Robert G. Jones

Infobox Senator | name=Robert Gambrell "Bob" Jones


imagesize = 150px
nationality=American
office= Louisiana State Senate
party=Republican (since 1979)
term_start=1972
term_end=1976
preceded=A. C. "Ace" Clemons, Jr.
succeeded=William L. McLeod
office2=Louisiana State Representative from Calcasieu Parish
term_start2=1968
term_end2=1972
date of birth=birth date and age|1939|05|09
place of birth=Lake Charles, Louisiana
dead=alive
law school=none
religion=Methodist
occupation=Stockbroker
spouse=Sarah Quinn Jones
children=Sam Houston Jones, II (born 1962), G. Quinn Jones, Gambrelle Jones Grichendler, Jennifer Jones (born 1979)

Robert Gambrell "Bob" Jones (born May 9, 1939) is a stockbroker in Lake Charles who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1968-1972 and in the State Senate from 1972-1976. He is the son of the late Louisiana Governor Sam Houston Jones.

In 1975, Jones was an unsuccessful intraparty opponent to Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, who secured the second of four nonconsecutive gubernatorial terms in the state's first ever jungle primary. In 1978, Jones switched affiliation to the Republican Party, but he never sought office thereafter as a member of the GOP.

Early years and education

Jones was born in Lake Charles to Sam Jones (1897-1978) and the former Louise Gambrell Boyer (1902-1996). He was a year old when his father became governor in 1940. He therefore spent his early childhood years in the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge. The Joneses returned to Lake Charles in 1944, when James Houston "Jimmie" Davis became governor. Sam Jones resumed his law practice, and young Jones and his sister, Carolyn, grew up in Lake Charles, the seat of Calcasieu Parish in far southwestern Louisiana. Bob Jones graduated from Lake Charles High School in 1957. (The school was renamed Lake Charles Boston High School when it was desegregated.)

Jones obtained a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans. Upon college graduation in 1961, Jones wed the former Sarah Quinn, also from Lake Charles. He was then accepted into the MBA program at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jones received his MBA in 1962 and returned to Lake Charles to work in the brokerage business. He is the Calcasieu Parish representative for the Wachovia Corp.

Jones enters Louisiana politics

A tall, slender, ectomorphic man, Bob Jones was fully gray-haired before he was thirty, a physical feature which distinguished him from others in a group. His career was proceeding from the state House to the state Senate, but then he ran into an obstacle with his gubernatorial bid.

Bob Jones, at twenty-eight, was elected to the Louisiana House in the 1967-1968 election cycle. He was one of five Democrats in an at-large delegation from Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. He became a leader of the group dubbed by the media as the "Young Turks". Among his reform colleagues was his Caddo Parish friend Don W. Williamson. Jones opposed the construction of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans and the spending of bond monies on questionable projects. The "Turks" were often seen as a thorn in the side of Governor John J. McKeithen.

Jones left the House after a single term, when he was elected to the Senate in a district that encompassed about half of Calcasieu Parish and all of adjacent Jefferson Davis Parish. He succeeded A.C. "Ace" Clemons, Jr., a Democrat elected in 1968 who had switched parties in 1970 and served the second half of his third Senate term as a Republican.

Challenging Edwin Edwards, 1975

Jones decided to challenge the pending reelection of Edwin Edwards as Governor, but Edwards won with 750,107 votes (62.3 percent). Jones polled 292,220 ballots (24.3 percent), and another candidate, retiring Secretary of State Wade O. Martin, Jr., trailed with 146,363 votes (12.2 percent).

After Jones' gubernatorial defeat, he signaled that he might run again in 1979. Edwards ridiculed his opponent: "Yes, I think he's going to run again in four years. That's like the captain of the "Titanic" advertising for new passengers . . . for his next voyage on the Good Ship Iceberg." ["Minden Press-Herald", December 5, 1975, p. 1]

upporting the GOP

In 1979, Jones did not seek the governorship has Edwards had predicted. Instead, he supported Republican gubernatorial candidate David C. Treen. Treen thereafter appointed Jones to the Louisiana Racing Commission, where he served from 1980-1984. Jones also supported Republican John Henry Baker's attempt to abolish the former office of Louisiana elections commissioner in the 1979 general election. Baker, however, was defeated in the race, and the elections office continued to exist for another 25 years before it ceased to exist in 2004.

In the 1980 presidential primaries, Jones contributed to former Governor John B. Connally, Jr., of Texas and U.S. Senator Howard Henry Baker, Jr., of Tennessee. In 1990, he contributed to his former "Young Turk" colleague Bernard J. "Ben" Bagert, Jr., of New Orleans, who later withdrew from the race against Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Shreveport. Jones contributed to George Herbert Walker Bush in the 1992 primary.

Jones is of English, Scottish, and Welsh extraction. He is Methodist, but Mrs. Jones is Catholic. The Joneses have four children. Sam Houston Jones II (born 1962), G. Quinn Jones, Gambrelle Jones Grichendler, and Jennifer Jones (born 1979).

Jones filed his legislative papers and gubernatorial campaign memorabilia in the archives of McNeese State University in Lake Charles.

References

* http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=LAKE+CHARLES&st=LA&last=Jones&first=Robert
* http://www.swlahistory.org/newsletterd.htm
* http://www.library.mcneese.edu/depts/archive/jonesbob176.htm
* Louisiana House of Representatives, 1880-2008 (Baton Rouge: Secretary of State)
* Louisiana State Senators, 1880-2004 (Baton Rouge: Secretary of State)