Ben Bagert

Infobox_State Representative


name= Bernard John "Ben" Bagert, Jr.
caption= Ben Bagert
office= Louisiana State Representative from District 24, later District 98 (Orleans Parish)
term_start= 1970
term_end=1984
preceded= Thomas A. Early, Jr.
succeeded=Garey Forster
office2=Louisiana State Senator from District 4 (Orleans Parish)
term_start2=1984
term_end2=1992
preceded2=Michael H. O'Keefe, Jr.
succeeded2=Marc Morial
birth_date= January 1944(aged 64)
birth_place= New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
death_date=
death_place=
spouse=
children=
party= Democrat-turned-Republican
occupation=Attorney
religion=

Bernard John "Ben" Bagert, Jr. (born December 1943) is a prominent New Orleans attorney who was a Democratic member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature from 1970-1992. Bagert switched affiliation to the Republican Party and mounted a challenge in 1990 to entrenched Democratic U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Shreveport, first elected in 1972. Two days before the jungle primary, Bagert withdrew from the race to help Johnston defeat a second Republican candidate opposed by the party's establishment, the controversial former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke. In 1991, Bagert did not seek reelection to the Louisiana State Senate but instead ran as the Republican choice for attorney general in an unsuccessful bid to succeed the retiring William J. "Billy" Guste, Jr., also of New Orleans.

Early years and education

Bagert graduated from the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans in 1968. He was a "Blue Key" National Honor Fraternity member and the president of the student body in law school. He was admitted to the practice of law before the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals. Bagert has written textbooks on Louisiana succession and family law. His law firm is located at 650 Poydras Street adjacent to the federal courthouse in New Orleans. He has practiced primarily in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. The firm handles administrative law, business law, construction law, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases.

Bagert's younger brother, Broderick A. Bagert, Sr., is a former member of the New Orleans City Council. For a time, the Bagerts were a political team who often sparred with popular New Orleans state Senator Ignatz "Nat" Kiefer (1939-1985). Brod Bagert (born 1947) left the practice of law and is a poet, lecturer, and author of children's books.

ix legislative elections as a Democrat

At twenty-six, Bagert won a special election in Orleans Parish for the Louisiana House of Representatives in District 24 (later District 98) created by the resignation of Democratic Representative Thomas A. Early, Jr. Bagert won full terms to the state House in 1972, 1975, and 1979. He was a member of the "Young Turks" reformers led by future Speaker E.L. "Bubba" Henry of Jonesboro in Jackson Parish and Robert G. "Bob" Jones of Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish, the son of former Governor Sam Houston Jones. Bagert often questioned certain state expenditures. In the spring of 1972, for instance, he asked why the state continued to spend $214,488 per year to maintain the Louisiana Livestock Brand Commission, which he described as a useless entity whose members "ride around looking for stolen cows and checking brands on cows." [Charles Leyton, United Press International, "Bagert Says Commission Wastes Taxpayers' Funds, June 2, 1972]

In 1983, he was elected to the first of two terms to the state Senate. In his last election victory in the 1987 jungle primary, Bagert, still a Democrat, defeated his Republican challenger, Harry T. Begg, III, by a huge margin: 23,953 (89 percent) to 3,043 (11 percent). All of Bagert's legislative elections in fact occurred on the Democratic ticket.

The aborted campaign against Bennett Johnston

Bagert was the official Republican Party choice to challenge Democratic Senator Johnston in the 1990 primary, but state Representative Duke of Jefferson Parish (1989-1992) ran as well and won the support of many blue collar white voters, particularly in rural areas and small towns who were not attracted to Bagert's more moderate, less controversial brand of conservatism. Virginia Republican leader and Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North campaigned for Bagert, four years before North would make his own ill-fated Senate race against Senator Charles Robb, a son-in-law of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Bagert's list of contributors includes Governor David C. Treen, the state's first Republican congressman and governor since Reconstruction; Bryan Wagner, the first GOP member elected in modern times to the New Orleans City Council; John Hainkel, a Democrat and later Republican member of the state Senate from an Orleans-area district; party chairmen James H. Boyce (shortly before his death) of Baton Rouge, George Despot of Shreveport, Donald Bollinger of Lockport, and William "Billy" Nungesser of New Orleans; Louis Roussel, a businessman and financier who had bankrolled campaigns of earlier Democrats, including William J. "Bill" Dodd; future Congressman and U.S. Senator David Vitter of Metairie; the late "Cajun" humorist, chef, and former Democrat Justin Wilson; Dalton Woods, a Shreveport oilman and friend of President George Herbert Walker Bush; state Representative Clark Gaudin of Baton Rouge, New Orleans businessman James A. Noe, son of a former Democratic governor; future U.S. Senate candidate Suzanne Haik Terrell, another former member of the New Orleans City Council; former state Senator "Bob" Jones, the Lake Charles stockbroker; and even a Texas-Louisiana businessman, Albert Bel Fay, who had once been the Republican national committeeman from Texas.

No matter how hard Bagert campaigned, and no matter how popular Oliver North was with some Louisiana Republicans, nothing seemed to help Bagert's prospects, for he lagged in the public opinion polls throughout the race. In the week before the primary, U.S. Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri announced that he was "supporting" his Democratic colleague Johnston. He urged Bagert to leave the race so that Johnston could oppose Duke head-to-head. Soon, other Louisiana supporters also urged that Bagert pull out on the grounds that he had little chance of victory. A saddened Bagert withdrew two days before the balloting. He had already received an undisclosed number of absentee ballots. His name remained on the ballot, but any votes that he still received were not counted under Louisiana election law.

Johnston won reelection to his fourth and final term with 753,198 votes (54 percent) to Duke's 607,091 (43 percent). Another 3 percent was shared by two minor Democratic candidates. Therefore, many in the Republican establishment voted for Johnston even though they had recruited Bagert to try to unseat Johnston. It was not be the last time that state party leaders would also vote Democratic to block Duke. A year later, many Republicans supported discredited Governor Edwin Washington Edwards in order to thwart the gubernatorial candidacy of Duke.

The campaign for attorney general, 1991

In 1991, Bagert ran for attorney general. He faced a formidable opponent in Richard Ieyoub, a lawyer from Lake Charles. Ieyoub won the race by more than a 2-1 margin: 1,147,592 (69 percent) to 517,660 (31 percent). Bagert even lost his home base, heavily Democratic Orleans Parish. The attorney general's race was the last campaign that Bagert waged. He has since concentrated on his successful law practice.

In 1996, Bagert was a Louisiana delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Diego, which nominated the unsuccessful Robert J. Dole and Jack French Kemp ticket.

Bagert's home in the Lakeview area of New Orleans was flooded in Hurricane Katrina. The damage occurred when the nearby 17th Street Canal broke during the storm.

References

http://www.newsmeat.com/campaign_contributions_to_politicians/donor_list.php?candidate_id=S0LA00055&li=Vhttp://www.bagertlaw.com/

http://www.time.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,971358,00.html

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-08-20/politics.html

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=16530986

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/san.diego/facts/delegate.profile/LA.shtml

http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=111691

http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcms2&rqsdta=100690

http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcpr&rqsdta=10248736

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=203947&pub=1&div=News

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?lastname=KIEFER&start=3041