Gaston Gerald

Political career

A Democrat, Gerald represented Ward II on the Baton Rouge City-Parish Council from 1965 to 1972. He succeeded council member W.W. Dumas upon Dumas' election as mayor-president. Gerald then entered the Louisiana State Senate for the first of three terms. He was elected to the Senate for a second term in his state's first ever nonpartisan blanket primary held in 1975.

In 1976, as a freshman state senator, Gerald was named chairman of the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, in which capacity he tried to defeat the right-to-work legislation which passed that summer. With Victor Bussie, president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, Gerald proposed a state constitutional amendment on the issue, which would have raised the bar for passage.

In 1979, Gerald was convicted of having attempted to extort $25,000 from a contractor who faced forthcoming late charges for his failure to complete construction of the Baton Rouge Civic Center before the contract deadline. Gerald offered to distribute money among members of the Baton Rouge city-parish council, on which he had previously served, to get additional time for the contractor. Despite legal conviction, Gerald won a third Senate term in 1979. He was soon remanded to the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Worth, Texas. While imprisoned, Gerald befriended Everett Bleichner, an insurance adjuster convicted of extortion. Upon Bleichner release on February 9, 1981, Gerald put him on the Senate payroll as an aide with undisclosed duties at a salary of more than $900 per month. Though Gerald's sentence was for five years, he served only half that time, having been released on July 30, 1982. Gerald did not resign from the Senate when he entered prison but continued to draw his salary and expenses. In 1981, the Senate in a rare move voted 33–3 to expel Gerald as a member, with Anthony Guarisco, Jr., of Morgan City leading the majority forces. Voting in Gerald's favor were Senators Sixty Rayburn, W.E. "Bill" Dykes and Joseph Sevario. The three who voted for Gerald were, like Gerald himself, strong supporters of organized labor.

Meanwhile, Henry Holden, business manager for the Pipefitters Local 198 union, was convicted of obstruction of justice in attempting to influence the federal grand jury during the investigation of the Gerald case. Holden was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

In a series of press articles beginning in 1993 it was revealed that politicians in both parties in Louisiana had been tapping either their own family members or relatives of political allies for coveted legislative scholarships to Tulane University, enabled by an 1881 state law. In 1995 it was disclosed that while in the Senate, Gaston Gerald had sponsored a scholarship for Pascal Calogero, III, of New Orleans, one of three sons of Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero, Jr.

After expulsion from the Senate, a special election was held to name a successor for the unexpired part of Gerald's third term. Fellow Democrat Mike Cross, then the mayor of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish, was elected. Cross held the seat from 1981 to 1996, when he was unseated by the young Republican Mike Branch, who served only one term.

Family background

Gerald was one of eight children born to James Edward Gerald and the former Cynthia Martin. Only two of his siblings survive, a brother, Kelly P. Gerald of rural Pine in Washington Parish, and a sister, Martha G. Watts of French Settlement in Livingston Parish. Since his release from prison, Gerald has been engaged in cattle ranching and farming in East Baton Rouge and Washington parishes. Former State Senator B.B. "Sixty" Rayburn of Washington Parish similarly farmed and ranched after his defeat in the 1995 general election by the Republican Phil Short. From 1995 to 2006, Gerald received $30,357 in federal farm subsidies.

Gerald and his wife, Lorraine C. Gerald (born c. 1935), have two sons, James Darrell Gerald (born c. 1955) and Kendall Paul Gerald (born c. 1958).