Jay Dardenne

John Leigh "Jay" Dardenne, Jr. (born February 6, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who served as commissioner of administration for Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards.

Dardenne is married to the former Catherine "Cathy" McDonald (born September 23, 1955).

The couple has two sons: John Dardenne of Los Angeles, California, and Matthew Dardenne of Baton Rouge.

Dardenne is Jewish and a graduate of Baton Rouge High School and Louisiana State University, from which he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in journalism.

He earned a degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center.

He was elected student body president at LSU.

He is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

Dardenne is active in social and civic endeavors in his native Baton Rouge and through non-profit organizations throughout Louisiana.

He volunteers with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the annual Labor Day Telethon, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, and the River City Festivals Association.

He serves as chairman of the U.S. National Senior Sports Classic (the Senior Olympics), and has served as president of ten non-profit organizations in the greater Baton Rouge Community.

His younger brother, Richard James Dardenne (1956-2018), was a basketball and track coach who spent his last years in Fort Worth, Texas.

These exceptions have been included since 1977 in response to women's rights advocates, while abortion opponents argue that they punish the unborn for the crimes of the fathers.

In 1987, Dardenne narrowly lost his first race for the District 15 state Senate seat to the Democrat Larry S. Bankston, one of three sons of former Democratic state party chairman and centenarian Jesse Bankston.

The race was characterized by attacks on Dardenne from Francis (both taking anti-abortion positions) over predominantly social issues, including Dardenne's vote as Senator in the 1990s for language in the federal Hyde Amendment which allows for federally funded abortions in the case of rape or incest.

Dardenne then won an election for a seat on the East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council and held that seat until 1992.

Following the election of Republican Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., as governor in 1995, Dardenne became the governor's floor leader and began to pass landmark legislation.

He continued to push unsuccessfully for reforms in the administration of Foster's successor, Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

He did help pass constitutional amendments on term limits, coastal erosion, and victims' rights.

He worked for the creation of a single State Board of Ethics, spearheading reform of the river pilots' system, and reducing government waste as the chairman of the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee.

In 2003, Dardenne was named the "National Republican Legislator of the Year".

Dardenne ran in the September 30 special election to complete the term vacated by the death of former Secretary of State W. Fox McKeithen, a fellow Republican who died in the summer of 2005.

former Democratic State Representative Al Ater of Ferriday in Concordia Parish, was assistant secretary of state under McKeithen and served as acting until a new secretary was elected.

He was a friend of McKeithen and former Democratic State Representative.

He chose not to run for the post in the special election.

The major candidates in the race were Dardenne, Democratic state Senator Francis C. Heitmeier of New Orleans and Republican former State Chairman Mike Francis of Lafayette and Crowley.

Formerly, Dardenne was a member of the Louisiana State Senate for the Baton Rouge suburbs, a position he filled from 1992 until his election as secretary of state on September 30, 2006.

Dardenne also won the 'Most Vile Pun' award in the 2006 contest.

Dardenne was reelected to a full term as secretary of state in the October 20, 2007, nonpartisan blanket primary with 758,156 votes (63 percent) to 373,956 (31 percent) for the Democrat R. Rick Wooley.

A "No Party" candidate, Scott Lewis, received the remaining 64,704 votes (5 percent).

Dardenne won fifty-eight of the state's sixty-four parishes.

He outpolled gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal, a fellow Republican, in raw votes and won sixty-one parishes to Jindal's sixty.

Dardenne has played with fiction and won "Dishonorable Mentions" for his entries in the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a competition where contestants submit bad opening lines to imaginary novels.

A Republican, Dardenne previously served as the 53rd lieutenant governor of his state from 2010 to 2016.

Running as a Republican, he won a special election for lieutenant governor held in conjunction with the regular November 2, 2010 general election.

At the time, Dardenne was Louisiana secretary of state.

On November 2, 2010, Dardenne was elected lieutenant governor when he defeated Caroline Fayard, a young Democrat originally from Denham Springs in Livingston Parish.

Tom Schedler, Dardenne's chief deputy in the secretary of state's office, succeeded him as acting secretary of state when Dardenne was sworn in as lieutenant governor.

Dardenne polled 719,243 votes (57 percent) to Fayard's 540,633 (43 percent).

Dardenne won most of the sixty-four parishes but lost Orleans, Caddo, and St. Landry.

Dardenne is one of two sons of the late Tonet and Johnny Dardenne; his grandparents were Nathan and Ula Coronna Abramson and Teakle Wallis "T. W." and Esther Cohn Dardenne.