Cleo Fields

Cleo. Ave Fields (born November 22, 1962) is an American attorney and politician who serves in the Louisiana Senate.

In 1980, he founded the fundraising group Young Adults for Positive Action and in 1987 he was elected to the Louisiana Senate.

He ran for Congress in 1990 and was defeated but was re-elected to the State Senate for the 14th district in 1991.

In 1990, he entered the nonpartisan blanket primary for the 8th District, but was defeated in the first round by incumbent Republican Clyde Holloway.

Fields was elected to represent Louisiana's 4th congressional district in the House of Representatives in 1992 and re-elected in 1994.

He ran again in 1992, this time in the newly-created 4th District, a 63 percent black majority district stretching in a "Z" shape from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.

He finished first in a crowded seven-way primary, coming roughly 1,500 votes short of winning outright.

He was forced into a runoff against fellow state senator Charles D. Jones of Monroe, which Fields won with more than 73 percent of the vote.

At thirty, he was once again the youngest legislator.

He advanced his agenda in Congress through the House Small Business Committee, the House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committee, the Housing and Community Opportunity Committee, and several others.

Fields was a staunch liberal while in Congress.

He received a 0 percentage rating by the Christian Coalition and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Meanwhile, progressive interest groups such as the National Abortion Rights Action League, PeacePAC, and the American Public Health Association, as well as a range of labor-affiliated organizations, gave him a perfect rating.

His efforts as a legislator often involved channeling funds into education and protecting consumers from the excesses of insurers, banks, and other such institutions.

Congressional Quarterly noted that Fields "has tried to use his seats on the Banking Committee and the Small Business Committee to leverage capital for small businesses willing to relocate in his district, where poverty rates are high."

Though he made many political enemies with his voting record, his personal standing in Congress remained high.

He represented LA's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 1997 and ran unsuccessfully for governor of Louisiana in 1995.

After various challenges, referrals to higher courts, and redraws, Fields was finally able to run in his custom-designed district and trounced a nominal Republican challenger in 1994.

His district woes were far from over, however, and the district was ultimately thrown out by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

His home in Baton Rouge was placed in the 6th District of Republican Richard Baker, while the northern portions were split between the 4th and 5th districts.

He ran for governor in 1995, coming second in the jungle primary and then losing in a landslide to Mike Foster.

When his first child was born in 1995, he won cheers from his colleagues on the floor.

Fields' district was designed to collect a larger black populace — and more black votes — than a competing version.

He did not run for re-election to the House in 1996 and his seat was taken by Republican John Cooksey.

Fields was elected to the State Senate in 1997 and re-elected in 2003, then running unsuccessfully for the Louisiana Public Service Commission in 2004.

The state legislature had passed a law in 2006 that had defined the date of the swearing in of Fields and of the intended beneficiary, Shreveport Republican Wayne Waddell, in a way that would have allowed Fields and Waddell to stand for re-election in November 2007 and serve one more term, but the court ruled the law unconstitutional.

On October 1, 2007, the Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled that Fields could not stand for re-election to his State Senate seat because of term limits.

He serves as a state senator for Louisiana's 14th State Senate district, a position he held twice before.

Fields is a member of the Democratic Party.

Fields was born in Port Allen, Louisiana, and received his undergraduate and law degrees from Southern University in Baton Rouge.

He was elected to the seat again in 2019.

On January 23, 2024, Fields announced a campaign to return to Congress after court-ordered redistricting gave Louisiana a second Black-majority and Democratic-leaning seat.

Fields was born in Port Allen, Louisiana, the seventh of ten children.

His dock-worker father died when Fields was four, widowing his mother, Alice.

The family then moved to South Baton Rouge.

Fields attended Southern University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and Juris Doctor.

While still in law school, Fields began his first campaign for Louisiana State Senate, doing most of the organizational work himself and writing his own jingles for radio commercials.

Fields began by building a base with college students in his campaign against longtime incumbent Richard Turnley.

To the surprise of some experts, he unseated Turnley, who in the Commercial-Appeal referred to Fields as "a very ambitious young man and an astute campaigner."

Fields served in the state Senate for six years.