Cleo Fields
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Cleo Fields (born November 22, 1962) is a lawyer and politician. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana.
Fields was born in Port Allen, Louisiana. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Southern University in Baton Rouge. Fields was elected as a Democrat to the Louisiana Senate in 1986. In 1980, he founded the fundraising group Young Adults for Positive Action. He attempted to run for Congress in 1990, but was defeated.
Fields represented Louisiana's 4th congressional district in the United States Congress from 1993 through 1997. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Louisiana in 1995, losing in a landslide to Mike Foster. He did not run for reelection in 1996, and his seat was taken by Republican John Cooksey who defeated the Democratic candidate Francis Thompson by a wide margin.
On October 1, 2007, the Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled that Fields could not stand for re-election to his senate seat because of term limits. The state legislature had passed a law in 2006 that had defined the date of Field's (and one other senator's) initial swearing-in to the seat back in 1998 in such a way that would have allowed him to stand for re-election in November 2007 and serve one more term, but the Court ruled the law unconstitutional.
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[edit] Early Life
Fields was born in Port Allen, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, the seventh of ten children. His dock-worker father died when he was four, leaving his mother, Alice, to tend for the children herself. Their extreme poverty led to an eviction, after which they moved to South Baton Rouge. Alice took in laundry and worked as a maid to make ends meet. Fields reminisced in the Internet magazine Salon on having holes in the bottoms of his shoes and not being able to attend 25-cent school field trips. In the Louisiana Political Review, he noted that during childhood he considered his life a normal one. "I didn't know what poor was. I thought mommas were supposed to put three patches in a pair of pants. In junior high school, it really hit me in the face. That's when I realized what my mother was going through."
He worked in a store and a McDonald's restaurant to help out the family. Yet the flames of ambition burned in Fields at an early age. During the seventh grade, he told the Memphis Commercial- Appeal, his teacher asked class members to stand up and state their aspirations. "My turn came around," he recalled. "I had on roach stompers and baggy pants. I said, `My name is Cleo Fields and I want to be president when I grow up.' Everybody laughed, including the teacher. I'll never forget that day." During high school, Fields worked for the Mayor's Office of Youth Opportunity, which helped pay for his college tuition.
[edit] Education & First Senate Term
Fields went on to attend Southern University, gaining both a bachelor's degree and a law degree. He was still in law school when he began his campaign for state senator, doing most of the organizational work himself, even writing his own jingles for radio commercials. Fields began by building a base with college students and worked tirelessly against a candidate many on the political scene considered unbeatable, long-time senator Richard Turnley. To the surprise of some experts, he unseated Turnley, who in the Commercial-Appeal referred to Fields as "a very ambitious young man and an astute campaigner." It was a close race, however, and even as the Fields camp received news of victory, local television stations were announcing Turnley's re-election. When Fields went to campaign headquarters to make his acceptance speech, he recollected in the Louisiana Political Review, "People were telling my mother, `You got to get Cleo out of here. He's lost his mind.'" At the age of 24 — the same year he received his law degree — Fields joined the state legislature, becoming the youngest person ever to hold such office. "When I was elected to the state senate, I was a little kid," he admitted in Salon. "I put on the best suit I had and my little polyester tie and I went to the state senate and took my seat. And this senator walked up to me and said, `Excuse me, son. Can you get me a cup of coffee?' I said, `I'm not a page. I'm a lawyer. But when you see a page, you tell him to get two cups of coffee.'"
According to Congressional Quarterly, Fields "was a leader against illicit drug use and was regarded favorably by environmentalists, but not so much so that he was perceived as an enemy of the state's powerful natural gas industry." The publication added that the young legislator primarily "showed a knack for positioning himself to win elections. He also demonstrated the drive and energy to make good on his opportunities." Fields was particularly effective at pushing for minority opportunity in the state, helping to create a large number of political jobs for blacks. One source told the Louisiana Political Review, "Cleo has placed more people up here than anyone." Much of his tenure in the state Senate was taken up with designing a congressional district that would give voice to the black population of his region. To this end, he chaired the redistricting committee, and helped shape the new district that would send him to the nation's capital.
[edit] Service in the United States House of Representatives
Fields served in the state Senate for six years. At last he decided to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Though he was defeated at his first attempt in 1990, he won two years later. At 30, he was once again the youngest legislator. He advanced his agenda in Congress on the House Small Business Committee, the House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committee, the Housing and Community Opportunity Committee, and several others.
Fields used his voting power in the service of a more or less liberal agenda. He could boast of a 0 percentage rating (out of a possible 100 percent) by such conservative organizations as the Christian Coalition and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Meanwhile, self-styled progressive interest groups such as the National Abortion Rights Action League, PeacePAC, and the American Public Health Association, as well as a range of labor-affiliated organizations, gave him a perfect rating. His efforts as a legislator often involved channeling funds into education and protecting consumers from the excesses of insurers, banks, and other such institutions. Congressional Quarterly noted that Fields "has tried to use his seats on the Banking Committee and the Small Business Committee to leverage capital for small businesses willing to relocate in his district, where poverty rates are high." Though he made many political enemies with his voting record, his personal standing in Congress remained high. When his first child was born in 1995, he won cheers from his colleagues on the floor.
The alleged racial gerrymandering of Fields' district was the subject of constant legal wrangling from late 1993 until well into his second term in Congress. The shape of the district resembled the letter z, and brought together a larger black populace — and consequently more black votes — than a competing version. After various challenges, referrals to higher courts, and redraws, Fields returned to Congress with a decisive majority. Unfortunately for him, his district woes were far from over.
[edit] Running for Governor
In 1995 he became a candidate for governor in Louisiana. Fields began to gain in the crowded Democratic primary when another black candidate withdrew and gave Fields his support. Many in his party expressed anger at his candidacy, since they felt a black challenger could not seriously win the office. "I know I'm going against the odds, but I am an odds-buster," he noted in the Commercial-Appeal. "I feel uncomfortable when it's even. I like to be the underdog. I've been the underdog all my life." He surprised many when he beat several prominent Democrats in the primary and made it to a runoff with Republican favorite Mike Foster. And though race had been a preeminent factor in his redistricting fight, Fields vowed not to emphasize color in the election, proclaiming, "I'm not running to be the African American governor, but to be the best governor," in a speech excerpted in the Chicago Tribune. "Don't vote for me because I'm black, ... don't vote against me because I'm black." His remarks in the Los Angeles Times continued this theme: "When a baby cries, it's not a white baby or a black baby — it's a hungry baby," he asserted. "When people cry for job opportunities, they're not black or white — they're unemployed." He was also outspoken in his support for gun control, which Foster roundly opposed. "Every time I hear a gunshot," he declared in a speech reported by the Chicago Tribune, "I think about my child." Some analysts actually wagered that Fields chances in the election might be helped by the likelihood that many of Foster's supporters would go duck hunting on election day.
Fields believed his record as a Congressional representative would position him well in the election. "Voters have had an opportunity to see me and see how I operate as an elected official," he explained during a news conference covered by the Chicago Tribune. "So I think slowly we're breaking down those race barriers." Foster, meanwhile, knew better than to underestimate his opponent. "Anyone who thinks Cleo Fields is not tough is not living in this world," he noted in the Tribune. "Cleo's one of the toughest campaigners I've ever seen." Yet Fields' resilience was not enough to earn him an enthusiastic endorsement from fellow Democrats, and his alleged inability to be elected because of his color was a constant theme during the campaign. In the Commercial-Appeal, Fields replied to such assertions by saying that he expected "from the Democratic party what I have given the Democratic Party — loyalty and support." Meanwhile, a Baton Rouge political analyst, who was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, felt Fields had become "the dominant black politician in the state, which also makes him probably the most important Democrat in the state."
This time, however, Fields had underestimated the challenge he faced. Foster's conservative approach resonated with Louisiana voters, who in the previous election had given former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke nearly 40 percent of the popular vote. He was defeated soundly in the runoff, and experienced continued discord with fellow Democrat Mary Landrieu, who criticized his bid because she felt a black candidate could not win. Fields retaliated by labeling her campaign racist and refusing to endorse her in the future. More trouble came when it was revealed that Fields had sent out newsletters to his district — at a cost of about $46,000, paid for by taxpayers — that were clearly meant to boost his gubernatorial bid. "Of course, a newsletter like that doesn't have to say `reelect me' to be effective around election time," explained National Taxpayers Union vice-president Pete Sepp in Insight on the News. "It can serve as a great, well-produced reminder to voters that their incumbent congressman is taking care of business." Fields was far from alone in engaging in such tactics, of course, but the exposure in a time when "government waste" was a handy political phrase wielded by conservatives, it did not help.
[edit] Cash from Edwin Edwards
Fields achieved considerable notoriety in 1997 when an FBI surveillance videotape showed him accepting a large amount of cash (about $20,000) from former Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards (now in federal prison) and stuffing it in his pockets. Fields has stated that the incident was just an innocent business transaction between friends, and has refused further explanation regarding its details.
