Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields announced Tuesday that he would run for Louisiana's revamped 6th Congressional District, a majority Black constituency that would have favored Joe Biden 59-39. But Fields, who previously served in the House from 1993 to 1997, is likely to face serious intra-party opposition, and his would-be foes already have a few avenues to attack him.
Fields' redistricting saga, which we detailed at length in a recent post, resulted in him winning a skinny Z-shaped constituency in 1992, a win that made him only the second African American to represent Louisiana since Reconstruction. Fields, who prevailed in a different seat in 1994, badly lost the following year's race for governor to Republican Mike Foster, and the Democrat retired in 1996 after the newest incarnation of his 4th District became unwinnable.
However, one of the most infamous moments of Fields' still unfolding career was still ahead of him. In 1997, the FBI recorded him meeting with former Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards and placing $20,000 in cash into his pockets. Edwards ultimately was convicted of extortion and money laundering in 2000, but Fields was never charged with anything.
Fields regained elected office later in 1997 by rejoining the state Senate, where he'd served before he was elected to Congress, and he represented Baton Rouge until he was termed out a decade later. He waged another bid to return to the chamber in 2019, but he faced renewed questions about his interaction with Edwards during his campaign against his fellow Democrat, state Rep. Patricia Smith. "If I had done something wrong or illegal, they would have indicted me," Fields said, to which his opponent responded, "It is up to the people on whether that is an answer they accept or do not accept."
Voters in the 14th Senate District decided Fields' answer was acceptable enough, as they backed him 53-47 in the all-party primary. The 1997 incident vanished from Fields' Wikipedia page in 2022 when a user named "Sendist14" deleted the section. Constitutional law expert Quinn Yeargain, who uncovered this on Wednesday, notes that this account has only ever edited Fields' page.
Fields' detractors may also have a new reason to take offense with him. The legislator, writes Nola.com's Tyler Bridges, led a formidable program during the 2015 and 2019 gubernatorial elections that turned out Black voters for Democrat John Bel Edwards (no relation to Edwin Edwards). But Bridges writes that, while Fields endorsed Shawn Wilson in last year's contest to replace Edwards, he was "widely believed by political insiders" to have done little to help his fellow Democrat become the state's first Black governor since Reconstruction.
One person who seems to agree with that assessment is the Republican who decisively beat Wilson, Jeff Landry. Bridges wrote earlier this month that the new governor used court-ordered redistricting to aid his "political friend" and punish Rep. Garret Graves, a fellow Republican who tried to undermine Landry's campaign. (Graves insists he plans to seek reelection, but he hasn't said where.)
But while Fields is the first prominent Democrat to launch a bid for the new 6th, a sprawling district that closely resembles the sprawling constituency he served from 1995 through 1997, others have publicly expressed interest.
The maybe column includes state Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, former Alexandria Mayor Jeff Hall, former state Sen. Greg Tarver, and activist Gary Chambers. "If they run a poll today, I guarantee I’m one or two," said Chambers, who came in a strong third in the 2021 special election for the old 2nd District before badly losing statewide to GOP Sen. John Kennedy the following year.
Tarver, for his part, was the subject of a 2022 piece by Bridges that includes what may be the most jaw-dropping description of a politician we've ever seen:
A seasoned backroom dealmaker who has never lost any of his 12 races, Tarver was shot by his second wife, who claimed she did so in self-defense because he was beating her. He was tried and acquitted on corruption charges in the highly publicized trial two decades ago that sent former Gov. Edwin Edwards to prison. His current wife earned $600,000 in contracting work from riverboat casinos in Shreveport that several years earlier Tarver had helped bring to the city. Though he is widely believed to live outside the city limits, Tarver has been registered to vote at his mortuary in town, where, he says, he likes to sleep in a casket.
Tarver's winning streak came to an end that year when he lost the race for mayor of Shreveport to Republican Tom Arceneaux.
Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and state Sen. Sam Jenkins, meanwhile, made it clear to the Shreveport Times they won't run. This will be the last election cycle where Louisiana uses the all-party primary for congressional contests thanks to a new law that, starting in 2026, requires the state to hold traditional party primaries for these and a select few other offices.
P.S. If Fields wins, he'd surpass Maryland Democrat Kweisi Mfume as the sitting House member with the longest break between his two stints in the chamber. Mfume resigned in 1996 to lead the NAACP, but he returned following a 2020 special election to succeed the late Elijah Cummings. The all-time record is held by a 19th century Maryland Democrat named Philip Francis Thomas, who left the House in 1841 and returned in 1875.
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