Buddy Roemer

Charles Elson "Buddy" Roemer III (October 4, 1943 – May 17, 2021) was an American politician, investor, and banker who served as the 52nd governor of Louisiana from 1988 to 1992, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1988. In March 1991, while serving as governor, Roemer switched affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Roemer was a candidate for the presidential nominations of the Republican Party and the Reform Party in 2012. He withdrew from those contests and sought the 2012 Americans Elect presidential nomination until that group announced it would not field a candidate in 2012 because no candidate reached the required minimum threshold of support to be listed on its ballot. Roemer eventually endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, for president in the 2012 general election.

Roemer served on the Advisory Council of Represent.Us, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization.

Buddy Roemer was born on October 4, 1943, in Shreveport, the son of Charles Elson "Budgie" Roemer, II (1923–2012) and the former Adeline McDade (1923–2016).

Roemer was reared on the family's Scopena plantation near Bossier City. He attended public schools and graduated in 1960 as valedictorian of Bossier High School. In 1964, he graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. In 1967, he received an MBA in finance from Harvard Business School.

Following college, Roemer returned to Louisiana to work in his father's computer business and later founded two banks. He was elected in 1972 as a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention held in 1973.

As a member of Congress, Roemer represented Louisiana's 4th congressional district in the northwestern section of the state, which includes Shreveport and Bossier City.

In 1978, Roemer ran in the nonpartisan blanket primary for the 4th district congressional seat, which was vacated by popular incumbent Joe Waggonner, also from Bossier Parish. Waggonner announced his opposition to Roemer after Roemer criticized the excessive costs of the Red River navigation program, which Waggoner favored. Roemer finished third in the primary, 1,708 votes behind Democratic State Representative Buddy Leach, with Republican Jimmy Wilson, a former state representative from Vivian in northern Caddo Parish, in second. Leach went on to defeat Wilson by 266 votes in a disputed general election.

In 1980, Roemer and Wilson again challenged Leach in the primary; also running was State Senator Foster Campbell of Bossier Parish. In another close race, Wilson finished in third place, Roemer ranked second, and Leach led the field with 29 percent. In the general election, with the support of Wilson, Roemer handily defeated Leach, who had the support of Campbell, many other state legislators, and former Governor Edwards, 64 to 36 percent.

After his 1980 election victory, Roemer won re-election without opposition in 1982, 1984, and 1986.

In Congress, Roemer frequently supported Ronald Reagan's policy initiatives and fought with the Democratic congressional leadership, though he remained in the party. He also criticized then Democratic House leader Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts for being "too liberal", and was in turn characterized by Speaker O'Neill as being "often wrong but never in doubt".

Roemer was one of a large number of Democratic candidates to challenge three-term incumbent governor Edwin Edwards, whose flamboyant personality and reputation for questionable ethical practices had polarized voters. Other candidates challenging Edwards in the primary were U.S. Representatives Bob Livingston, a suburban New Orleans Republican, and Billy Tauzin, a Democrat from Lafourche Parish. Outgoing Secretary of State James H. "Jim" Brown, a lawyer from Ferriday in Concordia Parish, also challenged Edwards.

While Edwards faced a wide field, Roemer's candidacy had a poignant aspect. His father, Charles E. Roemer II, had been Edwards' top aide and campaign manager during Edwards' first term as governor. In the 1972 campaign, Buddy Roemer had claimed that Edwards as governor "will listen to the people and to public officials who represent the people before acting on any problems in the state." In 1981, Roemer's father had gone to prison on conviction of selling state insurance contracts. During the election he was advised by Gordon Hensley.

Roemer launched a fiery campaign against Edwards, calling for a "Roemer Revolution", where he would "scrub the budget", overhaul the education system, reform campaign finance rules, and slash the state bureaucracy by "bricking up the top three floors of the Education Building." Perhaps the key moment in the 1987 race came at a forum among the candidates. As usual, the main topic of discussion was Edwin Edwards. His challengers were asked, in succession, if they would consider endorsing Edwards in the general election if they didn't make it to the runoff. The candidates hedged, particularly Secretary of State Jim Brown. The last candidate to speak was Roemer: "No, we've got to slay the dragon. I would endorse anyone but Edwards." The next day, as political commentator John Maginnis put it, Brown was explaining his statement while Roemer was ordering "Slay the Dragon" buttons. Boosted by his endorsement as the 'good government candidate' by nearly every newspaper in the state, Roemer stormed from last place in the polls and on election night, overtook Edwards and placed first in the primary election, with 33 percent of the vote compared with Edwards' 28 percent.

Edwards, recognizing he faced certain defeat, made the surprise announcement on election night that he would concede the race to Roemer. By withdrawing, Edwards denied Roemer the opportunity to build a governing coalition in the general election race, thus denying him a decisive majority victory. The defeated Edwards virtually ceded control of the state to Roemer even before the inauguration.

Roemer entered the governor's office on March 14, 1988. In April 1988, under executive order, Roemer named William Hawthorn Lynch, a long-term investigative journalist who at the time was with the Baton Rouge bureau of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, as the state's first inspector general. Lynch was empowered to investigate corruption, governmental inefficiencies, and misuse of state equipment. He remained in that position until his death in 2004.

Immediately after leaving office as governor, Roemer taught a course in economics for the spring semester 1992 at his alma mater, Harvard University.

In 1995, Roemer attempted a political comeback when he again ran for governor. Roemer held a wide lead for much of the campaign, but faded in the days before the primary election as State Senator Mike Foster, who switched affiliation from Democratic to Republican during the campaign, took conservative votes away from him. As a result, Roemer finished fourth with 18 percent of the vote, two percentage points from making the runoff, called the general election in Louisiana.

Having met without success at his political comeback, Roemer turned his attention to investing and banking. He formed a company that built retirement housing near universities, with alumni from each university being the target buyers. He also founded Business First Bank, based in Baton Rouge, of which he was the president and CEO, and his daughter-in-law, Heather, is the assistant vice president of human resources.

Ron Gomez (a Lafayette politicist) said that he believes Roemer "could have been one of Louisiana's great governors. The state's horrible financial condition when he took office, his dependence on an inexperienced and sometimes rashly immature staff in his first year or so, an overly-ambitious legislative agenda, and his own unpredictable dealings with individual legislators all contributed to the failures he suffered. Ultimately, all of these factors led to his running third, as the incumbent, in the 1991 gubernatorial election." Gomez describes Roemer as "a dynamic orator who could light up an audience with his first two sentences. When he got wound up it was truly evangelical, and he made sense. His wiry, five foot seven, one-hundred thirty-five pound frame would seem to uncoil and grow as he outlined his vision as a fighter against crime, corruption and waste in government, poor education, taxes and industrial pollution."

In April 2014, Roemer became a partner at The Young Turks, an online progressive news network founded and run by Cenk Uygur. Roemer's firm - Roemer, Robinson, Melville & Co, LLC - invested $4 million into the company. According to Uygur, the two met and bonded over their shared support of campaign finance reform, an issue that both Uygur and Roemer supported and have spoken about extensively for many years.

Roemer was married three times, with his first two marriages ending in divorce. He had three children: daughter Caroline, and sons Chas and Dakota.

In 1989, Roemer separated from his second wife, the former Patti Crocker, with the divorce final in 1990, after seventeen years of marriage. The couple had one child, Dakota Frost Roemer, a businessman in Baton Rouge, who in 2012 married the former Heather Rae Gatte, daughter of Nacis and Patty Gatte of Iota, Louisiana.