Billy Tauzin - Political Career

Political Career

Tauzin began his elective career in 1972, when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives and served four full terms as a Democrat. In 1979, 3rd District Congressman Dave Treen, Louisiana's first Republican congressman since Reconstruction, was elected the state's first Republican governor since that time. He resigned his House seat on March 10, 1980. Tauzin won a special election for the seat on May 17 and was sworn into office on May 22, just five months after winning a fifth term in the state house. He won by seven points. Tauzin defeated Democratic State Senator Tony Guarisco and another Democrat, who also later turned Republican: Jim Donelon. Tauzin then won a full term in November 1980, with 85 percent of the vote.

For 15 years, Tauzin was one of the more conservative Democrats in the United States House of Representatives. Even though he eventually rose to become an assistant majority whip, he felt shut out by some of his more liberal colleagues and sometimes had to ask the Republicans for floor time. When the Democrats lost control of the House after the 1994 elections, Tauzin was one of the cofounders of the House Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate-to-conservative Democrats.

However, on August 8, 1995 Tauzin himself became a Republican, claiming that conservatives were no longer welcome in the Democratic Party. He soon became a Deputy majority whip, becoming the first Congressman to have been part of the leadership of both parties in the House. Regardless of party, Tauzin remained popular at home. After 1980, he was reelected 12 more times without major-party opposition; the first nine of those completely unopposed.

Tauzin served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee from 2001 until February 4, 2004 when he announced he wouldn't run for a 13th full term. Tauzin, who has five children by his first marriage, heavily backed his son, Billy Tauzin III, as his replacement, even going so far as to appear in ads that were criticized as blurring the lines on which man was actually running for Congress. In spite of his father's support, the younger Tauzin was defeated by 569 votes by Democrat Charlie Melancon.

During his tenure, he left his mark on issues ranging from natural gas, airline, trucking and electricity deregulation to the Clean Air Act, Superfund and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In addition, he was an original author of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and the Cable Act – bills which went on to become law despite a Presidential veto.

In 2003, he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield