Chris John
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Chris John | |
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Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 7th district | |
In office January 3, 1997 – January 3, 2005 | |
Preceded by | Jimmy Hayes |
Succeeded by | Charles Boustany |
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the 42nd district | |
In office 1988–1996 | |
Preceded by | Donald Thibodeaux |
Succeeded by | |
Personal details | |
Born | Christopher Charles John January 5, 1960 Crowley, Louisiana, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | Payton Smith |
Relatives | John Smith (father-in-law) |
Education | Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (BA) |
Christopher Charles John (born January 5, 1960) is an American politician and lobbyist who from 1997 to 2005 served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded and merged into the 3rd district.
Early life[]
![]() | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (November 2016) |
Chris John was born in Crowley in Acadia Parish, one of six children, and reared as a Roman Catholic. He is of Lebanese, French, and German extraction. He attended Notre Dame Catholic High School in Crowley and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He was a page while his father, John N. John, III, was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. In the early 1980s, he was elected to the Crowley City Council.
State politics[]
Chris John first became a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives before he entered the U.S. House. In what was considered a major upset at the time, John defeated the state House incumbent, the former director of the Louisiana State Police, Donald Thibodeaux, in October 1987, by 54 to 46 percent.[citation needed]
Thibodeaux had won a full term in 1983 after having won a special election the year before to fill the unexpired term of John's father, who died in an automobile accident. Chris John served in the state House until 1996, when he finished third with 15 percent of the statewide vote in the 1995 race for lieutenant governor behind the eventual winner (and, who, eight years later, in 2003, became Louisiana's first female chief executive) Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. John narrowly lost the general election berth against Blanco to a fellow state representative, Republican of Slidell in St. Tammany Parish.[citation needed]
Terms in Congress: Representative, and run for Senate[]
In 1996, John was elected to Congress. He defeated fellow Democrat Hunter Lundy in a runoff for the 7th district seat. In 2004, John surrendered his House seat to run for the seat in the U.S. Senate being vacated by popular Democrat and fellow Crowley native John Breaux, who endorsed him.[citation needed]
John, however, was defeated by Republican David Vitter of the New Orleans suburbs in the primary, Vitter garnered 51 percent of the vote, compared to 29 percent for John. The remainder of the ballots was split between then State Treasurer John Neely Kennedy and the African-American then-state senator , both Democrats. John's seat in the House fell into Republican hands, as Charles Boustany won the 7th district with 55 percent of the vote against Democrat Willie Landry Mount.[1] Kennedy later switched parties and succeeded Vitter as senator in 2017.
Post-political career[]
John is married to Payton Smith of Leesville, whose father, John R. Smith, is a member of the Louisiana State Senate and a former state House member. The Johns have two sons, who are twins. After his House career ended, John worked for two years as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Since August 2007, he has made his home in Lafayette, where he is chief lobbyist for the United States Oil and Gas Association. (Morning Advocate).[citation needed]
In 2009, John was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.[2]
Electoral history[]
Year | Democrat | Votes | Pct | Republican | Votes | Pct | Other | Party | Votes | Pct | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | Christopher John | 128,449 | 53% | (no candidate) | Democratic | 113,351 | 47% | |||||||
1998 | Christopher John | * | (no candidate) | |||||||||||
2000 | Christopher John | 152,796 | 83% | (no candidate) | Michael P. Harris | Libertarian | 30,687 | 17% | ||||||
2002 | Christopher John | 138,659 | 87% | (no candidate) | Roberto Valletta | Libertarian | 21,051 | 13% |
Year | Democrats | Votes | Pct | Republicans | Votes | Pct | Other | Votes | Pct | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2004 | Christopher John | 542,150 | 29% | David Vitter | 943,014 | 51% | Richard M. Fontanesi | 15,097 | 1% | |||
John Neely Kennedy | 275,821 | 15% | R. A. Skip Galan | 12,463 | 1% | |||||||
47,222 | 3% | |||||||||||
Sam Houston Melton, Jr. | 12,289 | 1% |
See also[]
- List of Arab and Middle-Eastern Americans in the United States Congress
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c "Election Statistics". Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Archived from the original on July 25, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
- ^ "Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame". cityofwinnfield.com. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
External links[]
- Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Appearances on C-SPAN
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- 1960 births
- 21st-century American politicians
- American lobbyists
- American people of French descent
- American people of German descent
- American politicians of Lebanese descent
- Catholics from Louisiana
- Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives
- Living people
- Louisiana Democrats
- Louisiana State University alumni
- Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives
- Members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana
- People from Crowley, Louisiana
- Politicians from Lafayette, Louisiana