John Breaux

I feel...

I grew up politically watching Louisiana Democrats like John Breaux and Mary Landrieu, you know, really, really tacked towards the center when partisanship was not as or at least felt like it wasn't as important, you know, when you could get some cross-party support without, you know, without getting primaried.

And so, you know, I'm hopeful that we're going to move forward in this election at least a little closer to maybe not like a no-label situation where we have politicians with no labels, but at least a little further away from partisanship.

Obviously, this is a long-term thing because as long as Donald Trump is in power and leading the Republican party partisanship is going to be King.

We were conservatives.

We were conservative Democrats, and we had Senator John Breaux, we had Senator Bennett Johnston, we had Governor Edwin Edwards, and the tone was different.

I'm just telling people who, they wanna get, you know, that divisiveness and, and I call it ad- attitudinal is the word I, I made up.

You know, you have, you have to work together, and you, you have to have that mentality is you're not gonna get everything you want all the time, and you have to work with these people, and I have not burnt those bridges.

Like in the 80s, you would see that kind of thing.

And, you know, a Southern Democrat, John Breaux, might do that relative to Ronald Reagan.

You don't see that anymore.

But all of those things have changed.

And we landed some big wins that cycle.

You also worked for two of the giants of the Democratic Party in the Senate, John Breaux and Frank Lautenberg, two very different people.

What did you learn from them?

For Senator Lautenberg, it was about being a bulldog.

The witnesses, Glenn Braswell, president of GeroVita International in Marina del Rey, California, and Ron Tepper, editor of the Journal of Longevity, also in Marina del Rey, California.

Here's Democratic Chairman John Breaux.

I'd like to, um, start, um, by first asking, uh, Mr. Braswell, uh, if you are the sole owner or stockholder for the GB Data Systems and their subsidiary companies.

Mr. Braswell?

This state had two Democratic senators for years and years and years, Bennett Johnston, obviously, and Russell Long, and then your sister, Mary Lee Andrew.

John Breaux for years, they were winning South Louisiana votes, and white folks in South Louisiana, and they were doing okay in some parts of North Louisiana too.

People at home should know South Louisiana's more Catholic, North Louisiana's more Protestant.

Why did those folks leave the party of their parents and

This state had two Democratic senators for years and years and years, Bennett Johnston, obviously, and Russell Long, and then your sister, Mary Lee Andrew.

John Breaux for years, they were winning South Louisiana votes, and white folks in South Louisiana, and they were doing okay in some parts of North Louisiana too.

People at home should know South Louisiana's more Catholic, North Louisiana's more Protestant.

Why did those folks leave the party of their parents and

So I go become a tax lawyer, which wasn't really, you know, didn't really float my boat that much.

But I always loved public policy, ended up on Capitol Hill, ended up working for Senator John Breaux, actually.

and got to do a lot of interesting things in that role.

And Senator Breaux, when Teddy and John were setting this up, they wanted to have a bipartisan group of lawmakers and leaders in the country who were on their advisory board.

And John Breaux was a Democrat, and he was like a logical person to be.

He was from Louisiana.

School choice was acceptable there.