Clyde C. Holloway

Clyde Cecil Holloway
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner
Incumbent
Assumed office 2009
Preceded by	Dale Sittig
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 8th district
In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Catherine Small Long
Succeeded by	District abolished
Personal details
Born	November 28, 1943 (1943-11-28) (age 67) Lecompte, Louisiana
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Catherine F. "Cathie" Holloway (born 1943)
Children	Timothy A. Holloway (b. 1969) Mark R. Holloway (b. 1971) Rebecca L. Holloway (b. 1975) Sara E. Holloway (b. 1979)
Occupation	Businessman
Religion	Baptist[1]

Clyde Cecil Holloway (born November 28, 1943) is an American small business owner from Forest Hill in the southern part of Rapides Parish who is one of five members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. He also served as a conservative Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Alexandria-based 8th congressional district from 1987 to 1993, becoming the first Republican in modern times to represent the northern part of the state. He won three consecutive elections to the U.S. House from an historically Democratic district.

On April 13, 2009, Holloway, long a member of the Republican State Central Committee from the 27th District of the Louisiana House of Representatives, the Public Service Commissioner of the Fourth District when his opponent dropped out of the race following the primary.^[2]

Public Service Commissioner

In 2009, Holloway emerged the plurality leader in a special election for the PSC post vacated by the resignation of Dale Sittig of Eunice. The other candidate in the runoff, which had been scheduled for May 2, Democratic State Senator William Joseph McPherson, Jr., of Woodworth, formerly from Pineville, dropped out on April 13. Holloway narrowly led a three-candidate field in the special election held on April 4. McPherson had lost the previous regular PSC election to Sittig. Democrat-turned-Republican Gil Pinac, a hospital administrator and a former state representative from Crowley in Acadia Parish, finished a weak third in the balloting. McPherson explained his concession as an anticipation that most of Pinac's supporters would switch to Holloway and give the Republican an insurmountable lead. Holloway polled 32,258 votes (43.50 percent) to McPherson's 31,610 (42.63 percent). Pinac trailed with the critical 10,280 ballots (13.86 percent). McPherson's greatest strength was in populous Calcasieu Parish, where he led 11,178 (50.40 percent) to Holloway's 7,873 (35.50 percent), and Pinac's 3,127 (14.10 percent). Ironically, Holloway's total in Calcasieu – centered on Lake Charles – was also his single greatest parish total. Rapides Parish, the home of both candidates, voted in a low turnout: 6,527 for Holloway to 5,327 for McPherson, and 791 for Pinac.^[3]

As results were still being tabulated, Pinac conceded and endorsed Holloway.^[4] Bobby Jindal, a Republican, had raised funds for McPherson, but had otherwise been silent on the PSC race.^[5]

Numerous people describe McPherson, a businessman, as "anti-business", and the state GOP endorsed Holloway. Thus the runoff would have pitted the Republican Committee's pick, Holloway, against the beneficiary of the Republican governor's fundraising largesse, McPherson. By withdrawing, McPherson removed a political embarrassment for Jindal.^[6] Meanwhile, the Jindal-endorsed Lee Domingue] lost the special election for a Louisiana State Senate seat on April 4 to another Republican, Dan Claitor, scion of the Claitor's Publishing Company of Baton Rouge.^[7]

In replacing Democrat Sittig, Holloway's addition to the PSC (even including the forerunner Louisiana Railroad Commission) gave the body its first-ever Republican majority. Commissioners Jimmy Field and Eric Skrmetta are, like Holloway, Republican; and the PSC has just five seats. The Democratic PSC members are Foster Campbell (an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate against Jindal in 2007) and Lambert C. Boissiere, III. The PSC is also the first electoral body in Louisiana to develop a Republican majority since Reconstruction.^[8]

Holloway was unopposed in the August 28, 2010, nonpartisan blanket promary for a full term on the PSC. On July 13, 2010, Holloway noted as a guest on The Moon Griffon Show that August 28 would be his first ever unopposed race and his thirteenth time to appear on a ballot.^[9]

Rural Development Director

On October 19, 2006, Holloway was named Louisiana state director for the Office of Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In making the appointment, then Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, currently a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, said that Holloway, who had been a member of the House Agriculture Committee during his six years in Congress, "brings a wealth of knowledge to USDA." The agency seeks to increase economic opportunity and to improve the quality of life in rural communities. The agency has invested some $72 billion since 2001 to provide equity and technical assistance to finance and foster growth in homeownership, business development, and critical community and technology infrastructure. The agency claims to have created or saved some 1.2 million jobs nationwide. The Holloway appointment expired in January 2009, with the incoming Barack Obama administration.

Early years

Holloway was one of seven children born in the small town of Lecompte (pronounced LEH COUNT) in Rapides Parish to James Cecil Holloway (October 15, 1909 – September 26, 2006), formerly from Arizona, and the former Ever Christina Barker (December 7, 1912 – December 11, 2006). The Holloways later moved to Forest Hill just west of Lecompte and south of Alexandria, the biggest city in central Louisiana. James Holloway earned his livelihood as an electrician at Camp Claiborne and was later employed at the Meeker Sugar Cooperative. He retired as a Rapides Parish school bus driver. The senior Holloways were married for seventy-one years; he preceded her in death by some ten weeks. Mrs. Holloway was the daughter of Charlie and Emma Barker. The Holloways are interred at Butters Cemetery in Forest Hill.

Clyde Holloway attended the National Aeronautics School in Kansas City, Kansas. He owns a tree and shrub nursery in Forest Hill. He was also the chairman of the board of the private Forest Hill Academy, originally Forest Hill Neighborhood School.

He is married to Catherine F. "Cathie" Holloway (also born 1943). The couple has four children, Timothy A. Holloway (born 1969), Mark R. Holloway (born 1971), Rebecca L. Holloway (born 1975), and Sara E. Holloway (born 1979), and five grandchildren, Caleb, John Thomas and Ava Holloway and Faith and Evan Ebert. He is a member of the Elwood Baptist Church in Forest Hill, but Mrs. Holloway is Roman Catholic. One of his brothers, Charlie David Holloway (born 1941), is a former member of the Rapides Parish School Board.

First congressional campaign, 1980

Holloway first ran for Congress in 1980 against entrenched Democratic incumbent Gillis William Long. Holloway depicted himself as a Reagan conservative and an opponent of Republican U.S. District Judge Nauman Scott's cross-parish school busing orders. Robert Henry Mitchell (born 1945), also of Forest Hill, the Republican loser to Long in the 1978 race, also ran again. Long prevailed with 75,433 votes (68.9 percent) to Holloway's 27,816 (25.4 percent) and Mitchell's 6,243 (5.7 percent). As it turned out, Holloway was laying the groundwork in the 1980 campaign for his eventual three elections to the U.S. House. Holloway and Long were actually residents of the same parish (Rapides) in Central Louisiana, so many were stunned when Holloway actually defeated the long-time powerful incumbent Long in their home parish.

Choosing a successor to Gillis Long

In 1985, Gillis Long died on the day of Reagan's second inauguration. A special election was held to fill out the term, and Holloway entered as the lone Republican candidate. Long's widow, Catherine Small Long (born 1924), and Alexandria attorney John W. "Jock" Scott, (born 1947), a state representative in his third and final term, also ran. "Cathy" Long, a native of Dayton, Ohio, was a landslide winner, with 61,791 votes (57.8 percent). Scott finished second with 27,138 (25.4 percent), and Holloway trailed with 18,013 votes (16.8 percent).

William J. "Bill" Dodd, an astute observer of Louisiana politics, called the liberal Cathy Long "the perfect political wife." She once told the Alexandria Daily Town Talk that a U.S. representative's main responsibility is to bring as much national funding home to the congressional district as possible, a view at odds with those conservatives who abhor pork-barrel spending. She decided not to seek the seat for a full term in 1986.

Mr. Holloway goes to Congress, 1987

In 1986, Holloway was the lone Republican in the nonpartisan blanket primary to succeed Mrs. Long. His principal opponent was Faye Williams, a black liberal Democratic woman attorney from Alexandria, who supported abortion and expanded social programs.

The other contenders were Morgan Godeau, Joe Sevario, and Carson K. Killen, of St. Amant in Ascension Parish, who had been an aide to Gillis Long and presumably Long's choice as his successor. Killen was later elected to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and was the executive director of the Louisiana Police Jury (the equivalent of a county commission in other states) Association. Williams led Holloway in the primary, 46,025 (26 percent) to 41,618 (23 percent), a margin of 4,407 votes. Goudeau was third with 36,304 ballots (20 percent), followed by Sevario with 34,847 votes (19 percent), and Killen with 21,116 votes (12 percent).

Polls indicated that Williams would defeat Holloway in the general election in part because the district was 90 percent historically Democratic. High turnout, particularly in the large black community, was expected to benefit Williams. Holloway, however, pulled an upset. He received 102,276 votes (51.4 percent) to Mrs. Williams' 96,864 (48.6 percent). He was heavily dependent on his native Rapides and neighboring Avoyelles parishes. Holloway was estimated to have received 73 percent of the ballots of whites and 1 percent of the black vote. Williams would presumably have won if she had received 29 or 30 percent of the white vote, instead of the 27 percent that she obtained. Williams may have been damaged by reports that her black ex-husband had murdered her white boyfriend. The high turnout in fact helped Holloway more than it did Williams.

In the same election cycle that Holloway was elected to the U.S. Congress, another Republican, Richard Hugh Baker of Baton Rouge, won a U.S. House seat. Holloway and Baker would be only the fourth and fifth Republicans to have served in the U.S. House from Louisiana since Reconstruction, following David C. Treen in 1973, Henson Moore (Baker's predecessor) in 1975 and Bob Livingston in 1977. However, Holloway and Baker were only the second and third Republicans to win an undisputed victory in a contested election. Holloway was also the first Republican to represent north Louisiana since Reconstruction.

In the U.S. House, Holloway was considered a "protectionist" and an opponent of "free trade" policies, which he believes have contributed to economic troubles in Louisiana. Unlike Long, however, he was an ardent fiscal and social conservative. He voted to cut government spending. He was skeptical of international organizations that he felt undermined U.S. sovereignty. His voting record consistently reflected his middle class beliefs. He advocated rolling back "big government," cutting taxes to spur economic growth, restoring school prayer, and ending abortion.

In 1988, Williams and Holloway again squared off in the general election. Holloway was helped by the presence of the successful Republican presidential nominee, Vice-President George H.W. Bush, who carried the state in a landslide. This time, Holloway defeated Williams in a single round. He received 116,241 votes (57 percent) to her 88,564 (43 percent). After her defeats, Williams left Alexandria and relocated to Washington, D.C. In the primary in 1988, former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder also ran and polled only 1 percent of the vote, as his controversial political career continued to unravel.

In 1990, Holloway defeated two state senators in the primary, Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge and State Senator Joe McPherson, Jr., of Holloway's own Rapides Parish. Holloway polled 113,607 votes (56 percent) to 59,511 (30 percent) for Fields, and 18,170 (14 percent) for McPherson.

Ill-fated gubernatorial race, 1991

Holloway's three consecutive House victories, two with more than 55 percent of the vote, made him feel secure in running for governor in 1991; he could run statewide in an off year from congressional races without surrendering his House seat. He won the endorsement of state Republican delegates against the sitting Republican governor, Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, who had been elected as a Democrat in 1987 in the primary. In the 1991 primary, Holloway finished a fourth, with 82,683 (5.3 percent), although Holloway finished ahead of Roemer in two parishes, a sign of the incumbent governor's weak campaign.One reason Holloway supporters rejected Roemer was the outgoing governor's support for abortion. Roemer, previously considered pro-life, reversed himself and vetoed three bills which would have restricted access to abortion in Louisiana.

Instead, the general election featured unendorsed Republican David Duke and former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Holloway refused to endorse either Duke or Edwards. Edwards won a clear victory for a fourth term in part because the third place candidate, Roemer, endorsed Edwards in the showdown with Duke, who was unpopular among many Republicans because of his Ku Klux Klan ties to the "Radical Right." ==Winning 15 of 17 parishes and still losing==

After his gubernatorial loss, Holloway mapped plans to seek reelection to Congress in 1992. Louisiana lost a congressional district as a result of the 1990 Census, and Holloway's Alexandria-based Eighth District was eliminated. His home in Forest Hill was drawn into a revised Sixth District stretching from Baton Rouge on the south to Alexandria on the north. He faced two opponents, fellow Republican Representative Richard Baker and the Democratic mayor of Alexandria, Edward Gordon "Ned" Randolph, Jr. (born 1942) Holloway led in the nonpartisan blanket primary with 52,012 votes (37 percent) to Baker's 46,990 (33 percent), and Randolph's 42,819 (30 percent).

In the general election held on the day of the Bill Clinton-George Herbert Walker Bush presidential contest, Holloway won fifteen of seventeen parishes in the new district. However, Baker polled large majorities in the two largest parishes of Livingston and his home base, East Baton Rouge. That was enough for Baker to win the seat, 123,953 votes (51 percent) to Holloway's 121,225 (49 percent). Had Holloway been able to hold down Baker's margin in East Baton Rouge Parish (Baker's home), he would have secured a fourth House term.

The Sixth Congressional District had been drawn in such a way that the winner was likely to have been a Republican, since black residents of the surrounding area had been drawn into the majority African-American Fourth Congressional District. (Ironically, that district was won by Cleo Fields, Holloway's unsuccessful opponent in 1990.) Tens of thousands of Democrats in the once historically Democratic Sixth District were forced through the nonpartisan blanket primary to choose between two Republican candidates for Congress or to skip that race on the ballot. Baker was only slightly less conservative than Holloway, but Democratic voters apparently saw him as the lesser of two evils. Such a dilemma for Democrats was not what Edwards had in mind when he fashioned the nonpartisan blanket primary some fifteen years earlier. Edwards had expected Republicans to be sitting on the sidelines and having to choose from two unacceptable Democrats.

Underdog Taking on the Machine

Holloway has since waged determined campaigns to return to Congress. In the heavily Republican year of 1994, he moved to the Lafayette-based Seventh Congressional District in southwestern Louisiana and ran against Democratic Congressman Jimmy Hayes. Hayes polled 72,424 votes (53 percent) to Holloway's 54,253 (40 percent). Another 7 percent of voters supported a candidate who ran as "no party." Hayes surprised many observers by becoming a Republican himself in 1995.

In 1996, Holloway entered the race for the revised (again) Fifth District, which covered the northeast quadrant of Louisiana, stretching to south of Alexandria to include his Forest Hill residence. Holloway ran third in the primary to fellow Republican John Cooksey, a Monroe ophthalmologist, and Democratic State Representative Francis C. Thompson, a large landowner in Delhi in Richland Parish.

Cooksey polled 60,853 ballots (34 percent) to Holloway's 48,226 (27 percent). Thompson, with 50,144 votes (28 percent), hence went into the 1996 general election with Cooksey. Holloway's weak showing in Ouachita Parish in particular kept him from proceeding to the second round of balloting, just as his weak showing in East Baton Rouge Parish had doomed him in 1992. Thwarted once more, Holloway endorsed Cooksey, with whom he shared a similar conservative philosophy, and helped him to raise money. Cooksey went on to win the seat handily, 135,990 (58 percent) to the more liberal Thompson's 97,363 (42 percent). Cooksey served three terms before leaving the House.

2,705 votes short

When Cooksey decided to run for the U.S. Senate against Mary Landrieu in 2002, Holloway entered the race to succeed him in the House. For a time, Holloway appeared strong. He had the support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and then Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas. But he finished third in the nonpartisan blanket primary with 42,573 votes (23 percent). Leading the pack was the eventual winner, Democrat Rodney Alexander, with 52,952 votes (29 percent). Newcomer Dewey Lee Fletcher, a young Republican advertising entrepreneur from Monroe, who had also previously been an aide to Cooksey, finished second in the primary with 45,278 (25 percent). A fourth candidate, Republican State Senator Robert J. Barham of Oak Ridge in Morehouse Parish, had 34,533 votes (19 percent). (Three minor candidates shared the remaining 5 percent.)

Alexander then defeated Fletcher in the general election by only 974 votes, 86,718 to 85,744. Holloway's endorsement of Alexander may have been the decisive movement of the campaign: he could not be congressman again, but he could choose between the two general election candidates and anoint the narrow winner. There were also reports cited as the Clyde Factor" that many Holloway supporters in Rapides Parish, particularly Alexandria, voted for Alexander primarily to thwart young Fletcher, given Fletcher's negative and misleading false campaign tactics the final hours leading to the primary election.

The seat stayed in Democratic hands for less than two years, however. In the summer of 2004, Alexander switched to the Republican Party and quickly gained enough support from the Republican Party establishment to end any hopes Holloway had of running in that year's election. It was Holloway's rival from 1985, Jock Scott, who decided to take on Alexander that year.

Running for lieutenant governor, 2003

In 2003, Holloway ran for lieutenant governor but was defeated by the Democrat Mitch Landrieu, younger brother of Senator Mary Landrieu. He originally ran on a "ticket" with the then chairman of the PSC, John "Jay" Blossman, Jr., of suburban New Orleans. When Blossman withdrew from the gubernatorial race in light of weak poll numbers, Holloway remained a candidate for lieutenant governor. He polled 249,668 votes (19 percent) to Landrieu's 674,803 (53 percent). The other 28 percent was shared by several other candidates, including the African American businessman Kirt Bennett of Baton Rouge and Melinda Schwegmann, a former Democratic lieutenant governor (1992–1996) serving as a state representative who switched in 2003 to the GOP. Announcing to run only one month prior to the election and spending less than $10,000 for the statewide race, HOlloway still scored majorities in La Salle, Caldwell, and West Carroll parishes, which are all sparsely populated parishes in north Louisiana. He scored pluralities in Avoyelles and Evangeline parishes, both from his old Eighth Congressional District.

Louisiana portal

Notes

1. ^ Holloway is a Baptist. His wife is a Roman Catholic, and their children were reared in the Catholic faith, having become alumni of Loyola University New Orleans.
2. ^ "Senator drops out of runoff for PSC", New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 14, 2009, p. B2.
3. ^ "LA Secretary of State". Louisiana Secretary of State. April 4, 2009. http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=120608. Retrieved April 4, 2009. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ "Robert Morgan, "Holloway, McPherson go into May PSC runoff", April 5, 2009". Alexanderia Daily Town Talk. http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20090405/NEWS01/904050327/-1/NEWSFRONT2. Retrieved April 5, 2009. 
5. ^ The Moon Griffon Show, radio broadcast, April 1, 2009
6. ^ The Moon Griffon Show, April 7, 2009.
7. ^ Jindal-backed candidate loses state Senate race, Lafayette Advertiser, April 7, 2009
8. ^ A majority of the U.S. House delegation from Louisiana has been Republican since the 1990s, but that is at the federal level. Both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature continued to have a Democratic majority although the margin continued to decline.
9. ^ The Moon Griffon Show, July 13, 2010

External links

• Clyde C. Holloway at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov/cgibin?rqstyp=comp3&rqsdta=40
• http://www.skepticfiles.org/conspire/faye-wil.htm
• http://lcweb2.loc.gov/elect2002/catalog/1248.html
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcmp&rqsdta=11039214511069
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=110596
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcmp&rqsdta=09219614519066
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=110502
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=092786
• http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/williams/abstracts/gillis/dhemecourt.warren.htm
• http://www.growit.com/Plants/Growers/240.htm
• http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=100392
• http://www.rurdev.usda.gov

"Holloway appointed to head rural development efforts in Louisiana," Colfax Chronicle (Grant Parish), October 19, 2006

• Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, U.S. House
• http://lapolitics.com/

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Catherine Small Long	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 8th congressional district 1987–1993	Succeeded by District abolished through reapportionment
Political offices
Preceded by Dale Sittig	Louisiana Public Service Commissioner from District 4 Clyde Cecil Holloway 2009–	Succeeded by Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Holloway, Clyde C.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 28, 1943
Place of birth	Lecompte, Louisiana in Rapides Parish
Date of death
Place of death