Mike Francis

Michael Gordon "Mike" Francis
Louisiana Public Servuce Commissioner for District 4 (Acadia, Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Catahoula, Evangeline, Grant, Iberia, Jefferson Davis, LaSalle, Rapides, St. Landry, Sabine, Vermilion, and Vernon parishes)
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 1, 2017
Preceded by	Charles DeWitt (interim of Clyde Holloway)
State Chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party
In office 1994–2000
Preceded by	William Dudley "Dud" Lastrapes, Jr.
Succeeded by	Francis Charles "Chuck" McMains, Jr.
Born	November 27, 1946 Jena, LaSalle Parish, Louisiana
Spouse(s)	(1) Diana Istre Francis (married 1971-2004, divorced (2) Shelia Gail Stevens Miller Francis
Children	From first marriage: Mackey Gordon Francis Bryan Kevin Francis Parents Gordon "Bugs" and Cornelia Mackey Francis
Residence	Crowley, Acadia Parish
Alma mater	Jena (Louisiana) High School
Occupation	Oilman
Note: Prior to his election in 2016 to the state Public Service Commission, high-powered businessman Mike Francis had also served as the state Republican chairman but lost campaigns for the state Senate in 1996 and for Louisiana Secretary of State in 2006.

Michael Gordon Francis, known as Mike Francis (born November 27, 1946), is an oilman from Crowley in Acadia Parish, near Lafayette, Louisiana who since 2017 has been the District 4 member of the five-person state Public Service Commission, a utility regulatory body. His district in the southwestern portion of the state covers seventeen of the sixty-four parishes, including his native LaSalle Parish but not Lafayette Parish. He won the right to succeed Clyde Cecil Holloway, who did not seek reelection and died during the ensuing campaign to choose his successor on the commission.

Background

Born in Jena, the seat of La Salle Parish in north Louisiana, Francis is the oldest of three sons and one daughter of Gordon "Bugs" Francis (1916-1988) and the former Cornelia Mackey (1916-2001), a Southern Baptist. His siblings are e John Francis of Lafayette, Gary Francis of Baton Rouge, and Ginger Francis Walker of Jena. The parents are interred at Nolley Memorial Methodist Cemetery in Jena. He played football at Jena High School and began thereafter his career as a roughneck and then a mud engineer. Then he started his own oil drilling fluids business, Francis Drilling Fluids, Ltd, from his base in south Louisiana. He is the chief executive officer of his company, one of the oldest drilling fluids companies on the Gulf Coast. He employs more than five hundred people at locations in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

Political overview

From 1994 to 2000, Francis was the state chair of the Louisiana Republican Party in Louisiana. Francis was an unsuccessful candidate for Secretary of State of Louisiana in the special election held on September 20, 2006. A staunch fiscal and social conservative, he lost a race for Louisiana Secretary of State in a special election held on September 30, 2006. Francis indicated that he would seek the Secretary of State position again in the nonpartisan blanket primary on October 20, 2007, but he never made that race. "I will work to ensure the right to vote. I will fight to stop voter fraud, vote buying, and vote stealing," Francis vowed in his campaign for secretary of state.

As the Republican state chairman, Francis tried to unseat the legislative floor leaders for Governor Edwin Edwards. In the 1996 Louisiana presidential caucus won by the journalist and commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, Francis worked for then U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who soon left the race and deferred to the eventual nominee, former U.S. Senator Robert J. Dole of Kansas.

Francis had been mentioned as a potential Republican candidate for the District 4 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission, which was filled in a special election on April 4, 2008, to replace Dale Sittig of Eunice, who resigned to become director of the Louisiana Offshore Terminal Authority. Ultimately, the Republican former U.S. Representative Clyde Holloway of Rapides Parish won the remaining nineteen months of Sittig's term. When Holloway did not seek reelection and died during the 2016 campaign to choose his successor, Franics won the post over another Republican and a Democrat. His current term expires on January 1, 2023.

State senate race, 1996

When Republican Governor Murphy James "Mike" Foster, Jr., named Democratic state Senator Cecil Picard as education secretary, a special election was held on August 24, 1996, to begin the process of choosing Picard's state senate successor. State Representative Gerald J. Theunissen, a Democrat who later switched to Republican affiliation, led the contest with 7,086 votes (29.5 percent). Francis, still state party chairman and the only Republican among the six candidates, finished in second place with 6,112 votes (25.5 percent). Four other Democrats shared the remaining but crucial 45 percent of the ballots. In the runoff election on September 21, Theunissen defeated Francis, 20,320 votes (55.7 percent) to 16,172 (44.3 percent).

Campaign for Secretary of State

The Secretary of State is Louisiana's top elections officer. The office maintains corporation and government records.

"We have had a lot of criticism about professional politicians in this state.... People are crying out for change. Most are demanding it. . . . Our problems are not Republican or Democrat problems. They are all our problems, and we need to face them together. We need sound business principles in Baton Rouge and not more politics. To attract business, we need leaders who know how to talk business, not politics," Francis said. Francis promised, if elected, that he would take a business approach to the secretary of state's office and work to create jobs and to ensure "clean elections," for which he noted Louisiana had formerly been lacking, particularly the disputed 1996 U.S. Senate race between Republican Woody Jenkins and Democrat Mary Landrieu.

Francis lost the race for Secretary of State to John Leigh "Jay" Dardenne, Jr., an attorney born in 1954 and a state senator from Baton Rouge, one of most visible Moderate Republicans in the state.. The election was held to finish the fifteen months remaining in the term of Republican Walter Fox McKeithen (1946-2005). Al Ater, a Democratic former state representative from Ferriday in Concordia Parish, had succeeded to the position because he was McKeithen's first deputy. The special election was held in conjunction with the primary for other offices contested in 2006.

Francis finished third in the race, based largely on his support in mostly rural and small-town parishes in his native north Louisiana. He received 26 percent of the vote. Democratic state Senator Francis C. Heitmeier of New Orleans polled 28 percent, and Dardenne led the field with 30 percent. None of the other four candidates had more than 9 percent.

Dardenne was hence scheduled to face a runoff contest with Heitmeier. In the meantime, announced that he would not support Dardenne in the second balloting but would run himself for the position in 2007. Heitmeier pulled out of the race and left Dardenne unopposed. Heitmeier's decision came in an otherwise a banner year for Democrats nationwide. Heitmeier and Dardenne were both term-limited in the state Senate and ineligible to have sought reelection in 2007. Heitmeier was succeeded by his brother, David Heitmeier, a New Orleans optometrist. Francis declined to endorse Dardenne. "Just because I’m third doesn’t mean I need to sign on with one of them," Francis said on the Monday after the Saturday special election. "When you look at the voting record and history of Dardenne and Heitmeier, they are very similar. I disagree with term-limited senators running for this office." Francis' largely self-financed campaign ads and literature targeted what he called the "liberal" record of Dardenne and Heitmeier for their votes for increased taxation and abortion. He said, "A public service comissioner works for the hard-working people of Louisiana, protecting them from excessive utility charges. Representing those who are in need, a PSC must be a person of high moral integrity. Mike Francis is dedicated to God, family and country. He is a proven leader with a strong work ethic."

Former U.S. Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Metairie in Jefferson Parish, endorsed Dardenne when a runoff appeared likely. He praised Dardenne's pro-business, governmental reform record and his "dogged determination and persistence" for term limits and other fundamental changes. "There couldn’t be a clearer choice: reform versus the courthouse crowd," Vitter claimed. Still there was speculation that Dardenne would challenge Vitter in the 2010 senatorial race, but he did not file candidacy papers. Dardenne did not repay the favor in 2015 when Vitter lost his bid for the governorship to Democrat John Bel Edwards. In that primary race, Vitter accused his former ally, Dardenne, of being "liberal and Obama-like." Edwards then rewarded Dardenne with appointment as commissioner of administration.

Francis' former wife of thirty-three years, Diana Istre Francis (born December 20, 1950) of Lafayette,was accused of vandalizing Francis Fluids in retaliation for their divorce.Francis' company airplane became an issue in the Secretary of State's race; the plane was required to be reported by state law and the judge in Francis' 2004 divorce case.

According to campaign finance reports, Dardenne raised $722,631; Francis, $149,637 and added $70,000 of his own funds for a total of $219,650. In his unsuccessful race, Francis carried the support of the failed 2008 presidential candidate, U. S. Senator John McCain, a Moderate Republican from Arizona.

Second campaign for secretary of state

Francis again sought the secretary of state post in the primary held on October 14, 2023. He finished third in an eight-candidate field with 182,841 votes (18 percent). Set to contest the position in the November runoff general election are the Republican former state Representative Nancy Landry, the executive assistant to outgoing Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, and the African-American Democrat Gwen Collins-Greenup, a Baton Rouge attorney, both of whom finished with 19 percent of the ballots cast. Other candidates in the race were Republicans Thomas J. Kennedy and Brandon Trosclair, departing House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, a Moderate Republican who held 15 percent of the vote, and African-American Democrat Arthur Morrell, the elected criminal clerk of court in New Orleans and a former state representative.