Parey Branton


Parey Pershing Branton Sr. was a businessman from Shongaloo, Louisiana, who was from 1960 to 1972 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from what is now District 10 in Webster Parish. The district, which includes the parish seat of Minden in northwestern Louisiana, is now represented by the Democrat Gene Reynolds of Dubberly.
In the mid-1960s, he called himself a "Wallace–Goldwater–free enterprise–right-to-profit Democrat" and printed that slogan for a time on his private vehicle. He refused to support the national Democratic presidential nominees during his tenure in the legislature. Instead, he endorsed Republican Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona in 1964 and former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, Jr., in 1968. Wallace ran on the American Independent Party banner in a vain attempt to block the election of either Richard M. Nixon or Hubert Humphrey.

Background

The oldest child of Marion M. Branton and the former Addie Mae Martin, Branton graduated from Shongaloo High School in his native Shongaloo in central Webster Parish. He then attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and the University of Texas at Austin, both for two years. With the outbreak of World War II, Branton joined the United States Army Signal Corps and attended a special school in advanced radar held near Lexington in Fayette County, Kentucky. There he met his future wife, the former Georgia Porter Lusby, a native of Avon in Fayette County, and the daughter of Owen Lusby and the former Lena Williams. On October 30, 1943, the couple married in Paris in Bourbon County, Kentucky.
In 1948, Branton joined the staff of American Airlines in El Paso, Texas, and was later assigned in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. He returned to Shongaloo in 1951 and was employed in the personnel and payroll departments of the since closed International Paper Company in nearby Springhill. He also operated a store in Shongaloo at the intersection of Louisiana Highways 159 and 2. He was a member of Mt. Paran Baptist Church in Shongaloo.

School board service

Prior to his legislative service, Branton was a member of the Webster Parish School Board from 1952 until his defeat in 1958. In his obituary, Branton, as a school board member, is said to have "pressed consistently for excellence in the classroom and efficiency in budget management and in public property maintenance."
In January 1956, he was elected vice president of the board, having served under president James E. Harper, a banker and a former principal of Minden High School.
Just days after being named school board vice president, Branton sought the position of Webster Parish clerk of court. Three candidates challenged in the Democratic primary the 24-year incumbent Thomas J. Campbell, member of a prominent Webster Parish political family. Branton finished third with 2,327 votes, 92 fewer than the second-place candidate, Clarence D. Wiley of Minden. The fourth-place candidate, Minden alderman Frank T. Norman, would be elected mayor some two years later in 1958. Wiley went on to unseat Campbell in the runoff election and served for twenty years as clerk of court.
After the Democratic primary for school board was held in 1958, opposition arose to Branton when the school board transferred Douglas Tillman Newsom from the principalship of Shongaloo High School to that of Dubberly High School in Dubberly in south Webster Parish. Newson's exodus from Shongaloo stalled the development of the agriculture department at the school, and voters retaliated against Branton. In a newspaper advertisement, Branton called for public schoolteachers to have "religious convictions and high professional and moral standards." He also spoke out against school consolidation in rural areas. In the November 4, 1958, general election, Branton was unseated by his fellow Democrat, A. J. Burns Sr., who ran as a write-in candidate. Burns prevailed, 269 votes to 216 votes.

Three legislative elections

Fresh from his defeat as a school board member, Branton entered the 1959 Democratic primary for the Webster Parish seat in the Louisiana House. The incumbent, Ernest Dewey Gleason, died shortly after announcing plans to seek a third term. Governor Earl K. Long appointed Gleason's widow, Mary Smith Gleason, to fill the remaining months of the term, as insufficient time existed for a special election, which would have coincided with the regular primary schedule. Mrs. Gleason did not seek a full term, but her son, William E. Gleason, an educator, entered the race. Other primary candidates included businessman Frank B. Treat, Jr., and attorney Henry Grady Hobbs, both of Minden.
Branton trailed Hobbs by 130 votes in the December primary, but in the runoff held on January 9, 1960, Branton defeated Hobbs by 16 votes, 4,300 to 4,284. A Branton campaign advertisement proclaimed "Remove All Doubt. There Will Be No Question if You Elect an Avowed Segregationist," a claim that Hobbs would not pursue the same segregationist policies in the legislature as would Branton. Branton won only two of the five wards in the parish to take the seat by sixteen ballots. Hobbs, a native of Sarepta in Webster Parish, was an attorney for sixty years, eighteen as the Minden city attorney. He was active on the Webster Parish Library Board, having overseen as the board president the construction of the current library in Minden during the middle 1990s.
In 1962, Branton joined his House colleague, Representative Wellborn Jack of Shreveport, in supporting a change in the system of how Louisiana allocates its electoral votes. The two argued that Louisiana should adopt the framework used currently only by Maine and Nebraska by which one elector is allotted for each congressional district to the winner by plurality in that district, and two at-large electoral votes are assigned to the top vote-getter statewide, plurality or majority. The plan was not adopted. It could have enabled Louisiana to choose split electors, as Alabama did in 1960 and New Jersey in 1860. Branton said the plan would dilute the voting power of minority groups in large eastern and Midwestern cities.
In his three terms in the House, Branton served on the committees of Appropriations, Judiciary D, Wildlife and Fisheries, Public Education, and State Retirement, of which he was for a time the chairman.
Branton was unopposed for his second legislative term in the 1963 primary. Though he had favored the Democrat George Wallace in the 1964 presidential election, he switched to Goldwater after Wallace withdrew from consideration at the national party convention. Branton incorrectly predicted that Goldwater would lose the electoral vote of Louisiana because of a combination of white party loyalists, African-American voters, and machine politics in many parishes in the southern portion of the state. He urged Goldwater to solicit voters whose first choice had been Wallace.
In the 1966 legislative session, Branton listed the establishment of Louisiana State University at Shreveport, which began in 1967, with the later Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport, a medical school, were his highest priorities.
On August 13, 1966, Branton ran for the Louisiana Public Service Commission against the appointed incumbent, John S. Hunt III of Monroe. Others in the race were fellow Representative John Sidney Garrett of nearby Haynesville and former lawmaker Wellborn Jack, who described himself as one opposed to all kinds of "federal encroachment." Though Branton finished in sixth place, he led by a plurality in his own Webster Parish. In the party runoff on September 24, Hunt prevailed over Garrett.
In 1967, Branton faced a stiff renomination fight from Springhill attorney and former mayor and school board member Charles McConnell, who carried the support of Governor John McKeithen, an easy winner in his own primary for a second term against U.S. Representative John Rarick. The McConnell campaign cited criticism of Branton by the influential State Representative Robert J. Munson of Rapides Parish, a McKeithen floor leader who in 1966 had said, "If I had represented Rapides Parish like he represents Webster, I couldn't look myself in the face."
Minden attorney Henry Hobbs, who had lost narrowly to Branton in 1960, was eliminated in the 1967 primary and endorsed McConnell in the runoff campaign. Branton nevertheless prevailed in the runoff held on December 16: 7,619 votes to McConnell's 6,857. From 1968 to 1972, Branton and neighboring Representative John S. Garrett represented a combined Webster and Claiborne Parish district. Garrett was renominated in the first primary and was thereafter tapped by McKeithen to succeed House Speaker Vail M. Delony of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish.
In 1968, Branton opposed pay increases for assistant district attorneys in his own 26th Judicial District, a measure introduced by his colleague Walter O. Bigby of Bossier City. In taking that position, Branton clashed with Speaker John S. Garrett, who viewed the matter as "local" and endorsed earlier by the police juries of both parishes. According to Branton, the state could not "afford such increases in salary of politicians. I think the raise is ridiculous at a time when the state of Louisiana is looking for additional salary increases to the working people... and school teachers." He noted too that the assistant district attorneys are part-time employees, and most have their own law practices.
After his last election to the House, Branton joined two Democratic colleagues from Shreveport, Algie D. Brown and Frank Fulco, in opposition to approved legislative pay raises. The trio filed suit in East Baton Rouge Parish in a failed bid to prevent State Treasurer Mary Evelyn Parker from allowing the expenditure of funds to underwrite the raises. Branton noted with alarm that his own legislative check had more than doubled, from $204.73 net monthly to $429.72, an amount he considered too large for a citizen legislator.
In 1970 in the wake of school desegregation, Branton and colleague Ford E. Stinson of Bossier Parish urged the repeal of the Louisiana compulsory attendance law. Branton claimed the law should end so that parents are not legally required to send their children into "deplorable school conditions."

Bid for lieutenant governor

Branton relinquished his legislative seat after three terms to run for Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana in the 1971 Democratic primary. He was paired on an intraparty ticket with state Senator John G. Schwegmann, Jr., of Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs, the candidate for governor. Schwegmann, the owner of eighteen grocery stores, was an outspoken conservative who had long been critical of excessive state spending and expanded government. The Schwegmann-Branton ticket fared poorly. Schwegmann finished in fifth place in the primary. Branton placed sixth in the lieutenant governor's race with 53,295 votes.
Branton was seeking to succeed conservative Lieutenant Governor Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock of Franklin in St. Mary Parish in south Louisiana. Aycock was running for governor that year and finished a notch behind Schwegmann. Branton was weakened in his campaign by the presence of a second candidate from Webster Parish. The developer Francis Edward "Ed" Kennon, Jr., of Minden, a nephew of former Governor Robert F. Kennon, was also running for lieutenant governor. So were two bankers, Jamar Adcock of Monroe and P.J. Mills of Shreveport, both outgoing members of the state legislature. Pete Heine, a local politician from Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish, was also in the running. Kennon polled 162,944 votes, more than three times as many ballots as Branton received. The winner of the lieutenant governor's race was former New Orleans City Council member James E. "Jimmy" Fitzmorris, Jr. The next year, Edward Kennon was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, a position that he held from 1973 to 1984.
Branton was philosophically aligned with State Senator Harold Montgomery of Doyline in Webster Parish, another staunch conservative often at odds with his party's leadership. Branton was also personally and philosophically close to his successor, R. Harmon Drew Sr. of Minden, another conservative Democrat. In 1995, Branton was an honorary pallbearer at the funerals of both Montgomery and Drew, who died a day apart in 1995.

Race for Louisiana Senate, 1975

In 1975, when Montgomery declined to seek a fourth term in the state Senate, Branton ran in an eight-candidate, all-Democratic field for the seat. Trailing in the first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary held in Louisiana, Branton hence failed to secure a general election position. His former legislative colleague, John S. Garrett, went into the second election with Foster L. Campbell, Jr., then a young educator from Haughton. Campbell emerged the overwhelming winner over Garrett. Other primary candidates had included Minden educator Ralph Lamar Rentz Sr., who had run against Drew for the state House seat in 1971.

1992 suit to block school bond issue

In 1992, two years after Branton had left the office of mayor of Shongaloo, he and another resident, J. W. Eason, filed suit to block a school bond election in Shongaloo. Election returns revealed that more votes had been cast in the bond issue election than were the number of property owners in the jurisdiction. However, the Branton suit went no where; the United States Supreme Court had already ruled that non-property owners, or renters, may vote in property tax elections.

Family information

Branton resided with his wife in the historic Bond House in Shongaloo built in 1909 and located less than a mile from the farm on which he was reared. The Brantons operated a general store near their home and were involved in cattle and oil and natural gas leasing. Mrs. Branton also operated a beauty shop until she was fifty.
Branton was elected without opposition as the mayor of Shongaloo in 1972, just as his legislative term was ending. As mayor, a position that he held until 1990, Branton worked for establishment of the Shongaloo Civic Center, a public meeting hall located across the highway from his own home. Mrs. Branton acted as manager of the civic center. In 1973, the Webster Parish Police Jury in a six-to-five vote named Branton its federal funds coordinator. In that capacity, he developed an emergency medical services plan for the parish.
In 2001, Branton's son, Daniel Miles "Champ" Branton, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Shongaloo but now resides with his wife, the former Renee Brazzel, in Ruston, Louisiana. A second son, Parey P. "Pepper" Branton, Jr., resides in Shongaloo.
Branton died at the age of ninety-two in a hospital in Shreveport. In addition to his wife and sons, he was survived by his brother, Harold Matthew Branton, an LSU graduate, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and veteran of three wars, and subsequently a real estate broker and insurance salesman in Shreveport and Kerrville, Texas, and a sister, Mutelle Branton Cobb Thompson of Springhill. He was predeceased by a second sister, Dorothy Marie Branton Patton of Shreveport. Services were held on September 18, 2011, at Mt. Paran Baptist Church. Parey and Georgia Branton are interred at Union Springs Cemetery in Shongaloo.