I was, of course, deficient in the second regard. When it came to the charms of state-level politicking, I was green as a gourd. But governor of Louisiana is a powerful post and I represented the governor so the legislators would at least listen to me, if not always agree with me. I tried to appear self-assured, but it was all a smoke show. Me advising a twenty-year veteran legislator was, at least at first, like a nun giving advice about sex.

  Early in my tenure, I met with nearly every legislator in the building about a bill Governor Roemer had just put forward. I don’t remember what it was. I do remember we started the bill in the state senate. What I also remember is my certainty heading up to the vote that I had the support to pass it. Yet when the voting machine closed, I was shocked to find that we’d lost. Immediately, I got a copy of the roll call and my eyes went to the name of one particular senator who had promised me a yes vote, but who had voted no. I spotted the senator, a man named Greg Tarver, who has since become a good friend, out on the floor. I sent him a note asking him to come off the floor and see me. When he got there I said, “Greg, you told me you would vote yes. Why did you vote no?” Tarver was silent for a few seconds. Then he pointed to one of the dozens of people standing on the side of the senate chamber, where lobbyists gathered. He said, “Kennedy, do you see that guy over there in the white suit?”

  I looked. There were at least four or five different men who could have matched his description. I glanced back at Tarver, who leaned in a little closer.

  “I voted no because he gave me money to do it.”

  Then the senator walked back to his desk on the senate floor. I glanced back over at the pack of lobbyists.

  Senator Tarver, I would come to learn, is quite a prankster. I think he was kidding.

  I think.

  * * *

  Mike Foster, a big, burly, wealthy state senator from Franklin, did not like me. He liked my boss, the governor, even less. Almost every time I lobbied him, we ended up in a disagreement that ended with unkind words. The tension probably stemmed from a situation involving Dr. Sally Clausen, a family friend of his and commissioner of higher education. Like many in Louisiana politics, Commissioner Clausen had ties to Edwin Edwards. Early in his term, Governor Roemer told me to convince the Board of Regents for Louisiana Colleges and Universities to remove her, believing we couldn’t reform the state’s higher education system with her in charge. So I did my job.

  Every time Foster got wind of this, he’d storm into the governor’s office and demand we leave Clausen alone. Doing what governors sometimes do, Buddy blamed me. “It’s that damn Kennedy,” he’d tell Foster. “I told him to leave Sally alone. I’ll tell him again.” Then Buddy would call me and say, “Kennedy, do you have the votes to fire her yet?” Part of my job was to catch spears for my boss, which I accepted. Eventually Foster would confront me, and I’d mumble something about just doing my job. Then he’d march back to Buddy and hear the same response all over again. It drove Mike crazy. It drove me crazy. But it was my job.

  It should be said that Buddy Roemer, now deceased, became my friend. All he ever wanted was to make Louisiana better. He was incredibly smart and tough as a pine knot. I rank him up there with Reagan and Clinton as one of the best political speakers I’ve ever heard. But he could also be a pain in the ass. Because he was so smart, he was often impatient and sharp-tongued. After a few years working for him, I told him once that if I were in private practice and he wanted to hire me, I’d represent him but I’d charge him five times my usual hourly rate. Buddy’s critics would say he was often wrong, but no one would say he was ever uncertain. In a governor, that could occasionally be a good thing. As a boss, it made my life difficult.

  One day, standing off the senate floor, I listened as Senator Foster went to the mic and made a very personal comment about the Roemer administration—singling me out by name. By this point we had gone back and forth on the Commissioner Clausen thing so many times that he didn’t know if Buddy was BSing him or if I was. I had no intention of clearing that up. But that day, I was exhausted. I’d promised to write an article on a bill I wrote and helped pass, for LSU’s Louisiana Law Review, and I’d been in the library late working on it. Taking flak from Buddy was my job. Taking flak from Mike Foster wasn’t.

  As he left the floor, I let it fly. I’m pretty sure I talked about his mama. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m pretty sure I called him a son of a bitch. Foster, who had me by fifty pounds and was strong enough to make the devil shiver, turned and started walking toward me. I could tell he planned to eat my liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. But I didn’t care. It was one of the few times I ever truly lost my temper. I didn’t think about the dignity of the governor’s office or the fact that Mike could slap me to Pluto. I just reacted the way I was taught back in Zachary.

  I don’t know what would’ve happened if Senator Don Kelly hadn’t stepped between us. Maybe we would’ve traded a few more words and walked away. Maybe Mike would’ve killed me and drunk my blood out of a boot. You never know.

  But as I walked away, I had a feeling I hadn’t seen the last of Mike Foster.

  * * *

  During his campaign for governor in 1987, Buddy Roemer had vowed to take on corruption, make the right people mad, and reform the state political system.

  This wasn’t easy. Nor was it ever dull.

  Since my childhood, I’d heard stories about just how corrupt Louisiana politics was. Former Congressman Billy Tauzin, a good man and friend who almost became governor himself, once said, when asked to describe our state, that “Louisiana is half underwater and half under indictment.” Frankly, I didn’t see a lot of that corruption when I was in state government. Maybe, because I had a reputation as a brand new, slightly naive, unsullied policy geek who worked for an equally chaste governor, the thieves left me alone. I just wasn’t approached with many dishonest proposals. But there were some.

  One day I got a call from a dentist in Denham Springs, just east of Baton Rouge, about an advertisement I had placed in the real estate section of the newspaper for my father, whose health was failing. My father owned a small office building in Zachary with two suites. He worked out of one and rented the other.

  “I’ve been to the office,” said the dentist, “and I’m very interested.”

  We agreed on the price and he told me to send him a draft of the lease. I did, but when I called him about it he had no changes. I remember thinking that this was odd, because my leases are tough, but I just figured he was anxious to move in. After he signed the lease and mailed it back to me, he called me and said, “Mr. Kennedy, there’s just one more thing. I lost my dental license because of some spurious and unfounded allegations against me, and in order for me to move into the building and pay your dad rent, I’m going to need my dental license back. Can you help?”

  I was dumbstruck. But that’s when I knew. Right away, I told him the deal was off. I told him I was going to tear up the lease and he should never call me again. I was embarrassed at how gullible I had been. But I didn’t know better back then. When you have no firsthand experience with graft, you don’t see it coming. I had always been an optimist. I had always tried to see the best in people.

  After that, I became a slightly paranoid optimist.

  The only other time I remember seeing corruption personally occurred about halfway through my time in Governor Roemer’s office. I got a call from an old acquaintance of mine who was in the oil business. Unlike the dentist, he was direct. “John,” he said, “I’ve got a proposal for you. Help me lease some of Louisiana’s lands for oil and gas, and I will sell the lease, keep an overriding royalty [a percentage of the deal], and give some to you.” I thought he was joking. I laughed. But the more I tried to steer him off the proposition, the more I realized he was as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. He never laughed once, and I, of course, said no. He didn’t get mad, but he did end the call shortly after I shut him down. I’ve always assumed he was testing me to see if I would play ball the way some people in government did. His attitude seemed to be: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  * * *

  As our term went on, the Roemer administration managed to muscle through some key reforms. Buddy was relentless in trying to fix the parts of state government that were broken and trying to clean up the parts that operated in the shadows and invited stealing. One of his biggest targets was campaign finance. Before Buddy, there were few limits in how campaigns were funded—cash donations didn’t even require records. Someone could hand you $200,000 in a suitcase, and it was perfectly legal. If you raised money and lost, you could keep it. If you retired, same deal. And since a lot of donations were in cash, there was no way to track unpaid taxes.

  I remember my friend and political consultant the late Shelly Beychok telling me about a New Orleans mayoral candidate who had his tailor sew two massive front pockets into his campaign pants—one for official campaign cash, the other for personal funds. Louisiana politics in a nutshell.

  One of my first tasks was drafting the Louisiana Campaign Finance Act. It capped donations at $5,000, required reporting every penny in and every penny out, and banned cash contributions. As Buddy used to say, “I’m a diabetic. I am what I eat. In politics, you are where you get your money.” Cynical? Maybe. But not wrong. I spent hours trying to make the bill airtight, and even more time with legislators to get it passed. I was proud when it did.

  I was also proud to lead the push for the Louisiana Products Liability Act (LPLA), a massive overhaul of our state’s products liability laws. Before the LPLA, the law was a multiple-vehicle pileup. I’m biased, but I think we improved it. I even wrote a law review article about it, “A Primer on the Louisiana Products Liability Act,” which judges still cite today.

  Another reform we fought for was consolidating Louisiana’s four separate higher education boards into one. Buddy used to say Louisiana’s college landscape looked like Lebanon. Each university had its own turf and they all refused to share or coordinate. LSU had its own governing board, Southern University had one, the other colleges had another, and then there was the Board of Regents, which supposedly oversaw them all—but in reality, LSU ignored it completely. Buddy wanted to merge them into a single board of higher education to actually assign each school a clear role, scope, and mission.

  We failed—but barely. It required a constitutional amendment, and our bill to amend the state constitution passed the house and was one vote short in the senate. That’s when I called a certain state senator from just outside Baton Rouge, known for being . . . transactional.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll vote for it if you build me a road I want.”

  I asked Buddy if we could make it happen. He told me to check with the head of the state department of highways. I did. The answer? “Yes—but we’ll all go to jail.” Apparently the road deal violated about twenty-seven federal and state laws.

  I gave Buddy the bad news. “Well, I guess we’re going to lose,” he said.

  “Not so fast,” I responded. What I suggested next does not cover me in glory. I proposed telling the senator we’d do it, letting him vote with us, then telling him I’d lied. “I’ll leave you out of it, Buddy. I’ll take the heat. He lies to us all the time.”

  Buddy looked at me for a long thirty seconds. No one said a word. Then he simply said, “Kennedy, like I said, the bill’s dead.”

  That day, Charles Elson “Buddy” Roemer III was the bigger man. I learned from his integrity. I vowed never to propose something like that again, and I haven’t. The book of Matthew got it right: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Or, if you prefer, and in the words of the iconic recording artist Meat Loaf, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

  * * *

  By the early 1990s, Governor Roemer was getting national attention alongside Governors Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Ray Mabus of Mississippi—Southern-born Ivy Leaguers who had returned home to govern. The speculation was which of them might become president. That meant Buddy frequently appeared in national news, especially when Louisiana politics intersected with national debates.

  That happened in our final year when the state legislature presented him with an anti-abortion bill considered the strictest in the country. Despite being pro-life, Roemer decided to veto it, saying later that it “dishonors women, shows great mistrust of doctors, and unduly burdens traumatized victims of rape.” At the time, a Louisiana governor’s veto hadn’t been overridden in years, so he thought he was safe. The national press descended on Baton Rouge to cover the announcement of Roemer’s decision on the bill. Satellite trucks lined up outside the Governor’s Mansion and networks scrambled for interviews. One even wired Buddy and several aides, including me, with lapel mics and filmed us discussing the bill around the mansion’s dining room table. It felt contrived, which it was, but I’ll admit, it was heady stuff. (I wasn’t about to say anything significant while wearing a TV mic—by then I’d learned there’s no reward for being stupid.)

  That afternoon, Buddy was set to announce his veto. The press room in the Capitol Building was packed with journalists from all over the country and a few foreign countries, well beyond fire code limits. Just before Buddy walked in, he spotted my good friend and governor’s office colleague David Kemmerly—Diamond Dave, we called him—by the door. Kemmerly (now a successful attorney and health care executive who, along with the multi-talented Philip Ellender, now a Koch Companies senior executive, ran my first political campaign) had been considering leaving the Roemer administration to run for the state legislature. Pausing before he went in to face the media, Buddy smirked and said, “Diamond, what are you running for today?”

  Diamond didn’t miss a beat. “Well,” he said, “I think I’ll run for governor after you veto this bill.”

  Buddy could talk the hide off a cow, but he was speechless. He snapped his head back, glared at Dave, and walked into the press conference. He defended his decision as best he could, but Diamond turned out to be prophetic. The veto was wildly unpopular, and the legislature overrode it. Louisiana voters felt strongly about abortion, then and now, and as we approached Roemer’s 1991 reelection bid with flagging poll numbers, the governor’s office was a grim place. Still, I thought Buddy would win. After all, his opponents were former Governor Edwin Edwards (running yet again; it would be his fourth term if he won) and open racist and Nazi sympathizer David Duke.

  Around the same time, I felt the pull of electoral politics myself. After three and a half years working for Roemer, I thought I was ready. Given my interest in the law and the fact that State Attorney General Billy Guste wasn’t seeking reelection, I decided to run for his seat. My name had been in the papers and on TV a few times because of my work for the governor. I knew that wouldn’t translate to high name recognition, but I figured it might help.

  Before jumping in the race, I commissioned a poll to see where I stood. I’ll never forget what the pollster told me as he reviewed the results.

  “Kennedy, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news? Over forty percent of Louisiana voters know who you are. The bad news? About eighty percent of them think you’re the dead president’s son.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll take it any way I can get it.”

  From that moment on, I was in campaign mode.

  Four

  Running

  When you run a political campaign in a state the size of Louisiana (4.6 million people, give or take), the first thing you need is name recognition.

  The second is money.

  Lots of money. Barrels of the stuff.

  Running statewide, you can’t meet enough voters face-to-face to win. You have to introduce yourself through advertising, which means TV. (Even today, with social media, television is king in Louisiana politics.) When I die, if I make it to heaven, and the Lord says, “Kennedy, I’m not ready for you yet; I’m sending you back,” I think I’ll ask to return as a TV station owner during election season. It would be like winning the lottery. No one around me would be poor because I’d move to a rich neighborhood.

  Raising money is painful. It’s awkward. And it’s necessary. You also have to do it yourself. No matter what overpriced consultants tell you, don’t run if you’re not willing to personally dial for dollars. Nonetheless, I was optimistic. After three and a half years in the governor’s office, I had returned thousands of phone calls to me and to the boss—people wanting advice, favors, or sometimes just to vent. Calls ranged from “I know how to fix K–12 education” to “Can you get my kid into U-High?” (LSU’s lab school) to “I want to sit in the governor’s suite for the LSU–Alabama game.” Some were creepy—like constituents who wanted to be a witness for an execution at the Angola Prison. One day, a wildly successful businessman insisted he speak to the governor immediately. I politely asked why. “I’m thinking about getting a divorce, and I need Buddy’s advice on saving my marriage.” The irony was lost on him, given that Buddy himself was twice divorced.

 

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