Louisiana's 3rd congressional district

Louisiana's 3rd congressional district
Louisiana's 3rd congressional district - since January 3, 2013.
Current Representative	Clay Higgins (R–Port Barre)
Cook PVI	R+15

Louisiana's 3rd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The district covers the south central tier of the state west to the Texas border.

The district is currently represented by Republican Clay Higgins, a law enforcement officer from Lafayette known for his controversial Crime Stoppers videos, won the December 10th runoff to replace Charles Boustany against public service commissioner Scott Angelle.

Louisiana gained its 2nd and 3rd Congressional Districts in 1823 as part of the 18th United States Congress. Since at least the 1870s, the district has borne the heavy influence of southern Louisiana's Acadian culture.

Although the 3rd Congressional District had been Democratic through much of its history, it is the sole district in Louisiana to have been represented by three parties during the 20th century, in that Whitmell P. Martin represented the district as a "Bull Moose" Progressive from 1915 to 1919, when he switched to the Democrats. Martin remained in office as a Democrat until his death in 1929. The district became more competitive for the Republicans later in the 20th century. In 1966, Hall Lyons of Lafayette, polled 40 percent of the vote as a Republican candidate against veteran Democratic incumbent Edwin E. Willis. In 1972, the district elected David C. Treen as the first Republican U.S. representative from Louisiana since 1891.

Redistricting in the 1980s pushed the district out of the fast-growing suburbs of Metairie and the city of Kenner, to help keep the seat in the hands of Treen's Democratic successor, Billy Tauzin. Tauzin eventually switched to the Republican Party in 1995, making the 3rd Congressional District also unique in 20th-century Louisiana politics as the sole district to have two representatives who switched parties (Martin, who switched from the "Bull Moose" Progressives to the Democrats in 1918, and Tauzin, who switched from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1995). As a Republican, Tauzin continued to serve until retiring from Congress in 2005. Democrat Charlie Melançon won the seat in 2004 (seated in 2005), was reelected in 2006, and was unopposed in 2008.

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