Karen Carter Peterson

Karen Carter Peterson (born November 1, 1969) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a member of the Louisiana State House from 1999 to 2010, then as the state senator from the 5th district until her resignation in 2022.

Jefferson prevailed by a 57%-43% margin, the lowest since his original election in 1990.

Peterson received endorsements from prominent Republican businessmen Joe Canizaro and Donald T. "Boysie" Bollinger.

She was also endorsed by both the Louisiana State Democratic Party and the Orleans Parish branch of the Democratic Party.

She centered her campaign around the argument that Jefferson's corruption scandal left New Orleans with a lack of credible and respected representation in Congress.

Peterson graduated from Mercy Academy and in 1991 received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international business and marketing from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Peterson then returned to New Orleans to earn a Juris Doctor from Tulane University Law School in 1995.

Peterson served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 93 from 1999 to 2010.

With the help of BOLD, Peterson was elected in 1999 to the Louisiana state legislature as a representative for the 93rd district, which encompasses New Orleans, the upper French Quarter, and parts of Central City and Mid-City.

In the state legislature, she was one of the most vocal supporters of a plan to reform the New Orleans public school system by putting it under state control.

With state senator Walter Boasso, she was also a leader in the protracted but successful consolidation of a multiplicity of levee boards to prevent a repetition of uncoordinated responses that exacerbated the failures of the New Orleans Levee system during Hurricane Katrina.

The bill was heavily backed by local business leaders.

The bill failed, but a similar version passed in a special session in early 2006.

Before Katrina, the governor selected levee board commissioners.

After the legislation passed, the selections were made by a local blue-ribbon committee.

Peterson was a candidate for U.S. Congress in Louisiana's 2nd congressional district (map) in the mid-term election of November 2006.

She, along with several other candidates, challenged incumbent Democrat Bill Jefferson, who was the subject of an FBI investigation.

She finished in second place with 19,972 votes (21.6% of the total votes cast), and therefore she and Jefferson entered a runoff round of voting on December 9, 2006.

In 2008, Peterson became as Democratic National Committeewoman for Louisiana.

Peterson served as House Speaker Pro Tempore from 2008 to 2010.

In 2010, Peterson won a special election to the Louisiana State Senate from the 5th district after her predecessor, Cheryl Gray Evans, resigned.

Peterson served the remainder of Evans' term.

In 2011, 2015 and 2010, Peterson was re-elected to full four-year terms.

She also served as the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party from 2012 to 2020, becoming the first female chair of the state party.

In the spring of 2012, Senator Peterson was elected Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party by the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee, ousting former chair Claude "Buddy" Leach by a vote of 85 to 75.

Peterson's tenure as chair was marred by controversy when it emerged that she pressured then state representative John Bel Edwards to drop out of the 2015 Louisiana gubernatorial election so Democrats could rally around a moderate Republican to defeat the perceived frontrunner, U.S. Senator David Vitter.

Edwards refused and went on to defeat Vitter by a twelve-point margin.

Peterson is a political protégé of Jim Singleton, a former city councilman and the leader of the powerful Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), which has repeatedly aligned itself in opposition to William J. Jefferson and his Progressive Democrats.

In 2017, Peterson was elected vice chair of civic engagement and voter participation for the Democratic National Committee.

In April 2022, Peterson resigned from the Louisiana Senate, citing mental health issues and a gambling addiction.

Later that year, she pled guilty to wire fraud charges and admitted to spending money from the state party and her campaign fund on gambling expenses.

In 2023, she was sentenced to 22 months in prison.

Peterson was born and raised in New Orleans, the daughter of Ken and Gwen Carter.

Her father was the first African American to become a tax assessor in New Orleans.

This followed a revelation in May 2019 that she had violated a self-imposed ban on entering casinos.

On April 9, 2022, Peterson resigned from her Senate post, attributing her action to depression, and an addiction to gambling.

On April 11, 2022, it was disclosed by a source familiar with the investigation that she was the subject of a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for financial crimes that were said to be related to her admitted gambling addiction.

In July 2022, Peterson accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors in a case involving diversion of state Democratic party funds she used to cover gambling debts.

She admitted to using over $140,000 of the party's money on casino gambling.

On January 11, 2023, Peterson was sentenced to 22 months in prison for wire fraud.

Peterson stepped down as Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party in 2020; it was later discovered that she had diverted state party funds to various vendors, in order to cover her debts accumulated as a consequence of a gambling addiction.