Buddy Leach

Anthony Claude Leach Jr., known as Buddy Leach (March 30, 1934 – August 6, 2022), was an American businessman, lawyer, military veteran, and Democratic politician from Louisiana. From 1979 to 1981, he served one term as a U.S. representative for Louisiana's 4th congressional district. He also served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and as chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party.

In 2003, Leach was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Louisiana in an election won by Kathleen Blanco.

Early life, education, and career Leach was born in Leesville in Vernon Parish in western Louisiana. He graduated from Leesville High School in 1951. In that same year, Leach entered Louisiana State University, from which he earned his Bachelor of Science. In 1954, Leach was diagnosed with polio. He suffered from temporary paralysis but eventually recovered from the disease.

After attending college, Leach served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1959. He returned to higher education for law school and, in 1963, he obtained his Juris Doctor from the Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge. In 1964, he was admitted to the Louisiana State Bar Association and began a law practice in Leesville. Roemer later shifted to the Republican Party, a pattern increasingly followed by conservative whites in the state.

In 1983, Leach sought to regain his former state legislative seat. He defeated incumbent Democrat, William H. West. In his last term as a state legislator, Leach served on the House Ways and Means Committee. In this capacity, he recommended that a tax be placed on foreign oil processed within the state. During his tenure as chairman, the party struggled to field candidates for statewide offices. This was a contrast from when Leach first entered politics in what was then an overwhelmingly Democratic state dominated by conservative whites. Before the late 1960s, African Americans were still largely disenfranchised in the state, totally excluded from politics, as they had been since 1898.

The party was unable to find a well-funded candidate to run in 2011 against Governor Bobby Jindal. For the first time since Reconstruction, Democrats lost both houses of the state legislature to Republicans. On April 28, 2012, Leach lost his reelection bid as state party chair to State Senator Karen Carter Peterson of New Orleans.

Death Leach died from heart failure in Baton Rouge on August 6, 2022, aged 88.