Preceded by Roy A. Burrell Name Samuel Jr. | Political party Democratic Party | |
Residence Shreveport, Caddo Parish
Louisiana | ||
Samuel Lee Jenkins Jr. (born February 1956), known as Sam Jenkins, is a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 2 in Caddo and Bossier parishes in northwestern Louisiana. Jenkins succeeded Roy A. Burrell, who was term-limited in the primary election held on October 24, 2015.
Political campaigns
In the fall of 1994, Jenkins and Burrell ran against each other for the District G seat on the Shreveport City Council. Burrell won that race with 3,659 votes (61.8 percent), compared to Jenkins' 2,263 (38.2 percent).
In 2014, Burrell announced on KEEL radio in Shreveport that he would run for mayor of Shreveport to succeed the term-limited Cedric Glover. However, Burrell soon withdrew on the grounds that a prior commitment to his friend, former Mayor Keith Hightower, made it impossible for him to run. Then Hightower, the mayor from 1998 to 2006, decided not to seek a comeback in the office. Jenkins and Patrick C. Williams, one of Burrell's legislative colleagues, were among several candidates who ran unsuccessfully for mayor. Victory went instead to still another candidate, the retired educator Ollie Tyler. Glover, meanwhile, returned in January 2016 to the state House in the District 4 seat which he formerly held. That position was vacated by Representative Patrick Williams.
In the 2015 primary, Jenkins defeated fellow Democrat Terence Vinson for the right to succeed Representative Burrell. Jenkins polled 3,505 votes (60.6 percent) to Vinson's 2,282 (39.4 percent).
Burrell himself won the District 5 seat on the Caddo Parish Commission in that same election without opposition.