Charles R. Herring

Charles Roland Herring (born January 14, 1945)^[1] is a chiropractor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who served from 1988 to 1992 as a Democrat in the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 26 in Alexandria in Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana. His tenure corresponded with the administration of Governor Buddy Roemer.^[2]

Background

Herring graduated in 1968 from the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, the first institution of this kind in the world. From February 1969 until October 1970, he served in the United States Navy. Thereafter, he worked as a chiropractor in Alexandria (1970-1992), in Metairie in Jefferson Parish (1992-1996), in Amite in Tangipahoa Parish in southeastern Louisiana (1996-1998), and since 1998 in the capital city of Baton Rouge. Beginning in April 2004, he became affiliated with Louisiana Spine and Sports Medicine in Baton Rouge.^[3]

Long active in his profession, Herring has taught on the graduate faculties of four chiropractic colleges: his alma mater, Palmer, Parker University in Dallas, Texas, Texas Chiropractic College in Pasadena, Texas, and Logan College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, outside St. Louis, Missouri.^[3]

Herring has written scholarly articles carried in such publications as American Chiropractors, Dynamic Chiropractic, The Chiropractor Today, and Chiropractic Technique.^[3]

Political life

From 1976 to 1987, Herring was a member of the Louisiana Statewide Health Coordinating Council.^[3] Herring won a runoff election on November 21, 1987, for the House seat vacated by Republican Jock Scott, who ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana State Senate against the Democrat Joe McPherson. Herring defeated fellow Democrat Eugene Paul "Gene" Cicardo, Sr. (1933-1996), one of the first white graduates of the historically black Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge^[4] and a former city attorney chosen by Arnold Jack Rosenthal, the last of the municipal finance and utilities commissioners in Alexandria. In a low-turnout contest, Herring polled 4,034 votes (52.7 percent) to Cicardo's 3,627 (47.3 percent).^[5] Cicardo had led the five-candidate primary field with 26.7 percent of the votes cast, compared to Herring's 22.9 percent.^[6]

Representative Herring served on the House committees of Civil Law and Procedure and Health and Welfare.^[3] Herring did not seek a second term in the House in the 1991 nonpartisan blanket primary, and his seat was won by the African-American school board member, Israel "Bo" Curtis of Alexandria.^[7] Herring instead lost a bid in 1991 for the District 29 seat in the Louisiana State Senate; he finished in third place in the five-candidate primary election with 7,114 votes (19.1 percent). Another losing primary candidate was the singer Jay Chevalier. Victory instead went to another Democrat, the incumbent state Senator Joe McPherson, who in the runoff election defeated the Republican Robert W. Bates.^[8]

More than a decade after his legislative tenure, Governor Kathleen Blanco appointed Herring to head a joint legislative task force to formulate plans to handle problems in the Louisiana Group Benefits Program for eighty thousand state employees.^[3]

In December 2014, Herring was listed as a Republican voter and a resident of Ward 5 in Livingston Parish outside Baton Rouge by the office of Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler.^[1]

References