Timothy Burns (Louisiana politician)

Timothy Gerard Burns (born April 1, 1957), also known as Tim Burns, is a tax attorney^[1] from Mandeville, Louisiana, who is a departing Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 89 in St. Tammany Parish.

Political web sites do not indicate Burns's place of birth. He holds three degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans — Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1979, Master of Business Administration in 1980, and Juris Doctor in 1983.^[2] Burns is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Louisiana.^[3]

Burns nearly won outright the five-candidate, all-Republican nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 4, 2003. He led with 6,152 votes (46.7 percent). Susan Bonnett, with 3,534 votres (26.8 percent) ran second.^[4] Bonnett withdrew from the pending general election, and Burns won the seat outright. Burns was reelected without opposition in 2007.

After the election of Republican Bobby Jindal as governor in 2007, Burns soon entered the special election called to fill Jindal's term in Louisiana's 1st congressional district. His principal rival was newly elected State Senator Steve Scalise of Jefferson. Burns accused Scalise of having used push polling to mislead voters in their congressional race. Under this system, a campaign contacts voters by telephone and asks probing questions which leave a negative impression of an opposing candidate. Scalise defended his poll from criticism by Burns: "We were running a public opinion survey this week conducted by the largest Republican polling firm in the country, Public Opinion Strategies. . . . conducted with a sample of 300 people, and it shows Scalise at 57 percent, Burns at 26 percent and undecided at 17 percent. The margin of error is 5.6 percent. We ran a fact-based public opinion survey, not a push poll."^[5]

In the March 8, 2008, Republican primary, which was a closed election restricted to registered Republicans, Scalise polled 16,799 votes (48 percent). Burns received 9,631 votes (28 percent), and two other candidates, Ben Morris and David Simpson, shared some 24 percent of the ballots cast.^[6] In the runoff election on April 5, Scalise easily prevailed, 19,338 (58 percent) to Burns's 13,958 (41.9 percent).^[7]

Burns serves on these House committees: (1) Health and Welfare, (2) Judiciary, and (3) Transportation, Highways, and Public Works.^[8]

In 2010, Burns was rated in his legislative voting record 100 percent by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and 89 percent from the Louisiana Family Forum. In 2009, he was rated 100 percent by the Louisiana Right to Life Federation^[9]

Burns won his third and final term in the state House in the primary election held on October 22, 2011. He received 6,156 votes (69.1 percent) to 2,752 (30.9 percent) for his intraparty opponent, Pat Phillips.^[10] He will be succeeded in January 2016 by another Republican, Reid Falconer of Madisonville in St. Tammany Parish. Falconer defeated Pat Phillips in the primary election held on October 24, 2015.

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