Byron Looper
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Byron (Low Tax) Looper (Born Byron Anthony Looper on September 15, 1964 in Putnam County, Tennessee), is a former politician, who is currently an inmate in the Tennessee state penal system. In order to advance his political career, he legally changed his middle name from Anthony to "(Low Tax)". He was convicted for the October 1998 murder of Tennessee State Senator Tommy Burks while running for his seat.
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[edit] Early life
Looper attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for three years, but was given an honorable discharge following a serious knee injury. After his discharge he moved to Georgia.
In 1987 he lost a race for the Georgia state House of Representatives as a Democrat. Following this loss, he took a job as a legislative aide for an uncle and fellow Democrat, Max Looper. The Georgia Democratic Party admitted that Max Looper was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan [1].
[edit] Tax assessor
In 1992 Looper returned to Tennessee and became a conservative Republican. He lost a race for the state house in 1994, but in 1996 he legally changed his middle name from Anthony to "(Low Tax)" and was backed by the Tennessee Republican Party in a race for the technically nonpartisan post of Putnam County Tax Assessor, which he won. He was the first Republican elected official at any level in Putnam County in over a century.
As tax assessor, Looper used his office's equipment to flood state media with a number of bizarre and self-congratulatory press releases, though he failed repeatedly to file property tax valuations with the state government on time. Some charges were made that Looper offered reduced tax assessments to local businesses in exchange for large political contributions, although few if any businesses actually responded to the offer. Later, an ex-girlfriend sued him for child support and fraud, charging he had used his official position to steal her house.
In March 1998, Looper was indicted on 14 counts of official misconduct, theft of services and official oppression. Looper claimed the charges were politically motivated due to Democratic control of Putnam County politics and the Tennessee General Assembly. This was an expected argument due to Looper's past obsession with conspiracy theories and allegations of political witch hunts by Putnam County Democrats who were "out to get him" during his tenure as Tax Assessor. The Cookeville Herald-Citizen regularly reported the Republican Tax Assessor's bizarre antics and public verbal assaults of Putnam County elected officials. The Tennessee Republican Party soon claimed no connection with Looper, though campaign contributions and lists of paid political consultants proved otherwise.
[edit] 1998 primary campaigns
In 1998, Looper sought the Republican nominations for the 6th Congressional District of Tennessee and the Tennessee State Senate in the same primary. He lost the Congressional nomination to a candidate who was not under indictment, in fact finishing last in a field of four. He won the state senate nomination by default, however, as he was the only Republican candidate on the ballot. This set up his campaign against conservative incumbent Democratic state senator Tommy Burks.
Burks had represented Putnam County in the state legislature for 28 years--eight in the State House and 20 in the State Senate. He was an old-style conservative Southern Democrat and a farmer who was popular in his district. The 1998 election looked to be as quiet as his previous nine. Until October, in fact, the only news to come out of the campaign that made it beyond the borders of the district was Looper's legal change of his middle name from Anthony to "(Low Tax)." This was initially considered an amusing but bizarre gimmick by a gadfly candidate in a race he was destined to lose, and the race quickly receded into the background.
[edit] Murder
On the morning of October 19, authorities were called to investigate a likely murder at the Burks' farm. Tommy Burks' body was found with his head resting on the steering wheel of his pickup truck. He had been speaking moments earlier with a farmhand, Wesley Rex, about work that needed to be done on the farm. Both men had seen a black car, driven by a man in sunglasses and black gloves, driving by the farm on multiple occasions that morning. The car had later sped by Rex's truck, allowing Rex to get a view of the driver.
The Cumberland County authorities immediately began a standard homicide investigation but could find no one with any plausible reason to murder Burks. Then Rex called Burks' widow, Charlotte, after seeing a picture of Looper on television, and told her that Looper was the man he'd seen speeding away in the black car the morning of the murder.
Looper had disappeared. He made it to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he met with a friend, Marine recruiter Joe Bond. Bond and Looper had been friends as children, and Looper had rekindled the friendship in the summer of 1998, largely on the basis of wanting Bond's expertise in small arms. Bond would eventually become a key witness for the prosecution. Looper had stayed with Bond for a while, talking a great deal about how he had murdered his Senate opponent and how he needed to, among other things, change the tires on the car he had used in the murder, as well as hide the car.
[edit] Trial
Looper was arraigned at a hearing that featured Bond as a surprise witness for the state. During the pre-trial phase, Looper attempted to have his former friend disgraced, and shuffled through at least six lawyers, one of whom filed a sealed court document explaining why, for ethical reasons, he could no longer be Looper's attorney.
The trial finally occurred in 2000. By this time, inmate road crews had found the weapon apparently used by Looper to commit the murder. Wes Rex and Joe Bond were both prominent witnesses for the prosecution, as were two political consultants who reported having been contacted at various times by Looper, who told both of them that he wanted to run a political race and felt the surest way to win would be to murder the opponent. Though there was and remains some controversy about a number of defense witnesses who were not permitted to take the stand, Looper was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Following his conviction and sentencing, he was transferred to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee.
[edit] The campaign following the murder
An obscure Tennessee state law required that a candidate's name be removed from the ballot and not replaced if he died within 30 days of the election. Even the Putnam County Election Commission did not know it existed before the Burks murder. Looper's name therefore was the only one listed on the ballot, and for a few days it looked like he would win by default. This may have been Looper's intention.
Several people tried to have Looper's name stricken from the ballot, claiming that Looper's arrest constituted moral turpitude. Even though lists of campaign contributions and paid political advisors showed unquestionable ties to the Tennessee Republican Party, the state Republican Party distanced itself from Looper. To counter Looper's potential election on a technicality, Burks' widow, Charlotte, ran a write-in campaign for the seat. Dozens of volunteers helped her campaign, including several Republicans. On election day, Charlotte Burks, as a write-in candidate, won the seat with 30,252 votes compared to Looper's 1,531 votes (she also received several write-in votes for governor and for Congress). Among the first bills she sponsored was one to repeal the state law that almost allowed Looper to win.
[edit] Postscript
Charlotte Burks remains a popular member of the State Senate. Looper made a court appearance on October 12, 2004 in which he requested a new trial, but the request was denied.
[edit] Quotation
"He was the first Republican elected in Putnam County, at least in recent memory, and he made quite a name for himself, but not a good name. He had a bombastic campaign style, a way of offending anyone that was status quo, and he did it repeatedly."—Looper's defense attorney, Ken Poston, in his opening statement to the jury
[edit] Copycats
- Internet Personality Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka adopted his nickname as a reference to Byron Looper. When Looper was the Putnam County Tax Assessor, Kyanka almost took a summer job with him. In describing Byron, Kyanka wrote "He was a very insane little man who legally changed his middle name to '(Low Tax)'."
- In 2006, deputy county assessor John Lower Taxes Loew ran against incumbent Los Angeles County Assessor, Rick Auerbach. Loew lost the election by a 78-22 landslide.
