David C. Treen

Infobox Officeholder


name = David Conner Treen, Sr.
imagesize =
small| caption =
order = 51^st Governor of Louisiana
term_start = March 10, 1980
term_end = July 12, 1984
vicepresident =
viceprimeminister =
deputy =
president =
primeminister =
predecessor = Edwin Washington Edwards
successor = Edwin Washington Edwards
order2 = Member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana's 3rd District
term_start2 = January 3, 1973
term_end2 = March 10, 1980
predecessor2 = Patrick T. Caffery
successor2 = Billy Tauzin
birth_date = birth date and age|1928|07|16
birth_place = Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
death_date =
death_place =
constituency =
party = Republican
spouse = Dolores Brisbi "Dodi" Treen (1929–2005)
children =Three children, including Dr. David C. Treen, Jr.
alma_mater= Tulane University
profession = Lawyer
religion = Methodist


footnotes =

David Conner Treen, Sr. (born July 16, 1928), is a retired attorney and politician from Mandeville in St. Tammany Parishndash the first Republican governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He is also the first Republican in modern times to have served in the U.S. House of Representatives from his state. A narrow victor in the gubernatorial general election held in the fall of 1979, Treen served as governor from 1980 to 1984. He lost his bid for reelection in 1983 to his long-time rival, Democrat Edwin Edwards. He served in Congress from 1973-1980.

Treen grew up as a Democrat, but became a Republican in 1962 when there were only about 10,000 registered Republicans in the state. Only a few other living Louisiana Republicans have been members of the party longer than Treen.

Early years and family

Treen was born in Baton Rouge to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Treen. He graduated from Fortier High School in New Orleans in 1945. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history and political science from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1948. In 1950, he graduated from Tulane Law School and was admitted to the bar. In 1951, he wed the former Dolores "Dodi" Brisbi (November 23, 1929ndash March 19, 2005), a graduate of Newcomb College in New Orleans, whom he met while he was attending Tulane. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1952. Treen joined the law firm of Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles. He was also a vice president of the Simplex Manufacturing Corporation of New Orleans from 1952 to 1957. Treen's eldest grandson Jason Neville was one of the founding members of the Green Party of Louisiana, and ran for Louisiana State Senate in 2003.

tates' Rights Party elector candidate, 1960

In 1960, Treen opposed the election of both Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy as president and ran as an elector for the Louisiana States' Rights Party, which supported Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. In addition to Treen, the States' Rights electors included former State Senator William M. Rainach of Claiborne Parish (a defeated 1959 gubernatorial candidate) and Plaquemines Parish Judge Leander H. Perez, who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church because of his outspoken opposition to racial integration. Another elector was the "Radical Right" figure Kent Courtney of New Orleans and later Alexandria. Still another was the anti-Long former Congressman Jared Y. Sanders, Jr., of Baton Rouge, son of former Governor Jared Y. Sanders, Sr.

Treen made it clear that his states' rights group was not affiliated with the National States' Rights Party, a group considered neo-Nazi, and, in Treen's words, "a disgrace to the term 'states rights.'" Treen's elector slate polled 169,572 ballots (21 percent) statewide. Jefferson Parish, Treen's residence, which would later support him in most of his campaigns, rejected the States' Righters and instead supported Kennedy with 51.8 percent. Nixon and Lodge electors received 230,980 (28.6 percent) in Louisiana, and Kennedy-Johnson won the state's ten electoral votes with 407,339 (50.4 percent).

One of the Kennedy electors was popular State Attorney General Jack P.F. Gremillion, a part of the Earl Kemp Long organization, who would fall to scandal a dozen years later. Another was Edmund Reggie of Crowley, Louisiana, a confidant to future Governor Edwin Edwards and later a father-in-law of Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Republican for Congress, 1962, 1964, and 1968

Treen joined the Republican Party (GOP), then still small in Louisiana, in 1962 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives against Second District Democrat Hale Boggs (1914–1972), of New Orleans though Treen's father had urged him instead to challenge Boggs for renomination in the Democratic primary. Treen, as a young Democrat in 1956, had supported then Republican congressional nominee George R. Blue in Blue's failed race against Boggs that year. Blue later switched to the Democrats and won election to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1964.

As mentioned above, Treen joined the Republican Party at a time when it was all but nonexistent in Louisiana. Under the circumstances, Treen was able to raise only $11,000 for his 1962 and polled 27,791 votes (32.8 percent) to Boggs' 57,395 (67.2 percent). His 33 percent in 1962 was some 10 percentage points higher than the 1960 Republican candidate, Elliot Ross Buckley, then of New Orleans and a cousin of the author William F. Buckley, Jr., had polled in is race against Boggs.

In 1964, Treen again challenged Boggs and improved on his earlier showing, helped by the popularity in Louisiana of the presidential candidacy of U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona and by Boggs' vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even as most Southern Democrats voted against it. In that campaign, Treen polled 62,881 (45 percent) to Boggs' 77,009 (55 percent). Treen probably would have done even better, and possibly even defeated Boggs, had it not been for Lyndon Johnson narrowly carrying New Orleans.

In 1966, Treen did not run for Congress; the GOP fielded the attorney Leonard L. Limes of New Orleans, who was badly defeated by Boggs. So, Treen tried again in 1968ndash his third and final campaign against Boggs, then the House majority whip. Boggs became majority leader in 1971 and was in line for Speaker. California Governor Ronald Reagan came into the district to campaign for Treen. This time, Treen almost defeated Boggs, receiving 77,633 votes (48.8 percent) to Boggs' 81,537 ballots (51.2 percent).

Treen attributed Boggs' victory to the supporters of former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, who ran for president on the American Independent Party ticket. Treen claimed that Wallace supporters "became very cool to my candidacy. We couldn't really believe they would support Boggs, but several Democratic organizations did come out for Wallace and Boggs, and he received just enough Wallace votes to give him the election." Republican officials seemed convinced that fraudulent votes in some Orleans Parish precincts benefited Boggs and that Treen may have actually won the election. There were rumors of election officials who cast votes for people who did not show up at the polls and signed for them in the precinct registers. Treen did not contest the election because he believed that a challenge before the majority-Democratic House would be futile.

First gubernatorial campaign, 1971-1972

Primary opposition from Robert M. Ross

Treen was challenged in the only Republican gubernatorial closed primary ever held in Louisiana. His opponent was Robert Max Ross (born 1933), who grew up in Mangham in Richland Parish in north Louisiana. Ross graduated from Mangham High School in 1951 and procured a bachelor of science degree in agriculture from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force and was thereafter engaged in the Vietnam War. After his military service, Ross returned to Mangham, where he was involved in a number of small businesses, including a mobile home park. In the 1971 primary, Treen carried the support of the party leadership, including chairman Charles C. de Gravelles of Lafayette. Ross polled few votes and was not heard from again until 1983, when he filed for the jungle primary for governor and polled a minuscule 7,625 ballots.

General election against Edwin Edwards

For the general election against Edwards held on February 1, 1972, Treen campaigned vigorously with billboards which said, "Make a Real Change," and television spots too, but he still lost. He polled 480,424 ballots (42.8 percent) to Edwards's 641,146 (57.2 percent) Treen carried twenty-seven parishes, mostly in the northern part of the state, with margins exceeding 60 percent in ten of those parishes. His tally was some 5 percentage points higher than what Charlton Lyons had scored in 1964 against John McKeithen. The confident and charismatic Edwards proclaimed that his administration would be an "Era of Excellence."

The "Shreveport Times" and its sister publication, the former "Monroe Morning World" (now "Monroe News Star"), analyzed the gubernatorial returns and concluded that Edwards received 202,055 black votes to only 10,709 for Treen. In that Edwards' statewide margin was 160,000, the survey concluded that blacks made the difference. The newspapers said that Treen received some 30,000 more votes from whites than did Edwards.

Election to Congress, 1972

After a decade of service on the Republican State Central Committee, Treen was named as the Louisiana Republican national committeeman for a two-year stint that began in 1972. His friend, James H. Boyce, a Baton Rouge industrialist, served as state party chairman while Treen was national committeeman. Over the years, Treen was the beneficiary of a group of dedicated party officials who worked on his behalf, such as National Committeeman Frank Spooner of Monroe and National Committeewoman Virginia Martinez of New Orleans. Martinez was also the treasurer of the national party conventions in 1980 and 1984. [http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/la/orleans/obits/1/m-07.txt]

In the fall of 1972, based in part on the strength of his losing gubernatorial race, Treen ran for the open Third District House seat vacated by conservative Democrat Patrick T. Caffery of New Iberia, the seat of Iberia Parish in south Louisiana. He was a surprise winner, helped in part by the popularity of the Nixon-Agnew ticket, which carried sixty-three of the sixty-four (exception: West Feliciana Parish) in traditionally Democratic Louisiana. Treen defeated Democrat J. Louis Watkins, Jr., of Houma, 71,090 (54 percent) to 60,521 (46 percent). His home parish of Jefferson helped to push Treen over the top with a 73 percent share of the vote.

Treen served in the congressional seat from 1973 until 1980, when he resigned to become governor. As a congressman, he voted right-of-center and usually in accord with his party. He was considered a team player among House Republicans. In 1974, Treen won a comfortable reelection in a nationally Democratic year. He defeated State Representative Charles Grisbaum, Jr., of Jefferson Parish, who became a close friend. Grisbaum later switched parties, and when Treen became governor in 1980, Grisbaum served as one of Treen's floor leaders in the Louisiana House. In 1975, Treen was joined by his first Louisiana Republican colleague in the U.S. House when Henson Moore (born 1939) won the Sixth Congressional District seat based about Baton Rouge and the Florida Parishes. Moore won the seat formerly held by the Democrat John Rarick. In 1976, Treen polled 73.3 percent in a race against a nominal Democratic opponent while the Democrat Jimmy Carter carried Louisiana over Gerald R. Ford.

Election as governor, 1979

In 1979, Treen filed for the jungle primary for governor. He finished with 297,469 votes, almost the exact numbers posted by Charlton Lyons in 1964 --284 fewer votes in fact than Lyons had in a two-candidate field. The second spot was hotly contested between Public Service Commissioner Louis Lambert of Ascension Parish (282,708 votes) and outgoing Lieutenant Governor James E. "Jimmy" Fitzmorris, Jr., of New Orleans (280,412 votes).

In the Treen-Lambert general election, the defeated Democratic candidates, including the disappointed Fitzmorris, House Speaker E. L. Henry of Jonesboro, and State Senators Paul Hardy of St. Martinville and Edgar G. "Sonny" Mouton, Jr., of Lafayette, all endorsed Treen. Their support helped him to defeat Lambert by 9,557 votes. Treen received 690,691 (50.3 percent) to Lambert's 681,134 (49.7 percent). He won only 22 parishes in victory, compared to 27 parishes in defeat in 1972. Only ten parishes that had voted for Treen in 1972 stuck with him in 1979. His strongest parishes in victory were all in south Louisiana: Plaquemines, Lafayette, St. Tammany, and Iberia.

In the losing 1972 campaign, all of Treen's strong parishes were in north Louisiana. The election of 1979 seemed to indicate that Lafayette would in time replace Shreveport as the new growth center of the Louisiana GOP. Treen's victory came from Republican inroads made in the Edwards stronghold of Acadiana, particularly Lafayette, Iberia, Terrebonne, Acadia, and St. Martin parishes, where the GOP nominee overcame large deficits from 1972 to win in 1979. Treen received only 3.1 percent of the black vote in victory, nearly identical to his black support in 1972 in defeat.

As governor, Treen made full use of his power to appoint members of state boards and commissions. He named the Alexandria businessman and philanthropist Roy O. Martin, Jr., to the Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry. He named John Henry Baker to the Louisiana Athletic Commission, since renamed the Louisiana State Boxing and Wrestling Commission. Martin and Baker were both delegates to the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit.

Treen reappointed Shreveport attorney Robert G. Pugh to the Louisiana Board of Regents created by the Constitution of 1974, which Pugh had helped to write. Pugh, who was an advisor to Treen on numerous issues, also presented a plan to preserve coastal wetlands through a tax on energy, but the legislature declined to approve it.

Treen appointed Robert DeBlieux, the outgoing mayor of Natchitoches as the state's chief preservation officer. DeBleiux had been instrumental in obtaining designation of the Natchitoches Historic District in the middle 1970s.

Accomplishments as governor

A few hallmarks of the Treen administration were the creation of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, a statewide high school in Natchitoches for the gifted, the establishment of the Department of Environmental Quality, and the appointment of more minorities to state positions.

Two Treen campaign confidants, John H. Cade, Jr., of Alexandria and William "Billy" Nungesser of New Orleans, worked as unpaid advisors in the administration. Cade had also managed Treen's successful congressional races in 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1978. He directed the successful 1979 gubernatorial race as well as the disastrous 1983 reelection attempt. Cade was the Republican state chairman from 1976 to 1978, and Nungesser chaired the GOP central committee as well from 1988 to 1992.

Treen obtained legislative passage of his "Professional Improvement Program" (or PIPs) for public school teachers, but the program was dropped in the next Edwards administration. PIPs allowed instructors to obtain small pay increases for taking college-level courses and/or attending intensive workshops to improve teaching performance. Problems developed when numerous teachers signed up only for classes with few academic requirements and shunned the more rigorous courses. Such action thereby negated the purpose of Treen's reform. Treen faced a heavily Democratic legislature, which many felt was taking orders from Edwards, sitting on the sidelines and waiting to run again in 1983.

During his gubernatorial term, Treen developed a reputation for indecision and micromanagement of details which frustrated supporters and angered adversaries. His failure to push for strong conservative policies and governmental reforms disappointed many Republican allies, as did his refusal to oust from his administration allies of former governor and his past and future rival, Democrat Edwin Edwards.

Treen also had a sharp critic in the lieutenant governor, Democrat Robert "Bobby" Freeman, a former state representative from Plaquemine in Iberville Parish. Freeman, considered a liberal by Louisiana standards, vowed to exercise gubernatorial powers, as permitted under the state constitution, whenever Treen left the state, either on business or for pleasure. In 1983, Freeman supported the return of Edwin Edwards as governor. Freeman, meanwhile, easily won reelection in 1983 by defeating Edwards' first lieutenant governor, Democrat-turned-Republican Jimmy Fitzmorris.

Governor Treen presided over reasumption of use of the capital punishment in Louisiana. Two convicts were executed by electric chair during his term.

Treen's wife "Dodi" was the first lady during his tenure. She was known for her graciousness and hospitality. She went out of her way to prepare the governor's mansion for the return of Edwin Edwards in 1984.

Facing Edwin Edwards again, 1983

Treen and Edwards were known as fierce rivals. During the 1983 election campaign, Edwards remarked that Treen is so slow that "it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes." Similarly, when asked for a scenario in which he could lose to Treen, Edwards replied nonchalantly, "If I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."

In 1983, Treen lost to Edwin Edwards, who secured the third of his four terms as governor. In that race, Treen won only a handful of parishes, including rural La Salle Parish in north Louisianandash scene of the Jena Six casendash which supported him in all three of his gubernatorial bids. Treen received 586,643 (36.3 percent) to Edwards' 1,008,282 (62.4 percent). Another 1.3 percent was cast for minor candidates, one of whom was Robert Ross, who had also been Treen's primary rival in 1971. Treen polled some 104,000 fewer votes in losing in 1983 than he had in winning in 1979. Edwards polled more than 400,000 votes beyond what Louis Lambert had received four years earlier.

Billy J. Guin, a Shreveport Republican leader who managed Treen's northwest Louisiana campaign in 1972, said that Treen refused to show favoritism to anyone and went out of his way to demonstrate fairness to his political opponents. "It got to the point that he would not take phone calls from his longtime supporters because he did not want to tell them 'No'. This of course alienated his own supporters and contributed to his defeat in 1983," Guin said. Guin further blamed the legislature, still largely under the domination of Edwards even during the Treen years, for contributing to Treen's defeat.

In addition to Treen's own defeat, several Democratic allies of the Republican governor were unseated in the state Senate, including Dan Richey of Ferriday in Concordia Parish and Edward G. "Ned" Randolph, Jr., of Alexandria in Rapides Parish.

Court appointment that never materialized

After Treen's defeat for governor, President Reagan nominated him for a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans created by the death of veteran Judge Albert Tate, Jr., but the appointment was blocked by Democratic senators. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD71E3EF930A15754C0A961948260 Ex-Louisiana Leader To Be Named a Judge] , "The New York Times", July 23, 1987] Instead, the Senate confirmed Reagan's second choice, attorney John Malcolm Duhé, Jr., a New Iberia, later Lafayette, lawyer, who was the son-in-law of New Orleans Congressman F. Edward Hebert and former law partner of retired 3rd District Congressman Patrick T. Caffery. Another of Congressman Caffery's former law partners, Eugene Davis, was named to the federal bench in 1976 by President Gerald Ford and now sits on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans as does John Duhe.

Earlier, Treen had been proposed as a judicial nominee to President Nixon, but Nixon never sent the nomination to the Senate. Many had long believed that Treen's temperament and talents were more suited to that of a judgeship than as an administrator or a legislator.

Nonetheless, Treen maintained political ambitions even after his landslide defeat for re-election as governor. In 1984, he filed candidacy papers to oppose U.S. Senator Bennett Johnston, but quickly withdrew from the race, apparently when polls showed the popular Johnston unbeatable even in a potentially national Republican year. Treen also considered, but did not make, gubernatorial bids in 1991, 1995, and 2003.

Treen endorses Edwards

In 1991, despite their differences, Treen endorsed Edwards' bid for a fourth term because the Republican choice in the state's jungle primary fell on former Ku Klux Klansman and state Representative David Duke, by then a perennial candidate who was troublesome to the GOP and the business community. Though Duke claimed to have ended his ties to the KKK, there was lingering suspicion that he was still in contact with neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, and other radical elements.

Ironically, Duke won his single victory for public office, a seat in the state House of Representatives, by defeating Treen's brother, John, a longtime Jefferson Parish Republican operative. Many Republicans blamed John Treen's lackluster campaign in that race for Duke's emergence as a major player in the 1990 U.S. Senate race, when he made a strong bid against incumbent Johnston, and in the 1991 gubernatorial election, when Duke stunned the political community by winning a runoff berth.

Comeback attempt fails by 1,812 votes

In 1999, Treen attempted a political comeback by running for the U.S. House. By this time, his home in Mandeville had been drawn into the 1st District. That seat being vacated by Representative Bob Livingston, who left Congress in a sex scandal amid the House vote on the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. This was the eighth election that Treen's name appeared on a Louisiana ballot for Congress.

In the special election with David Duke, also trying to score a comeback, and Republican state Representative David Vitter, Treen finished first with 36,719 votes (25 percent) to Vitter's 31,741 (22 percent) and Duke's 28,055 (19 percent). (Six other candidates, including New Orleans businessman Rob Couhig, shared the remaining 33 percent of the votes cast.) In the low-turnout special election runoff, Vitter defeated Treen, 61,661 ballots (51 percent) to 59,849 (49 percent), a margin of 1,812 votes. The race against Vitter was a bitter contest, with attacks flying back and forth. Many of Vitter's colleagues in the state legislature, including Republicans, supported Treen and charged that Vitter was difficult to work with as a legislator.

Duke ironically endorsed Treen over Vitter, perhaps to get back at Treen, hoping to defeat him, because Treen had supported Edwards against Duke in 1991. Vitter ultimately won the seat. In 2005, Vitter left the House to become the first Republican to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Louisiana since Reconstruction. It was as if David Treen had passed the GOP baton to the new generation guided by Vitter, who had not yet been born when Treen first appeared on a Louisiana ballot as a States' Rights Party presidential elector, much as Charlton Lyons had passed the baton to Treen in 1972.

Treen in retirement

At seventy-five, Treen declared that he would run for governor again in the 2003 election, but the party leadership coalesced behind young Bobby Jindal, who was born the year that Treen announced his first candidacy for governor. Treen withdrew from the pre-primary race and worked for Jindal's election. His last campaign consisted of his driving to candidate forums to present his views on state issues.

Ultimately, Jindal lost the general election to Democratic Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Lafayette (who actually lost Lafayette Parish in the election). A year later, Jindal filled the House seat that Vitter vacated to become senator, the same seat that Treen had lost in his last campaign for elective office. Treen even discussed running for governor again in 2007 but never filed candidacy papers. In 2007, Jindal won the governor's election outright in the primary.

Treen's old rival and reluctant ally, Edwin Edwards, meanwhile, went to prison for racketeering connected with his fourth gubernatorial term, the one that Treen had reluctantly blessed in preference to his greater nemesis, David Duke. Treen has urged President George W. Bush to pardon Edwards or to commute his sentence to the time already served.

There has also been speculation that Edwards actually voted for Treen in the 1979 election because he preferred to face Treen again in 1983, rather than the other Democratic possibilities who were running for governor against Treen. Earl Long similarly often quietly voted for the "anti-Long" gubernatorial candidate himself to set up a potential new governor for failure. Earl Long would then run for governor again four years later against the "failed" (in Long's eyes) governor's stand-in. That was before Louisiana governors could succeed themselves in office.

There are rumors that, with David Vitter's involvement in the Deborah Jeane Palfrey sex scandal, Governor Blanco would appoint Treen to the senate seat if Vitter retires and vacates the seat. Such a decision would now fall to Blanco's successor, Jindal.

Treen has been a widower since the death of his wife Dodi in 2005. He has three children, including Dr. David C. Treen, Jr., a 1984 graduate of the Tulane Medical School who practices in Jefferson Parish.

Treen is a distant relative of Robert Treen, co-inventor of the MIDI BrightEye.

In 1997, Treen was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.

Aborted 2008 Congressional bid

Treen announced on October 23, 2007, that he would be a candidate in the March 8 special election to succeed Bobby Jindal, who was elected governor. He cited his experience and political ties in Washington, D.C. as reasons for his candidacy. [ [http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-5/119311923630980.xml&coll=1 Treen to seek Jindal's 1st District House seat] , October 23] , 2007]

Treen lost a race for this same seat in a 1999 special election to current U.S. Senator David Vitter. Four Republicans filed for the seat, and two faced an April 5 runoff election restricted to registered party members: State Representative Tim Burns and State Senator Steve Scalise. The winner faces Democrat Gilda Reed, Ph.D., a favorite of organized labor and the party's constituent groups.

Treen withdrew from consideration on January 28. [ [http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/treen_passes_on_congressional.html Campaign watch: Two quit race for Jindal seat in U.S. House] , "The New Orleans Times-Picayune", January 28, 2008]

References

* Grover Rees III, "Dave Treen of Louisiana", (Baton Rouge: Moran Publishing, 1979).

External links

* [http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/tabid/408/Default.aspx Official Biography] State of Louisiana
*CongBio|T000362
* [http://www.cityofwinnfield.com/museum.html City of Winnfield - Political Museum]
* [http://www.mcl.tulane.edu/news/Tulane_Medicine/Spring99/philanthropy.html Former Governor Aids Medical Students] from "Tulane Medicine"
* [http://www.jfk-online.com/jpsgwnol.html General Edwin Walker's New Orleans Links]