Charles D. Lancaster, Jr.

Charles Doerr Lancaster, Jr.
Louisiana State Representative from District 80 (Jefferson Parish)
In office
1972–1976
Preceded by At-large membership
In office
1980 – January 14, 2008
Succeeded by Joseph Lopinto
Personal details
Born September 22, 1943
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Patches Shannon Lancaster
Alma mater University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Loyola University Law School

Occupation Attorney
Religion Roman Catholic

Charles Doerr Lancaster, Jr. (born September 22, 1943), is a Metairie attorney who was until January 14, 2008, the then longest-serving Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He represented what has become District 80 in a portion of populous Jefferson Parish (suburban New Orleans) for eight nonconsecutive four-year terms. In 2007, Lancaster was term-limited and could not seek reelection. His successor is fellow Republican Joseph Lopinto, who defeated another Republican, Glenn Lee, 6,170 (59 percent) to 4,357 (41 percent) in the October 20 nonpartisan blanket primary.

Early years and education

Lancaster graduated from Jesuit High School in New Orleans. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Loyola University law school in New Orleans. He is a fellow in the Loyola University Institute of Politics.

Lancaster was chairman of the House Government Affairs Committee. He served on the Executive Committee, the Legislative Budgetary Control Council, and the Special Committee on Disaster Planning. He held subcommittee positions in Disaster Planning, Crisis Management, and Recovery and Long-Term Revitalization.

Republican party activity

Lancaster was an active Republican party builder during his long legislative career. In 1982, he was voted the "Outstanding Legislator" by the American Conservative Union. In 2006, he chaired the Republican Legislative Delegation Campaign Committee in preparation for the 2007 state elections. In 2004, Lancaster hosted a gala to honor the defection of Democratic Congressman Rodney Alexander of Quitman in Jackson Parish to the Republican Party. Lancaster had served with Alexander in the legislature. He had also served with Alexander's 2004 opponent John W. "Jock" Scott of Alexandria, when Scott was a Democrat and later when Scott too switched to the Republican Party. But incumbency drew Lancaster to support Alexander over Scott.

Lancaster was first elected when he was twenty-eight to the state House in the 1972 general election on the Republican ticket headed by gubernatorial nominee David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish. Lancaster that year defeated Democrat Calvin P. "Chuck" Lee, 6,018 votes (53.3 percent) to 5,281 (46.7 percent. At the time he was the only Republican of the thirteen House members whose districts included a portion of Jefferson Parish. And he was one of only four Republicans in the legislature in his first term. None of the four, including Lancaster, Arthur W. Sour, Jr., and B.F. O'Neal, Jr., both of Shreveport (Caddo Parish) and Edward Clark Gaudin of Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge Parish), still serve in the body. Sour and O'Neal are deceased.

Lancaster lost his seat in 1975, when no Republican sought the governorship in the wake of the popularity of Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards. He returned to the legislature in 1980, when Treen was inaugurated as governor, after a narrow victory in the 1979 general election. Lancaster received 61.1 percent the 1979 election. Two other Republicans, Terry W. Gee and Charles Grisbaum, Jr., were also elected from Jefferson Parish to join Lancaster in the delegation. Grisbaum had been a Democrat prior to his change of parties in 1978 and was then elected as a Republican in 1979.

In 1985, Lancaster joined Frank Spooner of Monroe, the defeated 1976 candidate for Louisiana's 5th congressional district seat, in supporting Republican state party chairman George Despot of Shreveport, who was removed from office in an intraparty purge supported by Treen and former state chairman John H. Cade, Jr., of Alexandria.[1]

In Lancaster's last election, the 2003 jungle primary, he defeated fellow Republican Charles H. Sclafani in his district, which had become reliably GOP-inclined over Lancaster's tenure.

Lancaster is a conservative Roman Catholic who sported a 0 percent voting record as scored by the National Abortion Rights Action League. He is also generally a favorite of business—the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry ranked him a 70 percent score; the AFL-CIO rated him 58. The Louisiana Hospital Association granted him 100 percent. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network rated him 56 percent. The conservative Louisiana Family Forum rated him only 50 percent, but the Louisiana Electorate of Gays And Lesbians gave him a zero. One of Lancaster's Democratic colleagues during the first term, R. Harmon Drew, Sr., of Minden in Webster Parish, was said to consider Lancaster among the two keenest members of the whole legislature. In his final term, Lancaster was one of six Republicans from Jefferson Parish. The GOP members in the Jefferson delegation by then outnumbered the Democrats, 6-4.

After Lancaster left the legislature, his party by 2011 through regular and special elections and defections gained a majority of the seats, 55 of the 105 slot.

Background information

His affiliations include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Jefferson Parish Bar Association, the Louisiana Bar Association, the Jefferson Performing Arts Society, the New Orleans Sports Foundation, the Southern Republican Exchange, and the National Conference of State Legislators. He is also a former president of the National Republican Legislators Association.

Lancaster is married to the former Patches Shannon. Lancaster is Roman Catholic.

References

  1. ↑ Billy Hathorn, "Otto Passman, Jerry Huckaby, and Frank Spooner: The Louisiana Fifth Congressional District Campaign of 1976", Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. LIV, No. 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 347-348

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