Francis C. Thompson

Who is Francis C. Thompson?

Francis Coleman Thompson is a wealthy developer from Delhi in Richland Parish, Louisiana, U.S., where he served as a senior Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He served continuously from 1975 until 2007. Because of state term limits, Thompson was ineligible to have sought a ninth four-year term in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 20, 2007.

Instead, Thompson was elected outright over two fellow Democrats to the District 34 seat in the Louisiana State Senate vacated by the also term-limited Charles Jones of Monroe. Thompson received 13,763 votes to 10,937 for African-American State Representative Willie Hunter, Jr., of Monroe and 2,113 for Paxton J. Branch. Ten days after he vacated the seat to Thompson, Charles Jones was charged with two counts of making and subscribing a false federal income tax return and one count of tax evasion.

Hunter charged irregularities in the primary election in part on grounds that certain Thompson supporters in heavily black East Carroll Parish distributed food packages to the poor with instructions that they should vote for Francis Thompson to maintain such assistance.