Gerald Long
| Gerald E. Long | |
 | |
Louisiana State Senator
for District 31 (Grant, Natchitoches, Rapides, Red River, Sabine, and Winn parishes) | |
| In office January 14, 2008 – January 13, 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Beth Mizell |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Louie Bernard |
President Pro Tempore of
the Louisiana State Senate | |
| In office January 11, 2016 – January 13, 2020 | |
| Born | July 9, 1944 Winnfield, Louisiana |
| Political party | Democrat-turned- Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Rose Marie Landry Long (married 1966-2017, her death) |
| Relations | Jimmy Dale Long, Sr. (brother) |
| Children | Andrea Long Phillips Pamela Long Jordan |
| Residence | Natchitoches, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Winnfield Senior High School |
| Religion | Southern Baptist |
Gerald E. Long (born July 9, 1944), is a rare Republican convert in the Democratic Long political dynasty in Louisiana. Specifically, he is a third cousin of the late Governors Huey Pierce Long, Jr., and Earl Kemp Long.
Long was elected on October 20, 2007, to fill the seat in the Louisiana State Senate for District 31, which includes Grant and Natchitoches parishes and parts of Rapides, Red River, Sabine, and Winn parishes. Long and former state Representative Rick Nowlin are the first two Republicans since Reconstruction to represent Natchitoches Parish in the Louisiana legislature. Nowlin was subsequently defeated in a revised districting plan in 2011 but rebounded the next year as the first elected president of Natchitoches Parish, a post he no longer holds.
After he won his third Senate term in 2015 without opposition, Long's colleagues elected him as Senate President Pro Tempore.[1]
Contents
Long political dynasty
Most Longites remained in the Democratic Party over the years. In addition to Gerald Long, another Republican convert was the late Secretary of State Walter Fox McKeithen (1946-2005), who switched parties and won four statewide elections as a Republican. Fox McKeithen's father, the late Governor John J. McKeithen, was a leading Long figure in the 1960s and 1970s, but the McKeithens were not relatives of the Longs.
Long and his twin brother, Carroll Long, were the last of eight sons born to Reuben Ray Long (1900-1966) and the former Ruby Smith (1906-1984). Ruby Smith's brother, P. K. Smith, later an automobile dealer in Winnfield, was a member of the Louisiana House from Winn Parish from 1960 to 1964. P. K. Smith's son, Mike Smith, served twelve years in the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from 1996 to 2008. Term-limited, Mike Smith preceded his cousin, Gerald Long, in the District 31 Senate seat.
Reuben Long was originally a poor Winn Parish sharecropper. Long's paternal grandparents were Thomas Jefferson Long (1861-1948) and the former Mary Ella Wright (186-1902). Gillis Long, a former U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 8th congressional district, disbanded in 1993, was also a paternal grandson of Thomas Jefferson Long and hence Gerald Long's first cousin. An older brother of Gerald Long, Jimmy Dale Long, Sr. (1931-2016), served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1968 to 2000 as a Democrat from Natchitoches. In that capacity, Jimmy Long became known as a leading legislative authority on education, an area which would also become important in Gerald Long's career as an educator and a motivational speaker. Another brother was William Jackson "Bill" Long (1940-2004), Ph.D., a former planning commission executive in Alexandria in Rapides Parish, who was the publisher of "The Louisiana Business Journal" and a former weekly newspaper in Pineville known as The Red River Journal. Bill Long also owned Sunbelt Research Corporation. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1983, having lost to fellow Democrat Robert Freeman. Gerald Long was a distant cousin of former Pineville Mayor Floyd W. Smith, Jr. whose mother was a Long. Floyd Smith spent his later years near his native Winnfield in Winn Parish.
Education and work history
Like his brothers, Long was educated in the Winn Parish public schools. In 1962, he graduated from Winnfield Senior High School and entered Northwestern State University in Natchitoches on an football scholarship. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in education in 1966, the year that his father died. For the next four years, Long (1) taught at Houma Junior High School in Houma in Terrebonne Parish in south Louisiana and (2) taught and coached at Leesville High School in Leesville in Vernon Parish in western Louisiana.[2]
Long left teaching to become an insurance agent, a representative of the State Farm Company. He is a lifetime member of the President’s Club, which is earned by fewer than 2 percent of insurance agents nationally. While in the insurance business, Long was for nine years a volunteer for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Northwestern State University. FCA, a national organization devoted to college, high school and junior-high students, attempts to instill moral and spiritual values in young people to prepare them for their future. In July 1999, Long retired from business to serve full-time as the FCA representative for Rapides, Grant, Winn, Natchitoches, Sabine, and five other parishes.[2]
In the summer of 1966, Long married the former Rose Landry, who died in 2017. The marriage produced three children, Andrea Long Phillips, Pamela Long Jordan, and Richard Gerald Long (born 1976). Long has spoken before schools, civic organizations, churches, and senior citizens organizations. He has also been an interim Baptist pastor for four churches in the Natchitoches area.[3] With is second wife, Paula, Gerald Long is now retired in Ruston, Louisiana.[4]
Election to the state senate
In the 2007 campaign, Long defeated the Democratic State Representative Taylor Townsend, a nephew and law partner of former State Senator Donald G. Kelly of Natchitoches. Townsend had unseated Jimmy Long in the 1999 nonpartisan blanket primary for the Louisiana House. Townsend, who ran to the political "left" of Long, did not seek a third term in the House but instead sought the open Senate seat vacated by Gerald Long's cousin, Mike Smith, a businessman in Winnfield.[5]
Long procured 20,609 votes (54 percent) to Townsend's 17,699 (46 percent). Long won five of the six parishes in the district, having lost only in Natchitoches, the home of both candidates. He even won in Red River Parish, one of only two north Louisiana parishes that did not support the successful Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bobby Jindal, in the October 20 primary.[6]
Potential gubernatorial bid
Long was elected without opposition in 2011 to a second term in the state Senate. In May 2012, he indicated in an interview with The Piney Woods Journal in Winnfiels that hewas considering a gubernatorial bid of his own in 2015, when Jindal was term-limited. However, he never sought the governorship. In that interview Long criticized a bill submitted by then State Senator Elbert Guillory, an Opelousas Democrat, who later switched parties. The bill would have frozen cost of living adjustments to state retirees until an overhaul of the pension system is established. Long, a member of the Senate Retirement Committee, said that the Guillory plan is "a really bad bill" and if implemented could mean that retirees might never obtain a COLA.[7]
In 2013, Long introduced legislation to provide tax incentives to encourage the younger generation of farm families and loggers to remain in business after their parents reach retirement age. Such family businesses, Long noted, are often passed down to the upcoming generation.[8]
However, Gerald never ran for governor. When he left the state Senate, Long was the last member of the family dynasty still holding public office.
References
- ↑ Melinda Deslatte (January 11, 2016). Louisiana House rejects John Bel Edwards’ pick for speaker. The Shreveport Times. Retrieved on April 23, 2021.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Claiborne Academy: High School seniors earn top honors," Claiborne Academy Guardian-Journal, May 8, 2008 no longer accessible on-line.
- ↑ http://www.longforsenate.org/about.html, Gerald Long website; no longer on-line.
- ↑ Dr. William J. Long obituary. Shreveport Times (May 23, 2024). Retrieved on May 24, 2024.
- ↑ Louisiana State Senate, District 31, enlou.com, no longer on-line.
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election Returns, October 20, 2007.
- ↑ Tom Aswell, "Sen. Long hints at race for Governor," The Piney Woods Journal, June 2012, p. 1.
- ↑ James Ronald Skains, "Budget issues, Medicaid face LA legislature," The Piney Woods Journal, May 2013, pp. 1, 9
