Ed Tarpley

Edward Lacy Tarpley, Jr., also known as Ed Tarpley or Eddie Tarpley (born May 23, 1953), is a lawyer in Alexandria, Louisiana, who was from 1991 to 1997 the district attorney for the 35th Judicial District based in Colfax in neighboring Grant Parish.

A Republican, Tarpley became the first candidate to announce a challenge to U.S. Representative Vance McAllister, a freshman Republican from Ouachita Parish, in the 2014 race for Louisiana's 5th congressional district seat. However, neither Tarpley nor McAllister emerged from the nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 4, which coincided with the general elections in the other forty-nine states. Tarpley ran as a determined "conservative"^[1]but finished with only 4,593 votes (1.9 percent). McAllister ran fourth with 26,605 votes (11.1 percent). The top two candidates, Jamie Mayo, the Democratic mayor of Monroe, and Ralph Abraham, a physician and former veterinarian from Richland Parish, now meet in a runoff election on December 6, 2014 to determine McAllister's successor.^[2]

Background

Tarpley is a grandson of the late Jesse and Irene Brister Tarpley of Pollock, a community in Grant Parish along U.S. Route 165 north of Pineville in adjoining Rapides Parish. He is the oldest of three children of the former Shirley Dean Lonidier (born c. 1936) and Eddie Tarpley, Sr. (1926-2007), a United States Navy veteran of the Battle of Okinawa in World War II and a social worker for thirty years for the Louisiana Department of Public Welfare and the Louisiana Department of Hospitals. The Tarpley siblings are Michael Lynn Tarpley, a military officer from Pollock, and Lisa Tarpley Price of Winnfield.^[3]

Like his father, Tarpley was reared in Pollock. As a youth, he was an Eagle Scout. He graduated in 1971 from Tioga High School in the Tioga community in Ward 10 north of Pineville. In 1976, he received his undergraduate degree in History from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1979, he graduated from the Louisiana State University Law Center and was thereafter admitted to the practice of law.^[4]

Tarpley was married to the former Margaret Perry from c. 1981 until her death at the age of forty-seven on August 1, 2008. She was a native of Alexandria, Virginia, who was reared in Houma, Louisiana, and graduated with honors from LSU in 1982. From 1993 to 2001, Mrs. Tarpley was a reporter and weekend on-camera weather broadcaster for KLAX-TV, the ABC affiliate in Alexandria, Louisiana, which covers Central Louisiana. She also taught in numerous public and private schools in Rapides Parish, including Holy Savior Menard Central High School, Pineville High School, and the Alpine Christian School, of which she was later chairman of the school board. She was active in the pro-life movement and co-founded the Cenla Crisis Pregnancy Center Hotline.^[5]Tarpley's sister-in-law, Regina Salvador Tarpley (1957-2008), the wife of his brother Michael, died some ten weeks prior to the passing of Margaret Tarpley. Eddie Tarpley, Sr., Margaret, and Regina are all interred in the family plot at the Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery in Fishville in Grant Parish.^[6]

In November 2010, Tarpley married the former Leonore Audrey Marchand (born c. 1956), a New Orleans native and a nurse from Pineville in a ceremony at the Grace Presbyterian Church in Alexandria.^[7][8]He sued for divorce some eight months later in 2011.^[9]

Tarpley was formerly affiliated with the Neblett, Beard & Arsenault law firm but has his own practice at 819 Johnston Street in Alexandria. He is a former director of the Attakapas Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He served from 2001 to 2007 as an appointed trustees of Southern Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville, the alma mater of his father. He is a member of Kingsville Baptist Church in Ball, also north of Pineville. His four children are Nathan Edward Tarpley (born c. 1985), Maria Margaret Tarpley Calloway (born c. 1987) and husband, Shaun, of Dallas, Texas, Megan Tarpley, and Mary Elisabeth Tarpley.^[4]

Political life

On November 6, 1990, Tarpley was elected as Grant Parish DA. He unseated the Democrat Joseph P. "Joe" Beck, II, 3,451 votes (51.8 percent) to 3,216 (48.2 percent).^[10]He did not seek reelection in 1996.

Run for state attorney general

Tarpley did not seek a second six-year term as DA in 1996 but instead ran unsuccessfully in 1995 for state attorney general against the incumbent Democrat Richard Ieyoub of Lake Charles. In that campaign, Tarpley accented his opposition to gambling. Ieyoub polled 1,019,041 votes (76 percent) to Tarpley's 137,372 votes (10 percent). Tarpley lost to Ieyoub even his own Grant Parish. Two others, one a Republican and the other a "No Party" candidate, received the remaining 14 percent of the ballots cast.^[11]

2014 congressional race

Tarpley said that he had considered running in the special election for Louisiana's 5th congressional district in the fall of 2013 to choose a successor to Republican Rodney Alexander, who resigned to join the administration of Governor Bobby Jindal. However, Tarpley claimed that the timetable was too short to mount an effective campaign and he instead endorsed former U.S. Representative and Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Clyde Holloway of Rapides Parish, who finished fourth in the balloting. Tarpley then switched his support to State Senator Neil Riser of Columbia, the choice of the party establishment in the runoff against newcomer Vance McAllister,^[4] who carried Holloway's blessing in the second round of balloting.

With McAllister, a married man, having been videotaped in December 2013 kissing a married female congressional aide and the wife of McAllister's close friend, questions have arisen about his personal ethics and continued electability.^[1] Tarpley challenged as "unconscionable" McAllister's support for a budget resolution backed by U.S. President Barack H. Obama that cut benefits to veterans while "dramatically expanding the welfare state."^[4] He favors the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the establishment of free-market reforms to promote patients' rights and freedom of choice.^[4]Tarpley vowed to wage an:

issues-based campaign in which I will compare and contrast the differences between my opponent and myself. I will not make this campaign about personality, but instead I will focus on the need to elect the right representative ... We must elect men and women of strong moral character with a commitment to ethical behavior and a willingness to serve ...^[4]

McAllister announced on April 28, 2014 that he would not seek reelection, thus becoming a one-term congressman. He said that his marriage and family remain solid through the crisis and that his decision not to run again had nothing to do with the prior opposition of Governor Bobby Jindal or Republican State Chairman Roger Villere.^[12]

Tarpley's first announced challenger was Republican Harris Brown (born c. 1965), an oil and gas businessman from Monroe and the younger son of the late Democratic State Senator William Denis "Billy" Brown, III.^[13]

A few weeks after his announcement of non-candidacy, McAllister reversed himself and became a candidate for a full term in the November 4 primary. A poll by the Glascock Group released in early August 2014 showed McAllister leading Mayor Jamie Mayo, who had also sought the seat in 2013. McAllister had 27 percent in the Glascock poll to Mayo's 21 percent. Dr. Ralph Abraham polled third with 18 percent. In fourth place was Zach Dasher, a pharmaceutical representative and a cousin of stars of the television series Duck Dynasty, with 14 percent. Dasher was followed by Tarpley at 9 percent and Harris Brown at 6 percent. Libertarian Party candidate Clay Grant of Boyce in Rapides Parish, trailed with 5 percent. In individual match-ups with his opponents, McAllister is shown to be highly vulnerable.^[14]Tarpley though newer reached the 9 percent projected for him in the summer poll.

Thereafter, Tarpley was named one of forty-three Louisiana delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention, meeting in Cleveland, Ohio.^[15]

References