Cleo Fields returns to US Congress

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

As chairman of the legislative committee charged with creating a new Louisiana majority-minority district, Cleo Fields himself drew the newly reconstituted 6th Congressional seat as one so stretched across the state that only a candidate with his level of name recognition could win it.

He succeeded, but barely. The La. state senator will return to Congress after a 28-year absence, yet his victory on November 5 proved far tighter than anyone had previously predicted.

Fields won 51 percent of the vote, avoiding a December 7 runoff by a very close margin. His principal Republican challenger, former state senator Elbert Guillory, earned 38 percent of the vote in a district with only 22 percent GOP registration. The 80-year-old former GOP legislator may have been put into the race as a “sacrificial lamb,” yet both Donald Trump‘s coattails and an estimated 25 percent of Black men who expressed the willingness to cross party lines in this election allowed him to over-perform. Despite heavily campaigning, Guillory was outspent by Fields almost 10 to 1, yet a runoff almost occurred. Guillory won 25 percent of the vote in Fields’ home of East Baton Rouge and 50 percent of the vote in West Baton Rouge. In Guillory’s home of St. Landry Parish, he earned 55 percent of the vote, the same as he won in Point Coupee and Avoyelles parishes. In Natchitoches and Rapides parishes, Guillory topped 57 percent.

While the Republican former state senator over-performed, the same cannot be said for Fields’ three other Democratic challengers. Quentin Anthony Anderson won eight percent, Wilken Jones Jr. won one percent and Peter Williams won two percent.

Guillory had counted upon a division in the Democratic vote to carry him to a December runoff, where a lower turnout might have given the Republican a fighting chance. However, strong voter loyalty in the more populous cities – 66 percent for Fields in Shreveport area within Caddo Parish and 62 percent in East Baton Rouge – proved just enough to carry him into narrow first primary victory. Odds are he would have won in a runoff regardless, given the Democratic lean of the district.

The question is, though, how long will Cleo Fields keep his current congressional seat before it is drawn away from him? He lost his congressional career three decades ago when his minority-majority seat was ruled to be too excessively gerrymandered. It could happen again.

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of the lines of the 6th District. Plaintiffs claim that the oddly shaped district, which runs from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, is too geographically distorted – and only constituted on racial grounds.

This article originally published in the November 11, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.