Jay McCallum

Jay Bowen McCallum (born June 6, 1960) is a lawyer from Farmerville, Louisiana, who has been since January 2003 a judge of the 3rd Judicial District Court for Lincoln and Union parishes in the northern portion of his state.^[1] Previously, McCallum served from 1992 to 2003 as a Democrat in the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 12 in Lincoln and Union parishes.^[2]

Career

McCallum graduated in 1982 from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, then known as Northeast Louisiana University. In 1985, he graduated from the Louisiana State University Law Center in the capital city of Baton Rouge. He established his law practice in Farmerville, the seat of government for Union Parish. For a brief time he was an assistant district attorney for Lincoln and Union parishes.^[3]

McCallum unseated his fellow Democrat and fellow Southern Baptist, Virgil Orr, an administrator at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 19, 1991. McCallum received 8,286 votes (52.4 percent) to Orr's 7,528 (47.6 percent).^[4]McCallum was unopposed in the primary elections of 1995 and 1999. He served as vice-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and sat as well on the Appropriations Committee.^[3]

He resigned his seat prior to his twelfth year in office to become the Division A judge of the 3rd Judicial Court. The previous September, he defeated a Republican judicial candidate, Scott Killen, 10,861 (62.65 percent) to 6,475 (37.35 percent).^[5]

McCallum was succeeded in the House by Republican Hollis Downs, a Louisiana Tech faculty member, who won a special election for the seat early in 2003.^[6]

McCallum is a member of the Masonic lodge, the Shriners, Lions International, and the Chamber of Commerce.^[3]

References