W. Fox McKeithen

W. Fox McKeithen
Louisiana Secretary of State
In office December 1988 – July 15, 2005
Preceded by	James H. "Jim" Brown
Succeeded by	Al Ater
Louisiana State Representative from Caldwell, Franklin, Jackson, and Winn parishes
In office 1984–1988
Preceded by	Thomas "Bud" Brady
Succeeded by	Noble Ellington
Personal details
Born	Walter Fox McKeithen September 8, 1946 Columbia, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	July 16, 2005 (aged 58) Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.
Resting place	Hogan Cemetery Columbia, Louisiana, U.S.
Political party	Republican (1989–2005)
Other political affiliations	Democratic (before 1989)
Children	Marjorie A. McKeithen
Alma mater	Caldwell Parish High School Louisiana Tech University
Occupation	Educator; businessman
Religion	United Methodist

Walter Fox McKeithen (September 8, 1946 – July 16, 2005) served five terms as Secretary of State of Louisiana between 1988 and 2005. He is best remembered for merging the state's election divisions into one department and for the promotion of historical preservation.

Son of a governor

McKeithen was born in rural Columbia, Louisiana to John Julian McKeithen and the former Marjorie Howell Funderburk. According to his tombstone, he was named for two World War II heroes, Walter Bennett and Elmer Fox. He graduated as class president in 1964 from Caldwell Parish High School, the same month in which his father was inaugurated as governor of Louisiana. One of his classmates was future associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, Chet D. Traylor. McKeithen attended Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish to obtain a bachelor's degree in history and social studies.

After graduating from Louisiana Tech, McKeithen returned to Caldwell Parish High School, located off U.S. Route 165, as a civics teacher and coach. He also established three businesses in Caldwell Parish.

Democrat for secretary of state, 1987

In 1983, McKeithen was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives as a Democrat when the incumbent Thomas "Bud" Brady of La Salle Parish was shifted into District 22, where he defeated sitting Representative Richard S. Thompson and former legislator W.L. Rambo.^[1][2]

In 1987, McKeithen was elected secretary of state. In the nonpartisan blanket primary, McKeithen led with 462,965 votes (34 percent) to 365,151 (27 percent) for his principal challenger, fellow Democrat Mike Cutshaw, an attorney for the Louisiana Bankers Association. Two Republican candidates, M. A. "Mike" Tassin and Bobby A. Patrick,^[3] shared 13 percent of the vote, and two other Democrats held a combined 19 percent. Three "no party" candidates polled 8 percent. In the general election, McKeithen only narrowly prevailed over Cutshaw, 490,190 (51 percent) to 467,582 (49 percent).^[4]

Republican for Secretary of State, 1991

In the summer of 1989, McKeithen switched to the Republican Party, whose chairman, William "Billy" Nungesser, had courted him for a possible 1990 campaign for the United States Senate against the Democrat J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.^[5] Upon making the party switch, the GOP helped McKeithen pay off $400,000 in campaign debts.^[6]

McKeithen announced that he would run for the Senate^[7] but dropped such plans when the Republican state convention on January 13, 1990, endorsed State Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans as the party's preferred candidate. Ultimately, Johnston was reelected in a showdown with another Republican, the maverick David Duke, a former figure in the Ku Klux Klan. Bagert left the race two days before the election at the request of national Republican leaders, who endorsed Johnston over Duke. In the 1972 general election, John McKeithen had run as an Independent for the Senate in an unsuccessful race against Johnston. Fox McKeithen's father and daughter, Marjorie A. McKeithen (born 1965), both opposed the party switch and remained Democrat.

In 1991, McKeithen faced a close contest for reelection as secretary of state. Two Democrats, Mary Chehardy (later a Republican) and Doug Schmidt, challenged him. McKeithen led in the primary, with 629,237 votes (46 percent) to Schmidt's 387,243 (28 percent). Close behind was Chehardy with 357,173 (26 percent). Schmidt, who used the expression "Get the Fox out of the Henhouse", advanced to the general election against McKeithen. In the showdown, McKeithen prevailed by 9,151 votes, a margin similar to David C. Treen's plurality over Democrat Louis Lambert in the 1979 gubernatorial contest. Returns gave McKeithen 827,506 votes to Schmidt's 818,355.

In subsequent elections, McKeithen was often endorsed by Democrats and worked well with members from both parties. His folksy manner meant that he was generally popular with voters despite adopting such unpopular positions as raising the pay of elected state officials. In his last race in 2003, he even carried the endorsement of organized labor, which rarely supports Republicans. During January 2004, McKeithen supervised the combining of the former elections department into the secretary of state's office.

A few weeks later, when voting machines were slow to arrive in New Orleans in time for the 2004 elections, he helped to deliver them himself. McKeithen's gravestone in Caldwell Parish lists his principal accomplishments as the restoration of the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, the Cotton Museum in Lake Providence, the Delta Music Museum in Ferriday, and the Louisiana Exhibition Building in Shreveport.

Death

After a fall in the garage of his home in Baton Rouge in February 2005, McKeithen was hospitalized with paralysis from the neck down. Trouble struck again, and he re-entered the hospital on June 21 with a serious infection caused from the fall. He resigned as secretary of state on July 15, 2005, and died just a few hours later. He left his state pension to his former wife, Yvonne Y. McKeithen.

Alan Ray Ater, a former state representative from Ferriday in Concordia Parish became the acting secretary of state on McKeithen's death by virtue of having been the first deputy secretary of state. Ater did not seek the position in the special election held on September 30, 2006, to fill the remaining fifteen months of McKeithen's term. Late in 2006, Ater hence turned over the office to Republican state Senator Jay Dardenne (pronounced DAR DEN) of Baton Rouge. Dardenne was declared the winner of the special election after the runner-up candidate, outgoing Democratic state Senator Francis C. Heitmeier of New Orleans withdrew from a pending runoff election, which would have coincided with the November 7 national general election. In the September 30 election, Dardenne led with 30 percent of the vote. He ran up large margins in the greater Baton Rouge area and finished second in other portions of the state. Heitmeier, who ran best in liberal and labor areas of the state, trailed with 28 percent.

A third candidate, the conservative former Louisiana Republican State Chairman Mike Francis of Crowley in Acadia Parish, finished with 26 percent of the ballots. He ran well in Acadiana and his native north Louisiana — he is originally from Jena in La Salle Parish - but trailed badly in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the Florida Parishes.

Fox McKeithen is interred beside his father, mother, and older brother at the private Hogan Cemetery off Louisiana Highway 559 in Caldwell Parish

Legacy

In 2006, McKeithen was inducted posthumously into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, an honor that his father had procured in 1993, having been among the first thirteen honorees.

References

1. "Louisiana primary election returns, October 22, 1983". staticresults.sos.la.gov. Retrieved July 5, 2013.
2. "Louisiana general election returns, November 19, 1983". staticresults.sos.la.gov. Retrieved July 5, 2013.
3. "Secretary of State's post a stepping stone?", Minden Press-Herald, October 18, 1987, p. 3
4. Louisiana Secretary of State, Primary election returns, October 24, 1987
5. "Republicans courting McKeithen", Minden Press-Herald, July 14, 1989, p. 1
6. "GOP wins McKeithen", Minden Press-Herald, July 27, 1989, p. 1
7. "McKeithen challenges Johnston", Minden Press-Herald, November 7, 1989, p. 1

Links

• Shreveport Times report on death July 16, 2005 (subscription required)
• Biography as Secretary of State

External links

• W. Fox McKeithen at Find a Grave