Henson Moore

William Henson Moore III (born October 4, 1939) is an American attorney and businessman who is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having represented Louisiana's 6th congressional district, based about Baton Rouge, from 1975 to 1987.

He was only the second Republican to have represented Louisiana in the House since Reconstruction, the first having been David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish.

In 1957, at the age of seventeen, Moore was elected governor of the Baton Rouge-based Boys State government/citizenship program.

The family lived in Hackberry in Cameron Parish and then moved to Baton Rouge, where Moore graduated in 1958 from Baton Rouge High School.

In 1961, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Moore was the first Republican to run for the United States Senate with party organizational support since 1962, when Taylor W. O'Hearn of Shreveport unsuccessfully challenged Russell Long.

In 1965, he obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center.

Moore served in the United States Army from 1965 to 1967.

He was admitted to the bar in 1966 and the next year joined the Baton Rouge law firm Dale, Woen, Richardson, Taylor, and Mathews, first as an associate and then as a full member.

In 1969, he switched party allegiance from Democrat to Republican after having supported Richard M. Nixon in the 1968 general election.

He served on the elected Louisiana Republican State Central Committee from 1971 to 1975, when he entered Congress.

West Feliciana had been the only parish to support George McGovern for president in 1972.

Moore's share of the vote in West Feliciana, a heavily African-American region, was 32.4 percent.

In Congress, Moore compiled a conservative voting record.

Moore also obtained a master's degree from LSU in 1973.

Moore was initially elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on November 5, 1974, during mid-term elections which produced huge Democratic gains in both houses of Congress.

He succeeded John Richard Rarick of St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish north of Baton Rouge.

Rarick, a Conservative Democrat at odds with his national party leadership, had lost the Democratic runoff primary to Jeff LaCaze, a young liberal former sports broadcaster from Baton Rouge who declared himself a "national Democrat".

Moore and LaCaze squared off in the general election.

Because Moore's margin over LaCaze was only 14 votes (61,034 to 61,020) and a voting machine had malfunctioned, a special election rematch was directed by the Louisiana courts.

Moore won the special election held in January 1975 with a decisive 74,802 votes (54.1 percent) to LaCaze's 63,366 ballots (45.9 percent).

Moore gained 13,768 votes in the second election, while LaCaze netted only an additional 2,346 ballots.

Moore fared best in Washington Parish and his parish of residence, East Baton Rouge.

He also carried that part of Livingston Parish within the district as well as Tangipahoa Parish.

He lost in East Feliciana, St. Helena, and West Feliciana parishes.

Also strongly for Moore was his friend Frank Spooner, the outgoing Republican national committeeman and an oil and natural gas producer in Monroe, who had lost the 1976 race for Louisiana's 5th congressional district to the Democrat Jerry Huckaby.

In this campaign, Moore sounded more like a candidate for governor than for the U.S. Senate, having consistently claimed that Louisiana needed "a new image".

He specifically called for greater job opportunities, expanded port facilities and exports, more emphasis on tourism, and the designation of a research hospital in Louisiana.

He was a delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, which renominated the Reagan-Bush ticket.

Early in 1985, he described his political philosophy:

"You can't be all things to all people. People don't want any more taxes. They don't believe that the additional revenue would be applied to the budget. There would be just more money for Congress to spend. ... Taxes alone won't eliminate deficits. ... We've got to start thinking about the survival of the nation. It's not a matter of what is good - it's a matter of what is necessary. ...

Moore stressed in speeches that the longstanding American deficit is financed by foreign capital, whose owners consider the United States a good place in which to invest.

In 1986, Moore was the unsuccessful Republican candidate in the race to replace the retiring U.S. Senator Russell B. Long.

He lost to Democrat John B. Breaux, then of Crowley in Acadia Parish in southwestern Louisiana.

Moore was born in Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana, to W.H. Moore, II, an oil company executive, and the former Madge Pearce.

He was also the first candidate to declare for Long's seat after the veteran lawmaker announced his retirement effective in January 1987.

He had the immediate support of Republican colleague Bob Livingston of First District, who in 1987 launched an unsuccessful bid for governor of Louisiana.

Republican chairman George J. Despot of Shreveport pronounced Moore's as his party's "strongest possibility" to fill Long's seat.

Former Governor Dave Treen at first indicated that he too might run for the Senate, but within a month endorsed Moore.

Treen noted that all states on the Gulf of Mexico had at least one Republican senator at the time except for Louisiana.