David C. Treen
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David Conner Treen (born July 16, 1928) is an American politician who was Governor of Louisiana from 1980 to 1984. He is a Republican and was the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction.
Treen was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He became a lawyer after graduating from Tulane University, and then served as U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1973 to 1980. He ran for the governorship in 1979 and won, defeating Louis Lambert, a Democrat. Treen was the first governor elected after the passage of the Open Primary Law of 1975. Treen ran for reelection in 1983 but lost to Edwin Edwards. A few hallmarks of the Treen administration were the creation of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and Art, a state-wide high school for the gifted, the Department of Environmental Quality, and naming more minorities to state positions than any previous governor.
Treen and Edwards were known as fierce rivals. During the 1983 election, Edwards remarked that Treen is so slow that "it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes." Similarly, when asked for a scenario in which he could lose to Treen, Edwards replied, "If I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."
In 1998, Treen made a political comeback, running for the US House seat being vacated by Rep. Bob Livingston. In a three-way open primary race with David Duke and David Vitter, he came in first and faced Vitter in the runoff election. Vitter won the runoff by a narrow margin.
| Preceded by : Edwin Edwards | Governors of Louisiana | Succeeded by: Edwin Edwards |