Jack M. Dyer

Who is Jack M. Dyer?

Jack M. Dyer is a Democrat who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, from 1960-1964.

As a young attorney, Dyer had worked to elect Bill Dodd as Louisiana state auditor in the 1956 Democratic primary, when Dodd, a former lieutenant governor, unseated the incumbent Allison R. Kolb of Baton Rouge. Kolb later switched parties and ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 1968 against the Democrat, Mary Evelyn Parker.

In 1960, Dyer was elected to the legislature but served only one term. Instead of seeking reelection, he ran unsuccessfully in 1963-1964 for the position of insurance commissioner, then held by Rufus D. Hayes, a former district attorney in East Baton Rouge Parish. Dyer and Speedy O. Long, thereafter later a U.S. Representative from the defunct 8th congressional district, were defeated by Dudley A. Guglielmo. Dyer ran on the intraparty ticket of former New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, while Long joined the opposing John J. McKeithen slate. When Speedy Long was eliminated from the runoff election between Dyer and Guglielmo, McKeithen endorsed Guglielmo. Others on the Morrison ticket were Claude B. Duval for lieutenant governor, who lost to incumbent C.C. "Taddy" Aycock, and Raymond Laborde, the mayor of Marksville and later a state representative, for custodian of voting machines. Laborde had advocated abolition of the new office but was defeated by incumbent Douglas Fowler of Coushatta in Red River Parish in north Louisiana. Originally an appointee to the position of Governor Earl Kemp Long, Fowler held the post until 1980, when it then passed for twenty more years to his son, Jerry M. Fowler.