Fritz Windhorst

Fritz Heinrich Windhorst
Louisiana State Senator for Jefferson and Orleans parishes
In office 1972–1992
Preceded by	William J. Guste
Succeeded by	Francis C. Heitmeier
Born	January 31, 1935 New Orleans, Louisiana
Died	August 27, 2023 (aged 88) New Orleans, Louisiana
Resting place	Saint Joseph Abbey in Saint Benedict, Louisiana
Political party	Democrat-turned-Republican (1985)
Spouse(s)	(1) Missing (2) Barbara Turner Windhorst (married c. 1986-2023, his death)
Children	Judith Windhorst Cahill Stephanie Hildebrandt Judge Stephen J. Windhorst
Residence	Gretna, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
Alma mater	Redemptorist High School Loyola Law School (both in New Orleans)
Occupation	Attorney
Religion	Roman Catholic
Notes: Windhorst voted as a conservative in both social and economic matters while he served from 1972 to 1992 as a state senator for suburban Jefferson Parish. After Windhorst's retirement, a Democrat won Windhorst’s state Senate seat, and the district became increasingly African American in composition. As Windhorst left the Senate, his son, Stephen Windhorst, began a nine-year legislative career in the Louisiana House of Representatives in a different district, and was elected judge in October 2000.

Fritz Heinrich Windhorst (January 31, 1935 — August 27, 2023) was an attorney in Gretna in suburban Jefferson Paris outside New Orleans, Louisiana who served from 1972 to 1992 as a state senator for Jefferson and Orleans parishes, originally District 8, and later District 7. Windhorst was a conservative Democrat from 1972 to 1985, when he switched to Republican affiliation. His son, Stephen J. Windhorst, served as a Republican state representative from 1992 to 2000, when he resigned to accept a state court judgeship.

Family background

Windhorst was born in the Irish Channel section of New Orleans to a Roman Catholic couple of German and Italian extraction, Richard E. Windhorst, Sr. (1913–1985), and the former Jenny Mary Motto (1916–2001), a native of Donaldsonville, in Ascension Parish near the capital city of Baton Rouge. She was the daughter of Carmello Motto and the former Angelina Latino. His sister was Angela Windhorst Tripkovich (1938–1999) of the unincorporated city of Metairie in Jefferson Parish. Windhorst's only brother, Richard Edward "Bubba" Windhorst, Jr. (c. 1937-2024), had a long career with the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, first as a deputy clerk, then in 1992 he became the Clerk of Court.

Windhorst graduated from the Roman Catholic Redemptorist High Schoo] in New Orleans. At the time of his death, Windhorst was married to the former Barbara E. Turner (born c. 1941). The two have been active in civic and community affairs.

Conservative senator

Windhorst obtained his law degree by taking night classes at Loyola Law School. He taught himself to become a great orator, modeled after his hero Winston Churchill. From 1955 to 1961, Windhorst worked as court clerk and court crier for his mentor, the Honorable Herbert William Christenberry (1897-1975) of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. As chairman of the National Association of United States Commissioners Legislative Committee from 1962 to 1969 (the youngest person ever in that position), Windhorst led the drafting and passage of the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968. In 1972, Windhorst was elected to the Louisiana State Senate by defeating an incumbent Democrat and served for twenty years. He represented the Westbank area of Greater New Orleans and was the first Louisiana legislator with a district including both Orleans and Jefferson parishes. After just his first legislative session in 1972, the Alliance for Good Government named Windhorst its first "Legislator of the Year." In 1985, Windhorst joined the Republican Party. During a 1986 meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Windhorst got Reagan to help him propose to his second wife, the former Barbara Turner. Reagan recalled the Windhorsts in a personal letter. Windhorst was named a Catholic knight in the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchure of Jerusalem in 2011 and was awarded the Order of St. Louis IX Medallion in 2015.

Senator Windhorst worked to restrict access to abortion in his state. On June 27, 1990, near the end of his Senate tenure, the Louisiana State Legislature penned the strongest pro-life law in the nation, sponsored by Democratic Senator Mike Cross of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish. Because it provided no exceptions for impregnations stemming from rape and incest, the measure was vetoed by Governor Buddy Roemer, a Democrat, who switched parties the following year. The state House overrode Roemer’s veto, but the state Senate fell three votes short of the required two-thirds majority to enact the measure over Roemer’s objection.

Windhorst said that the bill was an outgrowth of the failure of the United States Supreme Court to clarify regulations by the states on abortion: "We are here today because the U.S. Supreme Court did not have the courage or the resolve to be decisive." The Louisiana bill included an 1855 law that made abortion a felony punishable by imprisonment; the sole exception permitted was to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency.

Windhorst also voted with economic conservatives in the Senate. In a special session in 1988, he joined his colleagues in giving newly elected Governor Roemer the power to slash as much as 20 percent from department budgets, abolish or suspend certain programs, and to close institutions if necessary to keep the state financially solvent. Windhorst said that the powers transferred to Roemer were necessary: "It is either this or a much greater evil. If we don't like what he does, we can undo it during the regular session."

Throughout his life, Windhorst built geographical, political, and social bridges and advanced the economic and political power of the Westbank of Greater New Orleans.

Other political matters

Windhorst’s later Senate tenure corresponded with the administration of New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, the second African-American to head the municipal government in New Orleans. Windhorst described the Democrat Barthelemy, originally elected with considerable white support, accordingly: “Sidney doesn’t whine or complain when things go badly…He doesn’t threaten people who cross him. Just having him as mayor has sharply reduced the anti-New Orleans feelings in the legislature.”

Windhorst was a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention which met in New Orleans to nominate the George Herbert Walker Bush and J. Danforth Quayle ticket.

When Windhorst retired in 1991, two-term Democratic State Representative Francis C. Heitmeier was elected to the position with 55 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan blanket primary against five opponents. The lone Republican candidate hoping to succeed Windhorst finished with fewer than 17 percent of the ballots. Because African-American influence in the Westbank increased throughout the 1990s, Heitmeier won with 58 percent of the vote in the 1995 primary and faced no opponents in 1999 and 2003. Heitmeier was term-limited in 2007.

Windhorst was a member of the West Bank Rotary International.