Dan Claitor

Daniel Albert "Dan" Claitor (born August 3, 1961)^[1] is a Baton Rouge attorney and a Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate.

On April 4, 2009, he defeated fellow Republican Lee Domingue, a Baton Rouge businessman backed by Governor Bobby Jindal, in a special election for the District 16 Senate seat vacated by Republican U.S. Representative Bill Cassidy. Claitor received 11,713 votes (66 percent) to Domingue's 6,114 (34 percent).^[2] Prior to Cassidy's short tenure, the seat was held by Louisiana Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne, another Baton Rouge Republican.

Claitor was an unsuccessful candidate for the open seat from Louisiana's 6th congressional district in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 4, 2014, in conjunction with the regular general elections in the other 49 states.

The congressional seat was vacated by Bill Cassidy, Claitor's predecessor in the state Senate, who instead ran successfully to unseat Democrat U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. Claitor's intraparty opponents were Garret Graves, State Representative Lenar Whitney and Paul Deitzel, II, of Baton Rouge, namesake grandson of the Louisiana State University football coach and athletic director Paul Dietzel.^[3]

A Democrat, 87-year-old Edwin Edwards, former four-time governor of Louisiana and four-time representative of Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded,^[4] led the primary field with 77,862 votes (30.1 percent), but later lost the general election to the runner-up in the primary, Garret Graves, who had polled 70,706 (27.4 percent) in the primary.^[5]

Family

Claitor is the third of four sons of Robert Gregory Claitor, Sr., and the former Nancy McLellan (1934-2014). Mrs. Claitor died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident on October 22, 2014, two weeks before the primary election for Congress. At the time of her death, having retired from nursing, she was the harbor master and co-owner of Marina del Ray in Madisonville, St. Tammany Parish, and a co-owner and former manager of Claitor's Law Books and Publishing Company in Baton Rouge.^[6]

Claitor and his brothers (James, Robert, Jr., and John)^[6][7] were reared within the boundaries of his Baton Rouge senatorial district. Claitor's Bookstore has published general works distinct to Louisiana and the memoirs of numerous Louisiana politicians, such as Bill Dodd, former lieutenant governor and state education superintendent.

Claitor graduated in 1979 from Robert E. Lee High School, and then returned to LSU to complete in 1983 a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance. According to his website, he considers the progress of LSU crucial to the retention and recruitment of business in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. As a youth, Claitor drove delivery trucks and worked the presses and bindery operations at Claitor's, for which he is still its legal counsel.^[8]

Claitor obtained his law degree from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law. In 1987, Claitor was named an assistant district attorney at the annual salary of $18,951 for the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, where he claimed a good record in fighting crime. In 2008, in his first political race, Claitor lost badly in a bid for District Attorney of the 19th District (East Baton Rouge Parish).^[9]

Claitor polled 26,880 votes (26 percent) in the district attorney's race to 76,890 ballots (74 percent) for the Democrat Hillar Moore, who carried the backing of two former Republican district attorneys, Bryan E. Bush, Jr., and Douglas Moreau, the outgoing DA who had served since 1991.^[10]

Claitor entered private practice in Baton Rouge in 1990. He and his wife, the former Sharmaine Leblanc (also born 1961), have two sons. They are practicing Catholics.^[8]

2009 special election

In the first round of special election balloting (not an actual primary but sometimes referred to as such by the media) held on March 7, a third candidate, Republican health-care consultant Laurinda Lege Calongne (born ca. 1964), polled 4,511 votes (27 percent) to Claitor's 6,509 votes (39 percent) and Domingue's 5,760 votes (34 percent), according to official returns from all 103 precincts.^[11] Colongne then threw her backing to Claitor.^[12] Despite heavy spending, much of it from his own sources, Domingue scored no inroads in the second race. His campaign had spent $429,709, or nearly three-fourths of its funds, as of March 15, the last day that spending had to be reported to the office of the Louisiana secretary of state. Claitor spent $154,825.^[13]

One of the issues in the campaign centered on Dominigue's having missed casting his ballot in nine of the last twenty elections in East Baton Rouge Parish, whereas Claitor had voted in all of the past thirty such contests.^[14]

Jindal's role

Governor Jindal actively supported Domingue, whose family had donated some $118,500 to Jindal's previous campaigns and transition committees. Jindal's endorsement of Dominigue was his first in a legislative race since he became governor in January 2008. Jindal had earlier indicated that he would not endorse candidates in legislative or statewide elections, but he did support State Treasurer John Neely Kennedy's unsuccessful Republican challenge to Senator Mary Landrieu on November 4, 2008.^[15]

Jindal also did not openly support Republican former U.S. Representative Clyde C. Holloway, who emerged as the frontrunner and winner following the withdrawal of the opposing candidate in the special election held on April 4, 2009, for the District 4 seat on the regulatory Louisiana Public Service Commission.^[16] Nor would Jindal endorse the 2010 reelection of U.S. Senator David Vitter, who previously held the House seat that Jindal himself occupied from 2005 to 2008.

Kirby Goidel, an LSU political analyst, interpreted the senatorial results as "baffling" and a “loss” for Jindal. "He’s irritated some people in the community, and legislators are thinking he [Jindal] could not win in a Republican race. You had a Republican-leaning district, a Republican race and not carrying that after you endorse. I don’t think there’s much ambiguity."^[15]

Claitor as senator

Senator Claitor calls himself a "constructive conservative" and "a team player with an independent approach".^[8] Jindal met with Claitor three days after the election at a reception for then State Senate President Joel Chaisson, II, a Democrat from Destrehan, and promised to work with the new senator. He invited Claitor to the governor's office to discuss upcoming legislative matters. Claitor's primary interest in the Senate has been as an advocate for LSU-related issues.^[17]

Claitor took time from his congressional race to file suit to overturn the $55,000 annual increase in retirement benefits approved by the legislature on behalf of Mike Edmonson, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police and a Jindal appointee. On September 16, 2014, Judge Janice Clark of the 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge, declared the "Edmonson Act", as it became known in the media after its passage in July 2014, unconstitutional because it impacted only two persons. The Louisiana State Police Retirement System Board offered no rebuttal to the suit Claitor filed, and the provision of the law impacting Edmonson and a second state police employee was quickly struck down by the judge. Jindal himself said he did not know that the amendment he signed was written to impact only two persons.^[18]

On September 19, 2014, Claitor, Lenar Whitney, Paul Dietzel, and two other Republican congressional candidates, Garret Graves and Trey Thomas, all received the "Outstanding Family Advocate Award" from the Louisiana Family Forum.^[19]

References

External links

• "Senator Dan Claitor". Louisiana State Senate. 
  • Legislation, Committees