Jim McCrery

Jim McCrery
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 4th district
In office January 3, 1997 – January 3, 2009
Preceded by	Cleo Fields
Succeeded by	John C. Fleming
In office April 16, 1988 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Buddy Roemer
Succeeded by	Cleo Fields
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 5th district
In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 1997
Preceded by	Jerry Huckaby
Succeeded by	John Cooksey
Personal details
Born	(1949-09-18) September 18, 1949 Shreveport, Louisiana, USA
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Divorced from Johnette Hawkins McCrery
Children	Scott and Clark McCrery
Alma mater	Louisiana Tech University Louisiana State University
Occupation	Attorney; Lobbyist
Religion	United Methodist

James Otis "Jim" McCrery, III (born September 18, 1949), is an American lawyer, politician and lobbyist who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1988 to 2009. He represented the 4th District of Louisiana, based in the north-western quadrant of the state.

McCrery was a ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee. Had the Republicans maintained control of the U.S. House in 2007, he would have been in line to chair the Ways and Means Committee. Instead, the slot went to the veteran Democrat Charles Rangel of Harlem in New York City. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of moderate Republicans.

On December 7, 2007 McCrery announced his decision not to seek reelection in 2008. Closed primaries were held by both parties in the fall of 2008 to begin the process of choosing a successor to McCrery. In the Republican primary, physician John C. Fleming of Minden in Webster Parish, beat McCrery's preferred successor, Jeff R. Thompson, a Bossier City attorney. After Fleming won the Republican nomination, McCrery endorsed him in an appearance on The Moon Griffon Show, a syndicated radio program based in Monroe. In the general election held on December 6, Fleming narrowly defeated the outgoing Caddo Parish District Attorney Paul J. Carmouche, a Democrat from Shreveport. Thompson would go on to be elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2011.

Early life and career

McCrery at 20 as president of the junior class at Louisiana Tech University

McCrery was born in Shreveport and reared in Leesville, the seat of Vernon Parish in western Louisiana. He graduated in 1967 from Leesville High School. In 1971, McCrery earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in both English and history from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish. Thereafter in 1975, he obtained a degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge. McCrery joined the law firm of Jackson, Smith & Ford in Leesville, where he worked from 1975 to 1978. He then served in Shreveport as an assistant city attorney from 1979-1980.

From 1980 to 1981, he was a staff member of U.S. Representative Buddy Leach, also a Leesville native. After Leach was unseated in 1980 by Buddy Roemer of Bossier City, McCrery was retained as district manager and later legislative director for Representative, and later Governor Roemer. In 1984, McCrery returned to Louisiana to work for Georgia Pacific Corporation, a paper company. He remained there until his election to Congress four years later.

Jim never knew his real mother, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances shortly after his birth; he was raised by his father, James "Otis" McCrery, an optometrist, and step-mother, Ida Bell McCrery. As a teenager, Jim's hobbies included erecting models of monsters.

Congressional career

After Roemer resigned from Congress to become governor, McCrery ran for his former boss' seat as a Republican.

McCrery emerged from the special election in a runoff with Democratic State Senator Foster L. Campbell, Jr., of Elm Grove in Bossier Parish. A third contender, Shreveport journalist and then public relations representative Stanley R. Tiner, a Democrat, was eliminated in the first round of voting. McCrery became only the sixth Republican to represent Louisiana in the House since the end of Reconstruction. He was the first Republican in the Fourth District seat since George Luke Smith was unseated in 1874. In his bid for a full term in 1988, McCrery handily defeated Adeline McDade Roemer (born 1923), the wife of businessman and political operative Charles E. Roemer, II, and the Democratic mother of McCrery's former benefactor, Buddy Roemer.

In 1992, Louisiana lost a district as a result of sluggish population growth during the 1980s. Also, the state was ordered, temporarily, to draw a second black-majority district by the Justice Department. The legislature responded by shifting most of Shreveport and Bossier City's black voters into a new 4th District. Most of McCrery's former territory was merged with the 5th District, represented by 16-year incumbent Democrat Jerry Huckaby, who is now retired in Lincoln Parish. On paper, McCrery was in serious danger, since Huckaby retained nearly all of his former territory. However, the old Fourth District was considerably more urbanized than the old Fifth because of the presence of Shreveport, and 60 percent of the new Fifth District voters had been represented by McCrery. Also, the new Fifth District was only 5 percent African American (compared with a 30 percent black population in the old Fifth). McCrery was thus such a heavy favorite that national Democratic leaders wrote off the seat as a loss and urged Huckaby to retire. Huckaby chose to stay in the race and was heavily defeated, carrying only one parish in the district. McCrery thus became the first Louisiana Republican to unseat a Democratic incumbent at the federal level.

McCrery was reelected seven more times with no substantive opposition and was completely unopposed in 1996, 1998 and 2004. His district was renumbered as the Fourth again in 1997, after the United States Supreme Court ruled the majority-black, Shreveport-to-Baton Rouge Fourth was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

In the mid-term election of 2006, McCrery defeated Democratic challengers Patti Cox and Artis Cash and Republican Chester T. "Catfish" Kelley, a Shreveport businessman who advertised his catfish restaurant on the Rush Limbaugh radio program and who has been interviewed on The Moon Griffon Show.

From 2007–2009, McCrery was the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.

In 2007, in the early stages of the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination for 2008, McCrery announced his endorsement of candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts for the party's nomination, a designation Romney won in 2012, not 2008.

Subcommittees and laws

Congressman McCrery sat on the following House Ways and Means subcommittees:

• Health Select Revenue Measures (Chairman)
• Human Resources
• Social Security (chairman)

McCrery sponsored or cosponsored six public bills in the 109th Congress that have been signed into law by the president, all of which involved disaster mitigation and assistance in response to 2005 hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

Post-Congressional career

In January 2009, McCrery joined a top lobbying firm, Capitol Counsel in Washington, D.C. He is the lead Republican in the company. Among his clients is General Electric.

Family and personal life

On August 3, 1991, McCrery married the former Johnette Hawkins (born 1966), a former television newswoman. They subsequently divorced, and she married Timothy Magner on October 1, 2011. Jim McCrery and Johnette Magner have two children, Scott and Clark McCrery. McCrery is a United Methodist.

McCrery was one of a number of political figures profiled in the 2009 documentary Outrage, a film which claimed to out closeted gay public officials who had supported anti-gay legislation. The film's discussion of McCrery's purported homosexuality was based largely on a September 1992 article in the magazine, The Advocate, entitled "The Outing of a Family-Values Congressman," which upon publication had received little attention and no corroboration from the mainstream press. In response to the film, McCreary said he had heard about but not seen it, adding that "This is not the first time I've had to deal with this sort of thing. It's best for me -- and I would tell anyone else mentioned in the film -- not to comment on it." In the past, both McCrery and his former wife have strongly denied the allegations. Among the accusations made by the film is that McCrery is privately an atheist while espousing Christian values publicly in his elected life.

Political controversies

Chinese Vice Premier gaffe

Also, during the China-U.S trade talks of March 2007, McCrery and New York Democrat Charles Rangel committed a gaffe when they accidentally insulted the Chinese Vice Premier, Wu Yi by referring to her as the Vice Premier of the "Republic of China" in a letter. The Republic of China is a name for the self-ruling government on the island of Taiwan, which the PRC considers a rogue province.

External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Financial information (federal office) at OpenSecrets.org
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Voting record at The Washington Post
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia
• Election Central Guide to 2008

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Buddy Roemer	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 4th congressional district 1988–1993	Succeeded by Cleo Fields
Preceded by Jerry Huckaby	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 5th congressional district 1993–1997	Succeeded by John Cooksey
Preceded by Cleo Fields	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 4th congressional district 1997–2009	Succeeded by John C. Fleming