Clyde C. Holloway

Clyde Cecil Holloway
Holloway during his time in Congress
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner
Incumbent
Assumed office 2009
Preceded by	Dale Sittig
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 8th district
In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Catherine Small Long
Succeeded by	District abolished through reapportionment
Personal details
Born	(1943-11-28) November 28, 1943 Lecompte Rapides Parish Louisiana, USA
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Catherine F. "Cathie" Holloway (born 1943)
Children	Timothy A. Holloway (b. 1969) Mark R. Holloway (b. 1971) Rebecca L. Holloway (b. 1975) Sara E. Holloway (b. 1979)
Residence	Forest Hill Rapides Parish
Occupation	Businessman
Religion	Baptist

Clyde Cecil Holloway (born November 28, 1943) is an American small business owner from Forest Hill in the southern part of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, who is one of five members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. He also served as a conservative Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the since defunct Alexandria-based 8th congressional district from 1987 to 1993, having been the first Republican in the 20th century to represent the northern part of the state. He won three consecutive elections to the U.S. House from an historically Democratic district. In his total of nine campaigns for U.S. representative between 1980 and 2002, Holloway ran in four different congressional districts.

Holloway is also a member of the Republican State Central Committee from the 27th Representative District. On April 13, 2009, he claimed his seat on the Public Service Commission for the Fourth District when his opponent dropped out of the race after the primary election.

Public Service Commissioner

In 2009, Holloway emerged the plurality leader in a special election for the PSC post vacated by the resignation of Dale Sittig of Eunice. The other candidate in the runoff, which had been scheduled for May 2, Democratic State Senator William Joseph McPherson, Jr., of Woodworth, formerly from Pineville, no longer a legislator, dropped out on April 13. Holloway narrowly led a three-candidate field in the special election held on April 4. McPherson had lost the previous regular PSC election to Sittig. Democrat-turned-Republican Gil Pinac, a hospital administrator and a former state representative from Crowley in Acadia Parish, finished a weak third in the April 4 balloting. McPherson explained his concession as an anticipation that most of Pinac's supporters would switch to Holloway and give the Republican an insurmountable lead. Holloway polled 32,258 votes (43.5 percent) to McPherson's 31,610 (42.63 percent). Pinac trailed with the critical 10,280 ballots (13.86 percent). McPherson's greatest strength was in populous Calcasieu Parish, where he led with 11,178 (50.4 percent) to Holloway's 7,873 (35.5 percent), and Pinac's 3,127 (14.1 percent). Ironically, Holloway's tabulation in Calcasieu – centered on Lake Charles – was also his single greatest parish total. Rapides Parish, the home of both candidates, voted in a low turnout: 6,527 for Holloway to 5,327 for McPherson, and 791 for Pinac.

As results were still being tabulated, Pinac conceded and endorsed Holloway. Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, had raised funds for the Democrat McPherson, but had otherwise been silent on the PSC race.

Numerous people describe McPherson, a businessman, as "anti-business", and the state GOP endorsed Holloway. Thus the runoff would have pitted the Republican committee's pick, Holloway, against the beneficiary of the Republican governor's fundraising largesse, McPherson. By withdrawing, McPherson removed a political embarrassment for Jindal. Meanwhile, the Jindal-endorsed Lee Domingue lost the special election for a Louisiana State Senate seat on April 4 to another Republican, Dan Claitor, scion of the Claitor's Publishing Company of Baton Rouge.

In replacing Democrat Sittig, Holloway's addition to the PSC (even including the forerunner Louisiana Railroad Commission) gave the body its first-ever Republican majority. Commissioners Jimmy Field and Eric Skrmetta are, like Holloway, Republican; and the PSC has just five seats. The Democratic PSC members are Foster Campbell of Bossier City (an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate against Jindal in 2007) and Lambert C. Boissiere, III. The PSC is also the first electoral body in Louisiana to develop a Republican majority since Reconstruction.

Holloway was unopposed for a full term on the PSC in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on August 28, 2010. On July 13, 2010, Holloway noted as a guest on The Moon Griffon Show, based in Monroe, that the August 28 contest was his first ever unopposed race and his thirteenth time to appear on a ballot.

Rural Development Director

On October 19, 2006, Holloway was named Louisiana state director for the Office of Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In making the appointment, then Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, currently a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, said that Holloway, who had been a member of the House Agriculture Committee during his six years in Congress, "brings a wealth of knowledge to USDA." The agency seeks to increase economic opportunity and to improve the quality of life in rural communities. The agency has invested some $72 billion since 2001 to provide equity and technical assistance to finance and foster growth in homeownership, business development, and critical community and technology infrastructure. The agency claims to have created or saved some 1.2 million jobs nationwide. The Holloway appointment expired in January 2009, with the incoming Barack Obama administration.

Early years

Holloway was one of seven children born in the small town of Lecompte (pronounced LEH COUNT) in Rapides Parish to James Cecil Holloway (October 15, 1909 – September 26, 2006), formerly from Arizona, and the former Ever Christina Barker (December 7, 1912 – December 11, 2006). The Holloways later moved to Forest Hill just west of Lecompte and south of Alexandria, the largest city in central Louisiana. James Holloway earned his livelihood as an electrician at Camp Claiborne and was later employed at the Meeker Sugar Cooperative. He retired as a Rapides Parish school bus driver. The senior Holloways were married for seventy-one years; he preceded her in death by some ten weeks. Mrs. Holloway was the daughter of Charlie and Emma Barker. The senior Holloways are interred at Butters Cemetery in Forest Hill.

Clyde Holloway attended the National Aeronautics School in Kansas City, Kansas. He owns a tree and shrub nursery in Forest Hill. He was also the chairman of the board of the private Forest Hill Academy, originally Forest Hill Neighborhood School.

He is married to Catherine F. "Cathie" Holloway (also born 1943). The couple has four children, Timothy A. Holloway (born 1969), Mark R. Holloway (born 1971), Rebecca L. Holloway (born 1975), and Sara E. Holloway (born 1979), and five grandchildren, Caleb, John Thomas and Ava Holloway and Faith and Evan Ebert. He is a member of the Elwood Baptist Church in Forest Hill, but Mrs. Holloway is Roman Catholic. One of his brothers, Charlie David Holloway (born 1941), is a former member of the Rapides Parish School Board.

First congressional campaign, 1980

Holloway first ran for Congress in 1980 against entrenched Democratic incumbent Gillis William Long. Holloway depicted himself as a Reaganite and a conservative and as an opponent of Republican U.S. District Judge Nauman Scott's cross-parish school busing orders. Robert Henry Mitchell (born 1945), also of Forest Hill, the Republican loser to Long in the 1978 race, ran again. Long prevailed with 75,433 votes (68.9 percent) to Holloway's 27,816 (25.4 percent) and Mitchell's 6,243 (5.7 percent).

As it turned out, Holloway was laying the groundwork in the 1980 campaign for his eventual three elections to the U.S. House. Holloway and Long were actually both residents of Rapides Parish; so many were stunned when Holloway actually defeated the long-time powerful incumbent Long in their home parish.

In January 1981, Holloway, along with State Representative Woody Jenkins, an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate on three occasions, spoke at a rally in Alexandria to voice support of two proposed constitutional amendments, which have never come to fruition. One sought to ban forced school busing for purposes of racial integration. Another called for the election of federal judges, rather than appointment by the president and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. At the rally, Holloway said "the only way Americans can turn around and go in the right direction is if middle-class people like us will show ... how we feel."

Choosing a successor to Gillis Long

In 1985, Gillis Long died on the day of Reagan's second inauguration. A special election was held on March 30 to fill out his term, and Holloway entered the race as the lone Republican candidate. Long's widow, Catherine Small Long and Alexandria attorney John W. "Jock" Scott, a state representative in his third and final term, also ran. "Cathy" Long, a native of Dayton, Ohio, was a landslide winner, with 59,836 votes (55.4 percent). Scott finished second with 26,573 (24.6 percent), and Holloway trailed with 17,920 votes (16.6 percent).

William J. "Bill" Dodd, an astute observer of Louisiana politics, called Cathy Long "the perfect political wife." She once told the Alexandria Daily Town Talk that a U.S. representative's main responsibility is to bring as much national funding home to the congressional district as possible, a view at odds with those conservatives who abhor pork-barrel spending. She did not seek the seat for a full term in 1986.

Elections to Congress, 1986, 1988, and 1990

In 1986, Clyde Holloway was the lone Republican in the nonpartisan blanket primary to succeed Mrs. Long. His principal opponent was E. Faye Williams, an African American liberal Democratic woman attorney from Alexandria, who supported abortion and expanded social programs and referred to herself as the "progressive" in the race.

The other contenders were Morgan Godeau, Joe Sevario, and Carson K. Killen, of St. Amant in Ascension Parish. Killen had been an aide to Gillis Long and had been groomed as Long's long-term successor. Killen was later elected to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and was the executive director of the Louisiana Police Jury (the equivalent of a county commission in other states) Association. Williams led Holloway in the primary, 46,025 (26 percent) to 41,618 (23 percent), a margin of 4,407 votes. Goudeau was third with 36,304 ballots (20 percent), followed by Sevario with 34,847 votes (19 percent), and Killen with 21,116 votes (11.8 percent).

Polls indicated that Williams would defeat Holloway in the general election in part because the district was 90 percent historically Democratic. High turnout, particularly in the large black community, was expected to benefit Williams. Holloway, however, pulled an upset. He received 102,276 votes (51.4 percent) to Mrs. Williams' 96,864 (48.6 percent). He was heavily dependent on his native Rapides and neighboring Avoyelles parishes.

Holloway was estimated to have received 73 percent of the ballots of whites and 1 percent of the black vote. Williams would presumably have won if she had received 29 or 30 percent of the white vote, instead of the 27 percent that she obtained. Williams was damaged by reports that while previously living as a community organizer in Los Angeles, California, her estranged black husband, a news reporter, had murdered a white man, a college professor and radio announcer with whom he believed Williams was romantically involved. The unusually high turnout in fact may have helped Holloway more than it did Williams.

In the same election cycle that Holloway was elected to the U.S. Congress, another Republican, Richard Hugh Baker of Baton Rouge, won a U.S. House seat. Holloway and Baker would be only the fourth and fifth Republicans to have served in the U.S. House from Louisiana since Reconstruction, following David C. Treen in 1973, Henson Moore (Baker's predecessor) in 1975 and Bob Livingston in 1977. However, Holloway and Baker were only the second and third Republicans to win an undisputed victory in a contested election. Holloway was also the first Republican to represent north Louisiana since Reconstruction.

In the U.S. House, Holloway was considered a "protectionist" and an opponent of "free trade" policies, which he believes have contributed to economic troubles in Louisiana. Unlike Long, however, he was an ardent fiscal and social conservative. He voted to cut government spending. He was skeptical of international organizations that he felt undermined US sovereignty. His voting record consistently reflected his middle class beliefs. He advocated rolling back "big government" by cutting taxes to spur economic growth, as also wanted to restore school prayer and end abortion.

In 1988, Williams and Holloway, as the two leaders in the primary, again squared off in the general election. Holloway was helped in the second round of voting by the presence of the successful Republican presidential nominee, Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, who won the state by a comfortable margin. This time, Holloway defeated Williams, 116,241 votes (56.8 percent) to her 88,564 (43.2 percent). After her defeats, Williams left Alexandria and relocated to Washington, D.C. Other candidates in the 1988 primary were former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, who polled only 1,205 ballots (less than 1 percent), as his controversial political career continued to unravel, and former Lieutenant Governor Robert "Bobby" Freeman, who received 14,814 votes (11 percent).

In 1990, Holloway defeated two state senators in the primary, Cleo Fields, an African American from Baton Rouge, and the previously mentioned State Senator Joe McPherson, Jr., of Holloway's own Rapides Parish. Holloway polled 113,607 votes (56.4 percent) to 59,511 (29.6 percent) for Fields, and 28,170 (14 percent) for McPherson.

Ill-fated gubernatorial race, 1991

Holloway's three consecutive House victories, two with more than 55 percent of the vote, made him feel secure in running for governor in 1991; he could run statewide in an off year from congressional races without surrendering his House seat. He won the endorsement of state Republican delegates against the sitting Republican governor, Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, who had been elected as a Democrat in 1987 in the primary. In the 1991 primary, Holloway finished fourth, with 82,683 (5.3 percent) but did place ahead of Roemer in Evangeline and St. Landry parishes. One reason that Holloway supporters rejected Roemer was the outgoing governor's support for abortion. Previously considered pro-life, Roemer reversed himself and vetoed three bills which would have restricted access to abortion in Louisiana. Two decades later, Roemer made a bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination but polled few primary votes.

Instead, the 1991 gubernatorial general election featured unendorsed Republican David Duke and former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Holloway refused to endorse either Duke or Edwards, who won a clear victory for a fourth term in part because the third-place candidate, Roemer, endorsed Edwards in the showdown with Duke, who was unpopular among many Republicans because of his Ku Klux Klan ties to the "Radical Right."

Electoral Loss

After his gubernatorial loss, Holloway mapped plans in 1992 to seek reelection to Congress. Louisiana lost a congressional district as a result of the 1990 census, and Holloway's Alexandria-based Eighth District was eliminated. His home in Forest Hill was drawn into a revised Sixth District stretching from Baton Rouge on the south to Alexandria on the north. He faced two opponents, fellow Republican Representative Richard Baker and the Democratic mayor of Alexandria, Edward Gordon "Ned" Randolph, Jr. Holloway led in the nonpartisan blanket primary with 52,012 votes (37 percent) to Baker's 46,990 (33 percent), and Randolph's 42,819 (30 percent).

In the general election held on the day of the Bill Clinton-George Herbert Walker Bush presidential contest, Holloway won fifteen of seventeen parishes in the new district. However, Baker polled clear majorities in the two largest parishes of Livingston and his home base, East Baton Rouge. That was enough for Baker to win the seat, 123,953 votes (50.6 percent) to Holloway's 121,225 (49.5 percent). Had Holloway been able to hold down Baker's margin in Baker's home parish of East Baton Rouge, he would have secured a fourth House term.

The Sixth Congressional District had been drawn so that the winner was likely to have been a Republican. Black residents of the surrounding area had been drawn into the majority African-American Fourth Congressional District. (Ironically, that district was won by Cleo Fields, Holloway's unsuccessful opponent in 1990.) Tens of thousands of Democrats in the once historically Democratic Sixth District were forced through the nonpartisan blanket primary to choose between two Republican candidates for Congress or to skip that race on the ballot. Baker was only slightly less conservative than Holloway, but Democratic voters apparently saw him as the lesser of two evils. Such a dilemma for Democrats was not what Edwards had in mind when he fashioned the nonpartisan blanket primary some fifteen years earlier. Edwards had generally expected Republicans to be sitting on the sidelines and having to choose from two unacceptable Democrats.

Underdog taking on the machine

Holloway waged further determined campaigns to return to Congress. In the heavily Republican year of 1994, he moved to the Lafayette-based Louisiana's 7th congressional district in southwestern Louisiana to oppose Democratic U.S. Representative Jimmy Hayes. Hayes polled 72,424 votes (53 percent) to Holloway's 54,253 (39.7 percent). Another 7.3 percent of voters supported a candidate who ran as "No party." Hayes surprised many observers by becoming a Republican himself in 1995.

In 1996, Holloway entered the race for the revised (again) Fifth District, which covers the northeast quadrant of Louisiana, stretching to south of Alexandria to include his Forest Hill residence. Holloway ran third in the primary to fellow Republican John Cooksey, a Monroe ophthalmologist, and Democratic State Representative and later state Senator Francis C. Thompson, a large landowner in Delhi in Richland Parish.

Cooksey polled 60,853 ballots (34 percent) to Holloway's 48,226 (27 percent). Thompson, with 50,144 votes (28 percent), hence went into the 1996 general election with Cooksey. Two other Republican candidates, Ben Marshall and Tim Robinson, polled more than 12,000 critical primary votes, some potentially at Holloway's expense. Holloway's weak showing in Ouachita Parish, fewer than 5,000 votes, kept him from proceeding to the second round of balloting, just as his weak showing in East Baton Rouge Parish had doomed him in 1992. Thwarted once more, Holloway endorsed Cooksey, with whom he shared a similar conservative philosophy, and helped him to raise money. Cooksey in turn won the seat handily, 135,990 (58.3 percent) to the more liberal Thompson's 97,363 (41.7 percent). Cooksey served three terms before leaving the House.

2,705 votes short

When Cooksey decided to run for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Mary Landrieu in 2002, Holloway entered the race to succeed him in the House. For a time, Holloway appeared strong. He had the support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and then Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas. But he finished third in the nonpartisan blanket primary with 42,573 votes (23 percent). Leading the pack was the eventual winner, Democrat Rodney Alexander, with 52,952 votes (29 percent). Newcomer Dewey Lee Fletcher, a Republican advertising entrepreneur from Monroe, who had previously been an aide to Cooksey, finished second in the primary with 45,278 (25 percent). A fourth candidate, Republican State Senator Robert J. Barham of Oak Ridge in Morehouse Parish, had 34,533 votes (19 percent). Three other candidates shared the remaining but critical 9,000 votes (5 percent).

Alexander then defeated Fletcher in the general election by only 974 votes, 86,718 (50.3 percent) to 85,744 (49.7 percent). Holloway's endorsement of Alexander may have been the decisive movement of the campaign: he could not be congressman again, but he could choose between the two general election candidates and anoint the narrow winner. There were also reports cited as the "Clyde Factor" that many Holloway supporters in Rapides Parish, particularly Alexandria, voted for Alexander primarily to thwart young Fletcher, given Fletcher's negative and misleading false campaign tactics the final hours leading to the primary election.

The seat stayed in Democratic hands for less than two years, however. In the summer of 2004, Alexander switched to the Republican Party and quickly gained enough support from the GOP establishment to end any hopes Holloway had of running in that year's election. It was Holloway's rival from 1985, Jock Scott, a Democrat-turned-Republican, who decided to take on Alexander that year but with little promise.

Running for lieutenant governor, 2003

In 2003, Holloway ran for lieutenant governor but was defeated by the Democrat Mitch Landrieu, younger brother of Senator Mary Landrieu. He originally ran on a "ticket" with the then chairman of the PSC, John "Jay" Blossman, Jr., of St. Tammany Parish. When Blossman withdrew from the gubernatorial race in light of weak poll numbers, Holloway remained a candidate for lieutenant governor. He polled 249,668 votes (19 percent) to Landrieu's 674,803 (53 percent). The other 28 percent was shared by several other candidates, including the African American businessman Kirt Bennett of Baton Rouge and Melinda Schwegmann, a former Democratic lieutenant governor (1992–1996) serving as a state representative who switched in 2003 to the GOP. Announcing his candidacy only one month prior to the election and spending less than $10,000, Holloway still scored majorities in La Salle, Caldwell, and West Carroll parishes, which are all sparsely populated areas in north Louisiana. He scored pluralities in Avoyelles and Evangeline parishes, both from his defunct Eighth Congressional District.

Notes

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Catherine Small Long	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 8th congressional district 1987–1993	Succeeded by District abolished through reapportionment
Political offices
Preceded by Dale Sittig	Louisiana Public Service Commissioner from District 4 Clyde Cecil Holloway 2009–	Succeeded by Incumbent