William Jefferson (politician)
William Jennings Jefferson (born March 14, 1947) is an American former politician from Louisiana whose career ended after his corruption scandal and conviction. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was elected as the state's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction.[1]
"Bill Jefferson" redirects here. For the American baseball pitcher, see Bill Jefferson (baseball).
William Jefferson
On November 13, 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison for bribery after a corruption investigation,[2] the longest sentence ever given to a congressman. He began serving that sentence in May 2012 at a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facility in Beaumont, Texas.
He appealed his case after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on similar issues. In light of these findings, on October 5, 2017, Jefferson was ordered released, pending sentencing or other action, after a U.S. District judge threw out 7 of 10 charges against him.[3] On December 1, 2017, Judge T. S. Ellis III accepted his plea deal and sentenced Jefferson to time served.[4]
Early life and family[edit]
Jefferson was born on March 14, 1947, in Lake Providence, the parish seat of East Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.[5] He and his eight brothers and sisters worked alongside their father on their farm, and Jefferson was also a heavy-equipment operator for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Jeffersons were among the few African-American families in the area who in the mid-20th century owned their land (as opposed to sharecropping). They were regarded with respect, but the family struggled in poverty.[6]
Jefferson graduated from G. W. Griffin High School in Lake Providence.[7] In 1969, Jefferson received a bachelor's degree from Southern University, a historically black college in Baton Rouge, where he had participated in Army ROTC. In 1969 he led a protest against substandard campus facilities and negotiated a resolution of the complaint with then-Governor John J. McKeithen. On graduation from Southern University, Jefferson was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army; he served in a reserve capacity until 1975.[8] In 1972, he earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. In 1996, he received a LLM in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
In 1972 and 1973 Jefferson began the practice of law, having initially served as a clerk for Judge Alvin Benjamin Rubin of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Jefferson is the brother of Betty Jefferson, who became assessor for New Orleans and a Democratic field operative; Mose Jefferson,[9] Archie Jefferson, and Brenda Jefferson Foster. He is the uncle of Angela Coleman.
Jefferson and his wife, Andrea Jefferson, have five daughters: Jamila Jefferson-Jones, Jalila Jefferson-Bullock (a former Louisiana State Representative), Jelani Jefferson Exum (a professor of law at the University of Toledo), Nailah Jefferson (a documentary filmmaker), and Akilah Jefferson. Jamila, Jalila, and Jelani are all graduates of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Nailah is a graduate of Boston University and Emerson College. Akilah, a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, attends the Tulane University School of Medicine.
Political career in New Orleans[edit]
From 1973 to 1975, Jefferson was a legislative assistant to Democratic U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana. Jefferson moved to New Orleans in 1976 and was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1979, where he served until 1990. He twice unsuccessfully ran for New Orleans mayor, having, along with Ron Faucheux, first challenged Dutch Morial in the election of 1982. He was defeated by Sidney Barthelemy in the mayoral runoff of 1986.[10] During the 1982 mayoral race, Morial attacked Jefferson by calling him "Dollar Bill". Jefferson was considered a rising star in Louisiana politics, with some suggesting he would be his state's second African-American governor.[6]
In 1990, midway through his third term in the state senate, Jefferson ran in the nonpartisan blanket primary for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district seat after 10-term incumbent Lindy Boggs announced her retirement. He finished first in the seven-candidate field with 24 percent of the vote. In the runoff, he defeated Marc Morial, the son of Dutch Morial, with 52 percent of the vote. He was reelected seven times.
In the House, Jefferson joined the Congressional Black Caucus.[11] He considered running for governor in 1995 but did not do so.
Jefferson ran for governor of Louisiana in the 1999 Louisiana gubernatorial election, and was the de facto "official" Democratic candidate. However, he lost badly to incumbent Republican Mike Foster, having tallied 29.5 percent of the vote and carrying only New Orleans (coextensive with Orleans Parish) and his native East Carroll Parish, whose seat is Lake Providence.
Local influence[edit]
Jefferson and his family controlled one of the most sophisticated and effective get-out-the-vote organizations in South Louisiana – the Progressive Democrats. Journalist Laura Maggi has described Mose Jefferson, a brother of William, as "the man responsible for running the Progressive Democrats street operation" in New Orleans.[12]
His opponents, Ken Carter and Jim Singleton, founded the Black Organization for Leadership Development as an alternative group. In 2002, the Progressive Democrats' support helped elect Jefferson's protégée Renée Gill Pratt to the New Orleans City Council. Jefferson's daughter Jalila was defeated by Rosalind Peychaud in a special election for Gill Pratt's District 91 seat in the Louisiana State House. She defeated Peychaud in the next regular election. Jefferson's Progressive Democrats organization also contributed to the election of Jefferson's sister Betty, as a municipal assessor, in 1998, 2002 and 2006.
New Orleans politics substantially changed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as many former residents have never returned to the city, changing the demographics of voters. A few days after Hurricane Katrina, Jefferson was reported to have used a Louisiana National Guard detachment to recover personal effects and belongings from his home.[13] After the truck in which he and the detachment traveled became stuck, the Guard helicopter aided Jefferson's party while rescue operations in the city were still underway.
2008 campaign[edit]
In 2008, Jefferson sought re-election while under indictment for bribery. Six Democrats challenged him for the seat in the Democratic primary. The voting was delayed due to Hurricane Gustav.[19][20][21]
In the October 4, 2008 Democratic primary, opposition to Jefferson was split among seven contenders. Some of the challengers made strong showings in their base neighborhoods but failed to garner much support in other parts of the district. Jefferson ran second, third, or even fourth in many precincts, but his 25% total was enough to give him a plurality and to send him into the runoff primary, where he faced Helena Moreno, a former TV newscaster, on November 4. Aided by overwhelming support from African-American voters on the same date as the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama drew them to the polls in unprecedented numbers, Jefferson won the Democratic nomination in the congressional party primary, which barred the district's 41,000 Republicans and many of its 84,000 other voters not registered as Democrats.[22][23] Jefferson won the November 4 Democratic runoff.[24]
The general election round occurred on December 6, 2008. Jefferson faced Republican candidate Anh "Joseph" Cao, Green Party candidate Malik Rahim, and Libertarian Party candidate Gregory Kahn. An earlier candidate, independent Jerry Jacobs, withdrew.[25]
Jefferson was defeated in the general election on December 6, 2008 in a major upset by Republican nominee Cao,[26] who had endorsements from several prominent Democrats including Moreno and City Councilwomen Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson and Stacy Head. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin endorsed Jefferson. Cao won by three percentage points. Jefferson was the third Democratic incumbent since the end of Reconstruction to lose to a Republican at the federal level in Louisiana. (But in Louisiana as in other parts of the South, many conservative whites left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, and alliances have shifted.)
Jefferson's loss evoked a sensation because of the overwhelmingly Democratic nature of the district; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+28, it is the third-most Democratic district in the South. Democrats usually win local and state races in landslides. Barack Obama carried the district with 72 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential election.
Jefferson became the third African-American incumbent Congressman to be unseated in a general election.[27]
Charges against relatives[edit]
On May 22, 2009, Betty Jefferson, Mose Jefferson, Angela Coleman, and Mose's longtime companion, former New Orleans City Councilwoman Renée Gill Pratt, were indicted for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. On June 5, 2009, all the defendants pleaded not guilty. Their sister Brenda Jefferson Foster was serving as a witness in the government's case against them.[39] Mose Jefferson is also facing a separate trial on charges of bribing Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms.[40] On July 28, 2009, United States federal judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle delayed the start of the racketeering trial to January 25, 2010.
On January 10, 2010, Mose Jefferson was convicted of bribery and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. On February 26, 2010, Betty Jefferson and Angela Coleman pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy. They were expected to testify for the government in the fraud and corruption trial against Mose Jefferson and Pratt.