P. J. Mills

Percy Joseph Mills, Jr., known as P. J. Mills (born January 10, 1934), is a retired businessman residing in New Orleans, Louisiana, who served from 1968-1972 as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Shreveport,^[1] the seat of Caddo Parish in the northwestern corner of the state.

Background

One of Mills's ancestors, Robert Mills, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., which opened to the public in 1888.^[2]

A native of the capital city of Baton Rouge, Mills graduated in 1951 from Catholic High School^[3] and received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and a master's degree in public administration from Louisiana State University. He is married and the father of six children,^[4] including Douglass C. Mills, Christopher Veau Mills, and Andrew Laughlin Mills. He is a retired banker by profession in Shreveport and later Baton Rouge.

In 1967, Mills was named "Outstanding Young Man of the Year" by the Shreveport Junior Chamber. As a legislator, he was the secretary to the Council for Governmental Reorganization.^[5]

Political career

Known as one of the "good-government" Young Turks in the state House, Mills did not seek reelection when the legislature was converted to single-member districts, effective in 1972. Instead, he ran in the 1971 Democratic closed primary for lieutenant governor. He finished fourth among ten candidates. The three-term incumbent, C.C. "Taddy" Aycock of Franklin in St. Mary Parish, ran unsuccessfully for governor. Mills barely trailed the third-place candidate, businessman Edward Kennon, then of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish, and later from Shreveport. Other candidates were State Representative Parey Branton of Shongaloo, also in Webster Parish, and State Senator Jamar Adcock of Monroe, the seat of Ouachita Parish. The office ultimately went to Democrat Jimmy Fitzmorris, a former member of the New Orleans City Council. On February 1, 1972, Fitzmorris handily defeated the GOP nominee, former State Representative Morley A. Hudson of Shreveport.

In 1972, newly elected Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards named Mills as the first director of the Louisiana Superport.^[6] Two later state representatives, Terry W. Gee of Orleans Parish and Dale Sittig of Eunice in St. Landry Parish, were later named directors of the Superport, based at Lafayette, by Republican Governors Mike Foster and Bobby Jindal, respectively.

In 1975, Mills ran again for statewide office when Louisiana Secretary of State Wade O. Martin, Jr., stepped down to run unsuccessfully for governor against Edwin Edwards and State Senator Robert G. Jones of Lake Charles, son of former Governor Sam Houston Jones. Mills, with 49 percent of the ballots, led in the first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary held in Louisiana. He was forced into a runoff, called the general election in Louisiana even though it may feature two candidates from the same party, with State Senator Paul J. Hardy of St. Martinville in St. Martin Parish. Hardy prevailed against Mills, 388,780 votes (51.5 percent) to 366,510 (48.5 percent).^[7] Hardy later switched from Democrat to Republican affiliation and won the office of lieutenant governor in 1987 but was unseated in 1991 and thereafter retired from politics.

In 1988, Mills was appointed chief of staff to newly elected Governor Buddy Roemer, who in 1991 switched affiliation to the Republican Party. At the time, Mills told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the party bolt had become "a case of working out the details. This is a big thing for him."^[8]

Prior to retirement in 2000, Mills was president of the large Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana.^[2] In 1999, Mills was named "Businessperson of the Year" in Baton Rouge.^[9]

Mills remains a Democrat,^[10] but he donated to the election of Republican David Vitter in 1999 in Vitter's successful race that year against fellow Republican David C. Treen for the vacancy in the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana's 1st congressional district, created by the controversial resignation of Republican Bob Livingston.^[11] Mills also contributed to Vitter’s Democratic Senate predecessor, John Breaux.^[12]

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