Taylor W. O'Hearn - Defeat in 1968

Defeat in 1968

After his failure to win the judgeship, O'Hearn served the year and a half left in his legislative term. He ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1968. O'Hearn polled 15,150 votes to lead the Republican ticket in the at-large state House races in Caddo Parish, but he was 5,475 votes below the lowest-ranking Democratic candidate. Two other unsuccessful Republican state House candidates from Caddo Parish in 1968, Benjamin Franklin O'Neal, Jr., and Art Sour, would return to reverse their defeats and win House seats from single-member districts in 1972. Morley Hudson, who did not seek reelection in 1968, issued a statement on behalf of all the losing Republican candidates: "We did not lose; we taught thousands of our voters that they could vote for two-party government." In Baton Rouge, another Republican legislator, Edward Clark Gaudin, also was defeated, but he too rebounded to victory in 1972.

O'Hearn charged that election laws had been violated at three black precincts in Shreveport—that Democrats passed out campaign literature at the door of one polling place and were less than the required 200 feet minimum from the two other precincts. O'Hearn said that he contacted Caddo Parish Sheriff James M. Goslin, and the Shreveport public safety commissioner, George W. D'Artois, both Democrats. Each told him that the matter was out of his jurisdiction. O'Hearn never again sought public office.