Buddy Roemer

 ( 1943 Births ) 

Roemer was reared on the family's Scopena plantation near Bossier City. He attended public schools and graduated in 1960 as valedictorian of Bossier High School. In 1964, he graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. In 1967, he received an MBA in finance from Harvard Business School.

Following college, Roemer returned to Louisiana to work in his father's computer business and later founded two banks. He was elected in 1972 as a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention held in 1973. Among the Shreveport-area delegates who served with Roemer was his future gubernatorial advisor Robert G. Pugh, future U.S. District Judge Tom Stagg, and former Louisiana State Representative Frank Fulco.

Roemer's father had been in 1971 the campaign manager for Edwin Edwards and became commissioner of administration during Edwards' first term as governor. Buddy Roemer worked on the Edwards campaign as a regional leader and later started a political consulting firm.

In 1980, Roemer and Wilson again challenged Leach in the primary; also running was State Senator Foster Campbell of Bossier Parish. In another close race, Wilson finished in third place, Roemer ranked second, and Leach led the field with 29 percent. In the general election, with the support of Wilson,"Wilson endorses Roemer", Minden Press-Herald, September 19, 1980, p. 1 Roemer handily defeated Leach, who had the support of Campbell, many other state legislators, and former Governor Edwin Edwards, 64 to 36 percent.

After his 1980 election victory, Roemer won re-election without opposition in 1982, 1984, and 1986.

Roemer launched a fiery campaign against Edwards, calling for a "Roemer Revolution", where he would "scrub the budget", overhaul the education system, reform campaign finance rules, and slash the state bureaucracy by "bricking up the top three floors of the Education Building." Perhaps the key moment in the 1987 race came at a forum among the candidates. As usual, the main topic of discussion was Edwin Edwards. His challengers were asked, in succession, if they would consider endorsing Edwards in the general election if they didn't make it to the runoff election. The candidates hedged, particularly Secretary of State Jim Brown. The last candidate to speak was Roemer: "No, we've got to slay the dragon. I would endorse anyone but Edwards." The next day, as political commentator John Maginnis put it, Brown was explaining his statement while Roemer was ordering "Slay the Dragon" buttons. Boosted by his endorsement as the 'good government candidate' by nearly every newspaper in the state, Roemer stormed from last place in the polls and on election night, overtook Edwards and placed first in the primary election, with 33 percent of the vote compared with Edwards' 28 percent.

Edwards, recognizing he faced certain defeat, made the surprise announcement on election night that he would concede the race to Roemer. By withdrawing, Edwards denied Roemer the opportunity to build a governing coalition in the general election race, thus denying him a decisive majority victory. The defeated Edwards virtually ceded control of the state to Roemer even before the inauguration.

In October 1989, voters rejected a number of Roemer tax initiatives but approved a State constitutional amendment for transportation improvements."Roemer's loss, victgory are state's top stories," Minden Press-Herald, December 31, 1989, p. 1

Facing a $1.3 billion deficit in the state budget, his first job was eliminating the deficit. Roemer's first chief of staff, Len Sanderson, Jr., who had been a journalist with the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, had run Roemer's gubernatorial campaign and was a close confidant. He represented the reform-minded agenda that had redefined Louisiana politics during Roemer's first session. According to Ron Gomez, Roemer's secretary of natural resources and a former legislator from Lafayette, the LSU-educated Sanderson "with his blond hair spilling to below shoulder length, stepped on so many toes and got into so many faces that he didn't make it into the second year."Ron Gomez (2000), My Name Is Ron And I'm a Recovering Legislator: Memoirs of a Louisiana State Representative, Lafayette, Louisiana: Zemog Publishing, p. 171, After another interim appointment, Roemer named former State Representative P.J. Mills of Shreveport as chief of staff, to, in the words of Gomez, "bring some maturity and experience to the office."Ron Gomez, p. 168 Other sources maintain that Sanderson was an effective chief of staff who left office solely to rehabilitate from a tragic automobile accident. The majority of reform legislation was passed during the first months of the Roemer administration while Sanderson was chief of staff. Many said that Sanderson's departure could have been a turning point when the "revolutionary character" of the administration moved from the successful reform platform toward a more traditional political agenda.

Roemer also hired the political consultant and Public opinion Elliott Stonecipher of Shreveport.

Roemer called a special session of the legislature to push an ambitious tax and fiscal reform program for state and local governments. He vowed to slash spending, abolish programs, and close state-run institutions. Voters rejected his proposals in a statewide constitutional referendum.

As governor, Roemer worked to boost lagging teacher pay and toughened laws on campaign finance. State employees and retirees received small pay increases too, the first in many years of austere state budgets. Roemer was also the first governor in recent state history to put a priority on protecting the environment. His secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality, Paul Templet, repeatedly angered Louisiana's politically powerful oil and gas industry. The legislature, dominated by supporters of Edwards, repeatedly opposed Roemer's initiatives.

State Representative Bruce M. Bolin of Minden, later a state district court judge, supported Roemer's early reform efforts: "the state can't be everything to everybody, and the new budget reflects that." Bolin also correctly predicted that Roemer would in time run for president, but Roemer did not seek the White House for another twenty-four years. To make a presidential run, Bolin said that Roemer "needs no political baggage" and that Louisiana "must be viewed as a progressive state" for him to be able to accomplish that goal."Bolin: 'Roemer's aspiration can only help state'", Minden Press-Herald, May 17, 1988, p. 1 Edward J. Steimel, executive director of the pro-business lobby, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, also applauded Roemer's early reform efforts. Business, said Steimel, achieved half of its goals in the 1988 legislative session. Another session of equal outcome, he added, could make the state competitive with its neighbors within a year."Steimel applauds Roemer's efforts", Minden Press-Herald, July 13, 1988, p. 1

Also in 1989, the Louisiana Board of Appeals recommended a pardon for political prisoner and victim of extreme racism during the racial integration of Louisiana's public schools, Gary Tyler. Notwithstanding Governor Roemer's own father, Charles E. Roemer, II having been a strong advocate for African-American Civil Rights in his own political career in Louisiana, Governor Roemer refused to consider a pardon for Tyler in a racially charged environment where David Duke was gaining popularity and rising to prominent political power. Gary Tyler had been in prison 14 years as of 1989, and as a result of Governor Roemer's decision to refuse to consider the appeal, he would go on to serve an additional 27 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary before finally being released in 2016.

In 1990, Roemer vetoed a bill – authored by Democratic Senator Mike Cross and supported by the influential Republican Senator Fritz H. Windhorst of Gretna and state Senate President, Allen Bares of Lafayette. Bares had been supported by Roemer as Senate president over Sydney B. Nelson of Shreveport, who had been politicking behind the scenes for months for the position. After two years, senators removed Bares from the position and returned previous president Sammy Nunez of Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, it was seen as a striking rebuke to Roemer.

The Cross bill sought to ban abortion in cases of rape and incest and imposed fines of up to $100,000 and ten years imprisonment on the practitioners. Roemer declared the legislation incompatible with the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. His vetoRoemer vetoes abortion bill", Minden Press-Herald, July 27, 1990, p. 1 alienated large numbers of his socially conservative electoral base. The legislature subsequently overrode Roemer's veto with an even larger margin than in the original bill. State Representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge, one of the leading abortion foes in the legislature, said the prohibition regarding rape and incest is needed to prevent women from filing false claims in such matters. State Senator Sydney Nelson said that he opposed the abortion ban because of the problems of unwanted children and defective births."Abortion: Roemer vows veto, Jenkins, an override", Minden Press-Herald, June 28, 1990, p. 3 Nevertheless, in 1991, United States District Judge Adrian G. Duplantier of New Orleans, a former state senator, ruled that the measure was in conflict with Roe v. Wade and the 1991 companion ruling Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v. Casey."Louisiana's anti-abortion law is ruled unconstitutional", Minden Press-Herald, September 23, 1992, p. 1

Roemer came under fire for hiring a friend to teach positive thinking to his staff. Staffers were asked to wear rubber bands on their wrists and were told to snap a band whenever they had negative thoughts. Earlier, in 1989, Roemer had separated from his second wife, the former Patti Crocker, with the divorce final in 1990, after seventeen years of marriage.

The Sterling Group specializes in international trade of plastic raw materials between the United States and Mexico. Roemer served as the chairman of the board and Traigle served as president. Roemer was a strong supporter of improving Louisiana and U.S. trade with Mexico. Traigle bought Roemer out of the company in 1997.