Kathleen Blanco
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco | |
In office January 12, 2004 – January 14, 2008 | |
Preceded by | Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr. |
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Succeeded by | Bobby Jindal |
50th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
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In office January 8, 1996 – January 12, 2004 | |
Preceded by | Melinda Schwegmann |
Succeeded by | Mitch Landrieu |
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner for the 2nd district
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In office 1989–1996 | |
Succeeded by | Jimmy Field |
Louisiana State Representative for District 45 (Lafayette Parish)
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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.
Her one term as governor is remembered largely for criticism that she 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.