Dave Treen - Election To Congress, 1972

Election To Congress, 1972

After a decade of service on the Republican State Central Committee, Treen was named as the Louisiana Republican national committeeman for a two-year stint that began in 1972. His friend, James H. Boyce, a Baton Rouge industrialist, served as state party chairman while Treen was national committeeman. Over the years, Treen was the beneficiary of a group of dedicated party officials who worked on his behalf, such as National Committeeman Frank Spooner of Monroe and National Committeewoman Virginia Martinez of New Orleans. Martinez was also the treasurer of the national party conventions in 1980 and 1984.

In the fall of 1972, based in part on the strength of his losing gubernatorial race, Treen ran for the open Third District House seat vacated by conservative Democrat Patrick T. Caffery of New Iberia, the seat of Iberia Parish in south Louisiana. He was a surprise winner, helped in part by the popularity of the Nixon-Agnew ticket, which carried sixty-three of the sixty-four parishes (the exception, West Feliciana Parish) in traditionally Democratic Louisiana. Treen defeated Democrat J. Louis Watkins, Jr., of Houma, 71,090 (54 percent) to 60,521 (46 percent). His then home parish of Jefferson helped to push Treen over the top with a 73 percent share of the vote. Treen became the first Republican to represent Louisiana in Congress since Hamilton D. Coleman left office from the Second District in 1891.

Treen served in the congressional seat from 1973 until 1980, when he resigned to become governor. As a congressman, he voted right-of-center and usually in accord with his party. He was considered a team player among House Republicans. In 1974, Treen won a comfortable reelection in a nationally Democratic year. He defeated State Representative Charles Grisbaum, Jr., of Jefferson Parish, who became a close friend. Grisbaum later switched parties, and when Treen became governor in 1980, Grisbaum served as one of Treen's floor leaders in the Louisiana House. In 1975, Treen was joined by his first Louisiana Republican colleague in the U.S. House when Henson Moore (born 1939) won the Sixth Congressional District seat based in and about Baton Rouge and the Florida Parishes. Moore won the seat formerly held by the Democrat John Rarick. In 1976, Treen polled 73.3 percent in a race against a nominal Democratic opponent while the Democrat Jimmy Carter carried Louisiana over Gerald R. Ford.