Democrat former Rep. Cleo Fields, who also served
14 years in the state Senate, will
hold a fundraiser soon to reclaim his legislative post. Removed via term
limits in 2008, his successor Democrat state Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb must vacate for the
same reason.
Despite nearly two decades in office, the most
lasting image of Fields has him accepting
an envelope with $20,000 in cash from Democrat former Gov. Edwin
Edwards, who would later go to prison over charges presumably involving the
source of those funds. Fields never faced charges and never has explained the
transaction.
That hanging over his head alone might make any comeback attempt futile. Except this is Louisiana, and in 2011 another black Democrat showed how he could come out of the electoral wilderness despite something like this hanging over his head.
Over a dozen years earlier, Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver joined Edwards in the docket
as a conspirator in Edwards’ scheme, steering a gaming license illegally. Although
Tarver beat the rap, the highly-publicized trial only fed suspicions that
Tarver liked to play fast and loose with the rules when it came to shuttling
government largesse to allies, including his family. Perhaps feeling now too
politically wounded, he declined to run for a sixth term in 2003.
At the time, and continuing in diluted form to the
present, in Shreveport’s black community competition for political power
essentially came down to two factions, Tarver’s alliance and that of former
state Rep. Alphonse Jackson. So, when voters made his successor Jackson’s daughter
Lydia, that certainly made his exit more bitter.
Even as Tarver had gained a checkered reputation
in office, he never had come off as a strict liberal ideologue. He would
compromise with Republicans to make deals that bring home the bacon. By
contrast, Jackson legislated as an ideological purist, most obnoxiously and mistakenly
insinuating
that racism lay behind Republican actions.
In 2011, Tarver smartly took advantage of that. He
must have figured eight years out had rehabilitated him enough and that
Jackson, in her second term up against Republican former Gov. Bobby
Jindal, had become increasingly shrill and because of that a less effective
legislator. Knowing the GOP minority in the district could swing the election
his way, he presented himself more moderately and made her the only Senate
incumbent to lose reelection.
And, he has proven himself flexible, even with Democrat
Gov. John Bel Edwards
in office that could afford an excuse to vote more ideologically. His Louisiana Legislature Log score of 45 over
the past three years has made him one of the least liberal/populist Democrats
in the Senate, and the least of black Democrats.
So, could Fields pull off the same? Perhaps, but
less likely. The district he formerly served does have about the same proportion
of Republicans as has Tarver’s.
But’s he no political moderate by any stretch of
the imagination, much more a liberal automaton like Jackson. And his likely
opponent, bailing from the House because of term limits Democrat state Rep. Pat
Smith, is about joined at the hip with him ideologically. So, he won’t have the
ability to court GOP voters and backing as did Tarver.
Still, Fields doesn’t face an incumbent and he’s never
lost a race for that seat. It may come down to whether enough voters can get out
of their heads that image from over twenty years past.
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