Joe Waggonner

Joseph David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr.
U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 4th congressional district
In office December 1961 – January 3, 1979
Preceded by	Thomas Overton Brooks
Succeeded by	Claude Anthony "Buddy" Leach, Jr.
Born	September 7, 1918 Plain Dealing Bossier Parish Louisiana
Died	October 7, 2007 Shreveport, Louisiana
Resting place	Plain Dealing Cemetery
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Mary Ruth Carter Waggonner (married 1941-2007, his death)
Religion	United Methodist

Joseph David Waggonner, Jr., known as Joe Waggonner (September 7, 1918 – October 7, 2007), was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana's Fourth Congressional District, who served from 1961 to 1979. He was active in what was later known as the Boll Weevil Democrats, who sometimes supported Republican positions on fiscal and foreign policies.

Background

A businessman originally from Plain Dealing in Bossier Parish in northwestern Louisiana, Waggonner had an exemplary record in World War II and graduated from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. He was long active in Louisiana Tech alumni affairs. In the 1950s, he was a member of the Bossier Parish School Board. In 1961, he served on the elected Louisiana State Board of Education. In 1959, Waggonner was an unsuccessful primary candidate for the since disbanded position of Louisiana state comptroller, having run on the strongly segregationist intra-party ticket headed by state Senator William Rainach of Claiborne Parish. Victory in the race went to another Democrat, Roy Theriot.

Waggonner was born in Plain Dealing to Joe Waggonner, Sr. (June 11, 1873 – March 9, 1950), and the former Elizzibeth (unusual but correct spelling from grave marker) Johnston (November 23, 1882 – December 24, 1957). He graduated from Plain Dealing High School and in 1941 from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish, at which he was a member of Kappa Sigma. On December 14, 1942, he married the former Mary Ruth Carter (born February 12, 1921 – May 3, 2017), a native of Minden in Webster Parish. The couple resided in their later years in Benton, the seat of government of Bossier Parish, and then in the more populous Bossier City.

During World War II and the Korean War, Waggonner served in the United States Navy, having attained the rank of lieutenant commander. He remained thereafter in the Naval Reserve.

For his livelihood, Waggonner operated ran a wholesale petroleum products distribution agency that serviced northern Bossier Parish.

Political life

Waggonner was first elected to public office in 1954 to a seat on the Bossier Parish School Board, of which he was president from 1956 to 1957. In 1959, Waggonner ran in the Democratic primary for the position of Louisiana state comptroller, previously known as auditorand since abolished. He was defeated for the nomination by Roy Theriot (pronounced TERRY OH), the mayor of Abbeville in Vermilion Parish in south Louisiana. Waggonner ran on the intra-party ticket headed by segregationist gubernatorial candidate William Rainach, a state senator and a former state representative from Claiborne Parish.

Shortly thereafter on July 23, 1960, Waggonner was nominated in the Democratic primary to the Louisiana State Board of Education, now the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Waggonner won the seat for the Third Public Service Commission District, a configuration since disbanded that then included twenty-eight north Louisiana parishes. Waggonner unseated the incumbent, C. Raymond Heard, and was then unopposed in the November 8 general election, in which John F. Kennedy defeated Richard M. Nixon. In this campaign, Waggonner posed as a more determined segregationist than his opponent. One of his advertisements proclaimed: "For: Our Youth and Segregation; Against: Federal Aid to Education."

As Kennedy defeated Nixon, Waggonner, David C. Treen, and Leander Henry Perez, Sr., were among the ten presidential electors for an unpledged slate in Louisiana. Nixon won the 4th congressional district, but Kennedy took a strong plurality in the balloting statewide.

In 1961, Waggonner was chosen president of (1) the Louisiana School Boards Association and (2) the United Schools Committee of Louisiana. He had also been instrumental, along with William Rainach, in the founding of the White Citizens Council in the late 1950s.

Defeating Charlton Lyons

Waggonner was initially elected to Congress in a special election held in December 1961 to succeed Democrat Thomas Overton Brooks, who died in office. He defeated the Republican choice, businessman Charlton Lyons, an oilman from Shreveport but like Waggonner's former intra-party opponent for state comptroller, Roy Theriot, Lyons was a native of Abbeville. Waggonner carried the backing of the conservative Shreveport Journal, edited at the time by George W. Shannon. Lyons subsequently ran for governor in 1964 against Democrat John J. McKeithen, that time with Shannon's editorial support. Thereafter, Waggonner rarely had opposition.

On December 19, 1961, Waggonner won a special election to succeed long-time U.S. Representative Thomas Overton Brooks (1897-1961), who had won his thirteenth consecutive term in the House in 1960 by defeating the Republican businessman [Fred C. McClanahan]] of Shreveport. When Brooks died in office in the first year of his last term, Waggonner filed in the special election to succeed him. Already, Waggonner had announced his intention to oppose Brooks for re-nomination in the 1962 Democratic primary. Waggonner's decision was spurred by Brooks' congressional vote to expand the House Rules Committee to permit Speaker Sam Rayburn, who would died in office shortly after the passing of Brooks, to add new liberal members to the panel and thus stymie conservatives in both parties on the committee.

Both Waggonner and Lyons were segregationists and conservatives. Waggonner polled 33,892 votes (54.5 percent) to Lyons' 28,250 ballots (45.5 percent). Plain Dealing banker John Jones, Jr. (1923–2004), the son of a former state senator, served as Waggonner's campaign manager. Waggonner received majorities in six of the seven parishes in the district, having lost only in Lyons' Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport. In the congressional race, Waggonner carried the editorial support of the Shreveport Journal and its conservative editor George W. Shannon.

=Seventeen years in Congress

In 1968, Waggonner easily turned back an African American primary challenger, Leon R. Tarver, II, later president of the historically black Southern University System] Tarver's family operates a Shreveport funeral home. His brother, Gregory "Greg" Tarver, a former Shreveport City Council member, is a long-term state senator for Caddo Parish. Over the years, Waggonner had only token opponents. He did not seek a tenth term in 1978.

In 1968, Waggonner spoke against the legislation introduced by Moderate Republican U.S. Representative Robert McClory of Illinois, which designates the third Monday of February as what has become "President's Day," rather than the traditional February 22 holiday in honor of the birth of George Washington. Waggonner told the sponsors of the bill: “You have further commercialized and made further meaningless something that has the respect of the people of this country.”

After 1969, Waggonner struck up a friendship with President Richard Nixon, who was elected the previous year over the Democrat Hubert Humphrey and the Independent George Wallace. He became a liaison between Nixon and the House Democratic majority. Through this relationship, Waggonner was able to procure public works projects for his 4th district, including the attempt to establish year-round navigation of the Red River between Shreveport and Alexandria.

In 1976, Waggonner was arrested for soliciting an undercover police decoy in Washington, D.C., for purposes of prostitution. He was released because at that time lawmakers enjoyed immunity from prosecution for misdemeanor offenses. After the Waggonner case, the law was changed to allow congressional members to face misdemeanor charges with the exception of parking violations.

When Waggonner did not run again in 1978, Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, another Moderate Republican, came into the 4th congressional district to support a Republican candidate, Jimmy Wilson of Vivian in Caddo Parish. Waggonner chided Ford for making the appearance for Wilson and instead strongly supported Democrat Claude "Buddy" Leach of Leesville in Vernon Parish, who won the seat for one term. In 1980, Leach was unseated by Buddy Roemer of Bossier City, then a Democrat. The 4th district has been represented since 21017 by the Republican Mike Johnson of Benton in Bossier Parish.

For a time the U.S. District Court facility in Shreveport was named for Waggonner. When a new courthouse was subsequently constructed, Waggonner's name was left off the building. Instead the Joe D. Waggonner Lock and Dam is named for him.

A United Methodist, Waggonner is interred in the Plain Dealing Cemetery, along with his brother, Willie Waggonner, a long-term sheriff of Bossier Parish.