Rob Shadoin

Robert Ermon Shadoin, known principally as Rob Shadoin (born August 24, 1953), is a Republican current member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 12, which includes Lincoln and Union parishes in North Louisiana. He is an attorney in Ruston, Louisiana.^[1]

Background

In 1971, Shadoin graduated from Ruston High School and obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1975 from Louisiana Tech and was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. In 1978, he received his Juris Doctor degree from Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge.^[2] From 1991 to 1994, Shadoin served as the Ruston city attorney. From 1994 to 2006, he was a member of the Lincoln Parish School Board.^[3] Shadoin and his wife, the former Carol Brasuell, have four children.^[1]

State representative

Shadoin defeated fellow Republican, Jason Paul Bullock (born 1977), also of Ruston, in the general election held on November 19, 2011, to choose a successor to Republican Hollis Downs, a professor at Louisiana Tech University. In a low-turnout contest, Shadoin received 4,186 votes (54.4 percent) to Bullock's 3,513 votes (45.6 percent).^[4] In the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 22, Bullock had led the balloting with 45 percent, with Shadoin trailing at 39 percent. A third Republican candidate, Jacob "Jake" Halley, of Farmerville, a consultant with an emergency preparedness company,^[5] held the remaining but critical 16 percent of the primary vote. No Democrat sought the position.^[6] Halley emphasized the need to promote tourism in both parishes; Bullock, who operates a business that rents construction equipment, the importance of small business, and Shadoin, his legal and political experience and a call for streamling and repeal of unnecessary laws.^[5]

In May 2013, Shadoin spoke at the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association event, "Laissez Louisiana Film Rouler" held in Baton Rouge to support the state's film industry.^[7]

In 2013, Shadoin voted for a judicial pay raise, which the legislature approved. He favored the removal of term limits on judges, but that amendment failed in the House. He supported a state law which now requires that women working for the state receive the same pay as men in the same job, something already required under a federal provision in 1963. He voted for surrogacy contracts for couples designating another woman to bear their child, a measure approved by the legislature. Shadoin voted with the House majority to oppose reductions on penalties for possession of marijuana, to prohibit state enforcement of federal firearm regulations on weapon manufacturers, and to prohibit the publication of the names of those with concealed weapon permits.^[8] On all of these issues, Shadoin voted exactly as his Democratic colleague in District 10, Gene Reynolds of Minden in Webster Parish.^[9]

In 2013, Shadoin and State Senator Mike Walsworth of West Monroe obtained passage of legislation to name the Louisiana Highway 33 bridge over Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville in honor of the late State Representative James Peyton Smith of Union Parish. Shadoin's district includes a part of the territory once represented by Smith, whom Shadoin calls "one of the greatest men of Union Parish".^[10]

References