Difference between revisions of "Kathleen Blanco"

Revision as of 23:45, March 17, 2018

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
54th Governor of Louisiana
In office January 12, 2004 – January 14, 2008
Preceded by	Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr.
Succeeded by	Bobby Jindal
50th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
In office January 8, 1996 – January 12, 2004
Preceded by	Melinda Schwegmann
Succeeded by	Mitch Landrieu
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner for the 2nd district
In office 1989–1996
Succeeded by	Jimmy Field
Louisiana State Representative for District 45 (Lafayette Parish)
In office 1984–1989
Preceded by	J. Luke LeBlanc
Succeeded by	Jerry Luke LeBlanc
Born	December 15, 1942 New Iberia, Louisiana
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Raymond Blanco
Children	Six children
Alma mater	Mount Carmel Academy (defunct) University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Religion	Roman Catholic

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (born December 15, 1942) is a retired Democratic politician from her native Louisiana, who holds four first designations for women. Not only was she the state's first woman governor, with service from 2004 to 2008, but the first woman lieutenant governor, the first woman public service commissioner and the first woman PSC chairman, and the first woman from Lafayette elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. She never lost an election.

Her one term as governor is remembered largely for criticism that she and her fellow Democrat, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans received about the relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. In the 2003, general election, she defeated Republican U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal. In 2007, Blanco declined to seek reelection, and Jindal easily won the governorship over the Democrat Foster Campbell, a member of the same regulatory agency, the Louisiana Public Service Commission, on which Blanco served from 1989 to 1996.

As lieutenant governor, Blanco did not preside over the state Senate, as is the practice in many other states but instead directed activities of the state's tourism office.

A native of New Iberia, Blanco has lived for years in Lafayette with her husband, Raymond, a former footvball coach and educator. After attending the defunct Mount Carmel Academy, a Roman Catholic girls' school in Iberia Parish, she graduated with a degree in business education from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and taught briefly at Breaux Bridge High School. Blanco has six children.

On December 10, 2017, Blanco confirmed that she is gravely ill from ocular melanoma, a rare form of cancer, first treated in 2011, but which has metastasized to her liver. "I am in a fight for my own life, one that will be difficult to win," she said in a statement to Louisiana newspapers.^[1]

See also

• Bob Mann, Blanco's former press secretary

References