Louise B. Johnson

Who was Louise B. Johnson?

Louise Brazzel Johnson was a little-known insurance agent in Bernice in Union Parish who rocketed to state prominence when she upset the Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives in the 1971 Democratic primary. Johnson unseated 24-year incumbent John Sidney Garrett of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish to win the nomination for the District 11 seat in the legislature. Garrett had previously represented Claiborne and Webster parishes. The Union Parish portion of District 11 was represented previously by another Democrat, James Peyton Smith of Farmerville.

After she defeated Garrett, Mrs. Johnson faced Gene Allen, the first Republican to seek the seat in modern times. She won overwhelmingly, 7,143 votes to Allen's 2,410. She served one term until 1976, and was succeeded by her fellow Democrat, Loy F. Weaver, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent from Homer, the seat of Claiborne Parish.

In the nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 1, 1975, Johnson sought the District 35 state Senate seat then held by K.D. Kilpatrick, a funeral home director from Ruston in Lincoln Parish. She ran strongly enough to enter the general election held on December 13, 1975, against her intraparty rival, former state Senator Charles C. Barham of Ruston. Barham, Kilpatrick's predecessor in the Senate and a son of former state Senator and Lieutenant Governor Charles E. "Cap" Barham, polled 16,878 votes to Mrs. Johnson's 15,385 ballots. Barham's Senate service extended from 1964–1972 and again from 1976–1988, when he was succeeded by Randy Ewing, a Democrat from Quitman in Jackson Parish. Whereas Johnson was known for her opposition to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, Charles Barham was an ERA supporter, a defining difference between the candidates. Barham also carried the backing of organized labor and the majority of the African- American community.