CC 73 and the Birth of the Modern Louisiana Two- Party System
| Author | Wayne Parent; Jeremy Mhire |
| Position | Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University |
Chair, Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University.
Graduate Student, Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University.
The 1973 Louisiana Constitutional Convention ("CC 73") happened at a significant moment in Louisiana's political history. It occurred at precisely the same time that Louisiana's present competitive two-party system was born. While the emergence of a two-party system in Louisiana was slow, even when compared to those of the other formerly Democratic dominant states in the Deep South, it was dramatic and has had lasting effects. CC 73 helped define the coalitions that formed the basis of our present competitive two-party system. This article will first place the constitutional convention into the temporal context of this dynamic political period in Louisiana and the American South. Then it will describe how the specific coalitions that formed in the convention became concrete precursors to our present party system and speculate on the difference it has made to present day Louisiana politics.
After the Civil War, Louisiana, like all Southern states, entered a period of absolute supremacy by the Democratic Party that lasted until the time of the 1973 Louisiana Constitutional Convention. The reasons for the domination of the Democratic party bear explanation and are instructive in understanding the changes that finally loosened the grip of the party. Michael Perman describes three post Civil War stages of Democratic Party ascendency.1 In the first, Reconstruction, newly re-enfranchised Confederates identified the Republican Party "as illegitimate on the ground that it was alien in origin and personnel and hostile in purpose."2 From the 1870s to the 1890s "the Democrats still did not engage in genuine inter-party electoral competition, as is expected of normal political parties. Instead, they continued to delegitimize the opposition that consisted, variously, of Republicans, Independents, Readjusters, Greenbackers, and Populists."3 The final period at the turn of the twentieth century was the most radical and effective. Using a variety of means to disenfranchise citizens who might support their opposition, the Democratic Party "decided quite simply to eliminate the black vote altogether-and, in the process, a lot of white voters too."4 Perman summarizes the reasons for Democratic domination, writing: "[a]s the South's ruling elite, and its system of racial oppression, found itself threatened, not only during the war, but for the following 100 years, this fear of party became a mind-set that was increasingly institutionalized until party in any meaningful sense had virtually evaporated by the beginning of the twentieth century."5
The results of this Democratic domination were stunningly effective and enduring. In 1945, no Republican had ever been elected to the United States Senate from any of the eleven states that comprised the old Confederacy. There were no Republican Governors in the South. Only two of the one hundred twenty-two members of the United States House of Representatives from these states were Republican. While there were a few instances where Republican Presidential candidates had carried some of the border states during that time period, no Republican Presidential candidate had ever carried any of the states known as the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina). The South was totally and thoroughly a one-party region.
By the 1970s, the Democratic grip on the South and Louisiana began to loosen. In 1980, Republicans had returned to the South with a vengeance. Republican Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan had overwhelmed native Southerner President Jimmy Carter in every Southern state except his home state of Georgia. Republicans were winning contests for the United States Senate, House of Representatives and Governor. Louisiana was certainly not immune to this Republican revolution. Republican Congressman David Treen was elected to Congress in 1972 and elected Governor in 1979. In 1976 and 1977 Republicans Henson Moore and Bob Livingston were elected to Louisiana's Congressional Delegation. Louisiana had voted for the Republican nominee for President in 1956, 1964, 1972 and 1980. By the end of the 1970s, Republicans started on an irreversible path to parity with the Democrats. Today, a Republican is in his second term as governor, five of the seven members of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation are Republicans, the Republican nominee for President easily won the state in a tightly contested presidential election and Republicans are winning offices at every level of state and local government.
How did it happen? Democratic dominance was linked closely to white supremacy. When the Democrats embraced the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Republicans were destined to gain support from the backlash. While the initial breakthrough at the presidential level was in 1952 when Republican Dwight Eisenhower beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the race for the presidency, the 1964 election had a more lasting effect.
In 1964, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's opposition to Civil Rights legislation carried him to victory in the state. The Goldwater victory was a breakthrough because it included poor and working-class whites as part of the Republican coalition; these voters would be critical to Republican victories that followed. In the three decades since that election, Republicans have periodically won statewide office and consistently won seats in Congress. Although the racial issues of the 1960s gave Republicans their first major opportunities in Louisiana, two other factors allowed for more solid long-term gains.6 The economic message of the Republicans appealed to the growing suburban white middle classes in Louisiana; the conservative social agenda articulated by the Republicans appealed to many Protestants in North Louisiana and pro-life Catholics in South Louisiana.7
These racial, economic and cultural coalitions were forming in the 1973 Louisiana Constitutional Convention. In the early 1970s the Democratic Party was transforming and reconstituting itself. The Republican Party would follow in the late 1970s by building enduring coalitions from those not in the reformulated Democratic base. After the 1965 Voting Rights Act, African-Americans began registering in large numbers throughout the South and voting consistently for the Democratic Party, a party that was viewed by African-Americans as the party that created voting opportunities. A black-white coalition proved quite successful in these initial stages of party realignment and several Democratic southern politicians were elected during these years. These "New South" politicians that embraced a biracial coalition were the darlings of the national news media. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Dale Bumpers, Reuben Askew, John West, William Waller and Edwin Edwards were all part of this breed of Southern Democrats. Edwards, aware of his role, said in his 1972 inaugural speech, "To...
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