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The Political Furies of New Orleans
By Mike Bayham
May 13, 2002

Last week marked the conclusion of the spring elections in New Orleans with the runoff for State Representative in District 91 in Uptown New Orleans. The office became vacant when then Rep. Renee Gill Pratt was elected councilwoman for District B during the mayoral primary. In the election, Rosalind Magee Peychaud defeated Jalila Jefferson by a two percent margin.

Because it is a minorty-majority district, the runoff was between two black Democrats though for a while it appeared with a low voter turnout that white Democrat Shane Landry was poised to make the second round of balloting.

The outcome of the election did raise some eyebrows in New Orleans and in political circles around the state because the losing candidate is the daughter of Congressman Bill Jefferson. After coming close to winning the election in the primary, in which the younger Jefferson scored an impressive 45% of the vote, Peychaud pulled off a major upset. In a way the election played out like a Roman tragedy except it was acted out in urban New Orleans.

While serving as guest host of local political talk show, I had as my first guest soon to be former New Orleans Councilman Jim Singleton. The reason why Councilman Singleton is retiring as an elected official has much to with Bill Jefferson. Consequently, the reason why Jalila Jefferson won't be getting accustomed to Baton Rouge this week has everything to do with Jim Singleton.

Singleton had served on the New Orleans City Council for decades. Even when term limits ended the political careers of many of his colleagues, "Big Jim" managed to endure. Term limits did not necessarily throw incumbents out of office, instead the charter amendment forced them to run for different positions.

Of the seven members of the New Orleans City Council who served with then Mayor Sidney Barthelemy in 1990-1994, Singleton was the only one to continually remain on the council. Jackie Clarkson will be making her return to her old and favored stomping grounds on Monday when she is sworn in for her old seat after spending eight years in exile in State House of Representatives.

However, term limits would finally catch up with Singleton who was termed out as a councilman-at-large and was faced with three choices: run for his old District B seat, voluntarily leave office, or run for something else. Singleton decided to end his time on the council and make a bid for mayor.

Singleton polled fairly well at the beginning of the race for mayor and because he was the patriarch of BOLD, which is one of the most influential black political organizations in the Crescent City, he had a strong machine to back his candidacy. Singleton was also had a card up his sleeve...or at least he thought he did.

District B was Singleton old council district and is where BOLD is strongest. Singleton's protege, Oliver Thomas, had succeeded Singleton as the district councilman for eight years until he was also termed out and opted to follow his mentor's lead and successfully ran for one of the two at-large positions.

Before I go any further, allow me to explain something that might be somewhat puzzling: a council seat in New Orleans is considered more prestigious than a place in the legislature. In fact, many New Orleans legislators have made runs for city office and are more than willing to vacate a position where they are one out of 105 or one out of 39 in order to be one of seven or better yet, "governor" of New Orleans.

The compensation a councilman receives is far better than that or a representative or a senator and a councilmanic district is much larger than a legislative district. The same could be said for Jefferson Parish, though the opposite is true for the other 62 parishes in Louisiana.

With the seat available, there was a great deal of interest by some of Singleton's allies, such as Rep. Karen Carter, and his opponents to run for the council from District B. But strangely enough, BOLD did not field a candidate leaving the field wide open for Jefferson protege and former council candidate Pratt to more or less walk into the Council seat. Pratt had narrowly lost to Thomas in a tight, bitter contest for the seat only eight years before.

After looking at the candidate sheet for the council, I had wondered why BOLD had laid down in an election in their own backyard to someone who fought their organization tooth and nail in 1994.

Councilman Singleton revealed the answer to the $10,000 question towards the end of the interview in one of the rare news scoops I have pulled off. Apparently, an arrangement had been made between he and Congressman Jefferson that allowed former Jefferson aide Pratt to have the "BOLD seat" on the New Orleans City Council in exchange for Jefferson's support for mayor of New Orleans. Because Singleton was being flanked by rival black candidates in other parts of the city, the backing of Jefferson's political organization was considered critical.

However in a political sleight of hand, Jefferson yanked that card that was up Singleton's sleeve after qualifying when he announced that he would campaign manage and back the candidacy of Police Chief Richard Pennington. By doing so, Jefferson knocked down the house of cards that was foundation of a successful Singleton mayoral campaign which ended with the longtime councilman coming in fourth place in the primary.

Not missing a beat, Singleton and BOLD immediately came out for surprise first place finisher (and new mayor) Ray Nagin and involved himself in other elections in the city. For robbing him of his dream job, Singleton was determined to make 2002 a long nightmare for Jefferson. And though the congressman came out of the 2002 mayoral election the big loser despite the fact that his name was not on the ballot, Jim Singleton was just getting started.

Because of Pratt's election to the council, her state representative seat was to be filled in a special election. In what could have been the heart of the deal Jefferson initially made with Singleton, Jalila Jefferson filed as a candidate. Jalila had spent the better part of the past few years in the northeast receiving a Harvard education. Singleton's candidate would be the tough, streetwise Rosalind Magee Peychaud who had spent her time in inner city New Orleans.

After Landry forced a runoff by consolidating a large chunk of the white vote in the primary, the two rival political leaders and their respective machines engaged in a straight up fight for the representative seat.

Peychaud, who had claimed to have the support of the popular incoming mayor, had to make up a lot of lost ground after badly trailing Jefferson in the primary. She was no doubt assisted by white voters in the district who had voted for Landry that resented the thought of daddy "buying" his "little princess" a state house seat in lieu of a convertible for a graduation present.

In the end, Peychaud emerged victorious against a candidate who would not have even made a runoff had she had a different last name or if she would not have had her father's formidable political organization working on her behalf. And though Jim Singleton will not have his portrait hanged in Gallier Hall and for the first time since the seventies, will not be an elected official, he can, and I am sure he has, take some solace in that the person who played Cassius to his mayoral bid received a painful visit by the political furies of Calliope.