be elected United States Senator since the Reconstruction era. As of 2010 the Republican Party holds all of the statewide elected offices which include Governor Bobby Jindal, Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne, Secretary of State Tom Schedler, State Treasurer John Neely Kennedy, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, Commissioner of Agriculture & Forestry Mike Strain, and Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon. A milestone of sorts was achieved in 2009 when election of Republican former U.S. Representative Clyde C. Holloway to the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates utility companies, gave that body its first-ever Republican majority. In 2010,Republicans gained majority of both houses of the Louisiama state legislature. Prior to 2010, Republicans had not controlled either Lousisiana legislative house since Recconstruction.