Bob Livingston

Robert Linlithgow Livingston Jr. (born April 30, 1943) is an American lobbyist and politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1977 to 1999.

A Republican, he was chosen as Newt Gingrich's successor as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a position he declined following revelations of an extramarital affair.

Livingston was married in 1965 to the former Bonnie Robichaux (also born 1943), a native of Raceland in Lafourche Parish.

Bonnie's grandfather, Alcide Robichaux, served in the Louisiana State Senate, and her uncle, Philip Robichaux, was Lafourche Parish coroner for decades.

Livingston's father, a Roman Catholic, and his mother, an Episcopalian, were divorced when Livingston and his sister were quite young.

Raised first as Roman Catholic and later as an Episcopalian, he returned to his wife's religion, Roman Catholicism, in later years.

The Livingstons have three biological sons, Robert, Richard and David, and an adopted daughter, SuShan a/k/a Susie.

They have nine (9) grandchildren.

Graduating from Tulane University Law School in 1968, Livingston joined the law practice of David C. Treen, who would become Louisiana's first Republican congressman and governor since Reconstruction.

Treen had been an active Republican in the days when the party barely existed in Louisiana, and this connection allowed Livingston to make valuable contacts in GOP circles.

Between 1970 and 1976, Livingston worked for U.S. Attorney for the Louisiana's Eastern District Gerald J. Gallinghouse, Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick Sr.., and Louisiana State Attorney General, William J. "Billy" Guste Jr.

He was a delegate to all Republican conventions between 1976 and 2000.

Livingston resigned his position as head of the state attorney general's organized crime unit in 1976 when he won the Republican nomination for Louisiana's 1st Congressional District, encompassing roughly half of New Orleans and many of its surrounding suburbs.

The seat, which had been trending Republican for some time at the national level, had opened up when 36-year incumbent Democrat and former House Armed Services Committee chairman F. Edward Hébert retired.

Livingston narrowly lost to one-term state legislator Richard Tonry of Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish.

Livingston was denied victory when a third-party candidate, former Sixth District Congressman John Rarick, formerly of St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, filed as an independent in the last days of the race.

Rarick, who had been one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress during his tenure, siphoned off roughly 9% of the votes cast, enabling Tonry to win with a plurality.

Allegations, however, surfaced of "tombstone" votes for Tonry in both the primary and general election.

He served as a U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1977 to 1999 and as the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee from 1995 to 1999.

During his final years in Congress, Livingston was a strong supporter of Bill Clinton's impeachment.

He is currently a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist.

Tonry was forced to resign in May 1977 and run again in the special election for his seat.

However, he lost the Democratic nomination in August to State Representative Ron Faucheux.

While Faucheux may have been hindered by a split in the Democratic vote due to Sanford Krasnoff, who ran as an Independent challenger from the left, Livingston won the seat with a majority, 51%, of the votes cast (56,121 votes to Faucheux's 40,862, and Krasnoff's 12,665), becoming the first Republican to represent a significant portion of New Orleans in Congress since Reconstruction.

In 1978, Livingston won a full term with 86 percent of the vote.

His district became even more Republican after the 1980 census, when most of the district's share of New Orleans was shifted to the 2nd District.

It was replaced with some heavily Republican territory in Jefferson Parish.

Faucheux later lost an attempt to unseat New Orleans Mayor Dutch Morial in 1982, and was named Secretary of Commerce by Governor Edwin Washington Edwards in 1984.

Livingston was aided by a cadre of dedicated Republican volunteers, including the newly installed National Committeewoman Virginia Martinez of Kenner.

He was completely unopposed in 1986, 1996 and 1998.

After the 1990 census, Livingston's district gained conservative Washington and Tangipahoa parishes from the 6th district while relinquishing equally conservative Saint Bernard and Plaquemines to the 3rd district.

He was reelected eleven times, dropping below 80 percent of the vote only once, in 1992.

In July 2006, their son Richard died after being electrocuted by a live wire while trimming a tree damaged by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

As an undergraduate at Tulane University,

he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

Livingston's memoir, The Windmill Chaser: Triumphs and Less in American Politics, was published in September 2018.

Livingston was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He is a descendant of the Livingston family of New York, whose members include Philip, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence; Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, a co-author of the Declaration and author of the Louisiana Purchase; his younger brother, Edward, Aide de Camp and later Secretary of State to President Andrew Jackson, and who had earlier in his career held the same Congressional seat (La-1) as Bob Livingston.

Livingston is a direct descendant of Henry Livingston, who was probably the (then anonymous) author of the poem, The Night Before Christmas,and French Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse, who together with General George Washington cornered and defeated British General Cornwallis in the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia, thereby concluding the American Revolutionary War.

De Grasse's daughter, Sylvie, married Henry Walter Livingston, ancestors of the Congressman.