Buddy Roemer

Charles Elson "Buddy" Roemer III (October 4, 1943 – May 17, 2021) was an American politician, investor, and banker who served as the 52nd governor of Louisiana from 1988 to 1992, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1988.

Buddy Roemer was born on October 4, 1943, in Shreveport, the son of Charles Elson "Budgie" Roemer, II (1923–2012) and the former Adeline McDade (1923–2016).

Roemer's maternal grandfather, Ross McDade, married a sister of the maternal grandmother of James C. Gardner, a former mayor of Shreveport.

Gardner knew Roemer's grandfather as "Uncle Ross".

McDade's wife died, and he remarried, from which union came Adeline Roemer.

Roemer and Gardner were not close politically.

Roemer was reared on the family's Scopena plantation near Bossier City.

He attended public schools and graduated in 1960 as valedictorian of Bossier High School.

In 1964, he graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

In 1967, he received an MBA in finance from Harvard Business School.

Following college, Roemer returned to Louisiana to work in his father's computer business and later founded two banks.

Roemer's father had been in 1971 the campaign manager for Edwin Edwards and became commissioner of administration during Edwards' first term as governor.

Buddy Roemer worked on the Edwards campaign as a regional leader and later started a political consulting firm.

As a member of Congress, Roemer represented Louisiana's 4th congressional district in the northwestern section of the state, which includes Shreveport and Bossier City.

He was elected in 1972 as a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention held in 1973.

Among the Shreveport-area delegates who served with Roemer was his future gubernatorial advisor Robert G. Pugh, future U.S. District Judge Tom Stagg, and former Louisiana State Representative Frank Fulco.

In 1978, Roemer lost in the nonpartisan blanket primary for the 4th district congressional seat, which was vacated by popular incumbent Joe Waggonner, also from Bossier Parish.

Waggonner announced his opposition to Roemer after Roemer criticized the excessive costs of the Red River navigation program, a favored project of the retiring Waggonner.

Roemer finished third in the primary to Democratic State Representative Buddy Leach, with 27 percent of the ballots, and Republican Jimmy Wilson, a former state representative from Vivian in northern Caddo Parish.

Leach went on to defeat Wilson by 266 votes in a disputed vote count.

In 1980, Roemer and Wilson again challenged Leach in the primary; also running was State Senator Foster Campbell of Bossier Parish.

That time, Wilson finished in third place, Roemer ranked second, again with 27 percent, and Leach led the field with 29 percent.

In the general election, with the support of Wilson, Roemer handily defeated Leach, who had the support of Campbell, many other state legislators and former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, 64 to 36 percent.

After his 1980 election victory, Roemer won congressional re-election without opposition in 1982, 1984, and 1986.

In Congress, Roemer frequently supported Ronald Reagan's policy initiatives and fought with the Democratic congressional leadership, though he remained in the party.

He also criticized then Democratic House leader Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts for being "too liberal", and was in turn characterized by Speaker O'Neill as being "often wrong but never in doubt".

After Roemer left the House to become governor, he was succeeded by his administrative assistant, Republican Jim McCrery.

In 1981, Roemer joined forty-seven other House Democrats in supporting the passage of the Reagan tax cuts, strongly opposed by Speaker O'Neill and Roemer's fellow Louisiana Democrat Gillis William Long of Alexandria.

In 1984, Roemer again broke with O'Neill to support Reagan's request for U.S. aid to El Salvador, which Roemer described as "a freedom-loving country."

Roemer was among the congressional observers in the El Salvador national election.

In 1988, Roemer claimed that Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis made "a much better choice in terms of politics and impact on Louisiana" in choosing U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas for his vice presidential running mate than did Republican George H. W. Bush made in choosing Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana.

Roemer, as the host governor and still a Democrat, welcomed the Republicans to New Orleans, where delegates at the Republican National Convention nominated Bush and Quayle.

In his first term in Congress, Roemer was denied a seat on the Banking Committee by the Democratic leadership and instead was assigned to the Public Works and Transportation Committee due to Roemer having voted with the Republican minority on extending the debate on House rules proposed by the Democratic majority.

He was a member of the "boll weevil" and the Conservative Democratic Forum.

Roemer was one of a large number of Democratic candidates to challenge three-term incumbent governor Edwin Edwards, whose flamboyant personality and reputation for questionable ethical practices had polarized voters.

In March 1991, while serving as governor, Roemer switched affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Roemer was a candidate for the presidential nominations of the Republican Party and the Reform Party in 2012.

He withdrew from those contests and sought the 2012 Americans Elect presidential nomination until that group announced it would not field a candidate in 2012 because no candidate reached the required minimum threshold of support to be listed on its ballot.

Roemer eventually endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, for president in the 2012 general election.

Roemer served on the Advisory Council of Represent.Us, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization.