When William J. Jefferson won election to the U.S. House
of Representatives in 1990 from a New Orleans-centered
district, he became the first African American to represent
Louisiana since Reconstruction. Jefferson, who had more
than a decade of experience in the Louisiana state senate,
specialized in economic matters and eventually earned a seat
on the influential Ways and Means Committee. Jefferson,
who grew up in poverty in rural Louisiana, ran for Congress
to help people from a similar background succeed. “I don’t
want to look back over my life,” he once told a reporter,
“and say that I could have been in a position to help some
other people have the chance that I had and my wife had.”1
William Jennings Jefferson was born on March 14,
1947, in Lake Providence, Louisiana, to Mose and Angeline
Jefferson. Jefferson grew up in a family of 10 children in the
far northeastern part of the state. Mose and Angeline owned
a small farm, and his father also worked for the Army Corps
of Engineers. William Jefferson often worked on other farms
to help support the family. His mother, the president of
the local Parent Teacher Association, emphasized education
for all her children. In 1969, he graduated from Southern
University, a historically Black university in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, with a bachelor’s degree. As an undergraduate,
Jefferson was a member of the Reserve Officer’s Training
Corps. He later served as an officer in the U.S. Navy’s Judge
Advocate General’s Corps. Three years later, on scholarship,
he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School. After law
school, he served for a year as a law clerk for U.S. District
Court Judge Alvin B. Rubin in New Orleans. From 1973
to 1975, Jefferson served as a legislative assistant to Senator
John Bennett Johnston Jr. of Louisiana. He also went
into private practice, cofounding his own law firm. In
1996, Jefferson earned a master of laws in taxation from
Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Jefferson
married Dr. Andrea Green-Jefferson, and they raised five
daughters: Jamila, Jalila, Jelani, Nailah, and Akilah.2
Jefferson entered politics in the late 1970s, when he
defeated a White incumbent for a Louisiana senate seat that
covered the affluent Uptown section of New Orleans. He
served in Baton Rouge for 12 years, working on the finance
committee and chairing the special budget stabilization
committee, which was created to rein in state spending and
develop more accurate revenue projections. He also chaired
the influential governmental affairs committee, which had
oversight of reapportionment. In 1982 and 1986, Jefferson
was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of New Orleans.3
In 1990, when 17-year House veteran Corinne Claiborne "Lindy” Boggs announced her retirement, Jefferson
entered a crowded field to succeed her. The congressional
district covered much of New Orleans proper, the Uptown
neighborhood, Algiers on the west bank of the Mississippi
River, and the sprawling Kenner suburbs on the city’s
west side. In 1983, court-ordered redistricting made it the
state’s first majority-Black district. Jefferson was one of four
principal contenders in the October open primary, which
included Marc H. Morial, son of former mayor Dutch
Morial, who served from 1978 to 1986 as the city’s first
African-American mayor; a state senator who had been
endorsed by the governor; and a prominent city school
board member. Jefferson finished first with 25 percent of
the vote, with Morial trailing at 22 percent. In the spirited
two-man November runoff, Jefferson prevailed with 53
percent of the vote. In his subsequent seven re-elections,
Jefferson won handily with 73 percent of the vote or more.4
When Jefferson was sworn into the House in the 102nd
Congress (1991–1993), he earned seats on the Education
and Labor and the Merchant Marine and Fisheries
Committees. In the following Congress, he relinquished
those assignments for a coveted spot on the Ways and
Means Committee. When the Republicans took control
of the chamber for the 104th Congress (1995–1997)
Jefferson lost his Ways and Means post and was transferred
to the National Security Committee, the House Oversight
Committee, and the Joint Committee on Printing. In the
next Congress, Jefferson again won an assignment to the
exclusive Ways and Means Committee, relinquishing his
prior assignments. He remained on Ways and Means until
June 2006, adding an assignment to the Budget Committee
in the 109th Congress (2005–2007). In the 110th
Congress (2007–2009), Jefferson was assigned to the Small
Business Committee. Jefferson also was a member of the
Congressional Black Caucus and served as the chair of the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation board of directors.5
In Congress, Jefferson specialized in trade and tax issues
important to the port of New Orleans where shipping is a
primary economic engine. Jefferson was a strong advocate
of free trade and at times split from Democrats and sided
with Republicans on trade issues. He voted for both the
North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and the
2000 legislation that normalized trade relations with China.
In 2001, Jefferson was one of three Democrats on the
Ways and Means Committee who voted to give President
George W. Bush the ability to fast track trade agreements
through Congress. Jefferson also advocated for trade
opportunities in neglected markets such as the Caribbean
and sub-Saharan Africa. In March 1998, Jefferson was
part of a delegation of lawmakers to travel with President
William J. Clinton to six African countries promoting trade
and democracy. Jefferson was one of the principal supporters
of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The legislation
sought to improve and expand trade between the United
States and sub-Saharan African countries by reducing tariffs
and promoting reciprocal trade agreements. Defending the
legislation, Jefferson told his colleagues: “We ought to treat
Africa the way we treat the rest of the world. There is no
reason to discriminate against that continent.” The African
Growth and Opportunity Act was eventually combined
with legislation creating new trade benefits for countries in
the Caribbean Basin. President Clinton signed the bill into
law in May 2000. Jefferson also served as co-chair of the
Africa Trade and Investment Caucus.6
In the wake of the devastating Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, which flooded New Orleans and its surrounding
environs in August and September 2005, Jefferson’s
legislative attention focused on aiding the recovery effort
in the Gulf region. In November 2005, Jefferson, from his
position on the Ways and Means Committee, successfully
shepherded the Gulf Opportunity Zone Public Finance Relief
Act of 2005 through the House; the legislation provided a tax
credit for Gulf states to fund bonds to help finance projects
rebuilding the region. Jefferson’s tax credit was included in
the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 which President
Bush signed in December 2005. Jefferson, a strong supporter
of the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act, explained on the House
Floor that the legislation would “provide the entrepreneurs of
the gulf coast a sturdy set of tools with which to jump start
our recovery.” Jefferson also pushed for reforms to the Small
Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan program, which
was criticized in the aftermath of the storm. The House also
passed Jefferson’s Disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility
Act that would have extended the deadline for minority-owned
businesses in his district to rebuild under the SBA’s
redevelopment program.7
In August 2005, the FBI raided Jefferson’s Washington,
DC, home following a months-long investigation into a
bribery scheme involving the Louisiana Representative and
a technology company. Based on evidence uncovered at his
home, the FBI later searched his congressional office—the
first time the FBI ever performed a search of a congressional
office. In June 2006, after the FBI made public the findings
of their investigation, Democrats stripped Jefferson of
his seat on the Ways and Means Committee. Despite the
FBI investigation, Jefferson was re-elected to a ninth term
against Democrat Karen Carter, with 57 percent of the vote
in November 2006. In June 2007, Jefferson was indicted
in a federal court in Virginia on 16 charges including
racketeering, money laundering, and bribery.8
In November 2008, Jefferson, who remained in the
House while awaiting trial, lost re-election by a margin of
50 to 47 percent of the vote to Republican Anh “Joseph”
Cao, the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress.
Jefferson’s term expired at the conclusion of the 110th
Congress on January 3, 2009. Later that year, a jury
found Jefferson guilty on 11 counts including bribery and
racketeering. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In
2017, Jefferson was released from prison after serving five
years. A federal judge overturned seven of the remaining 10
counts against him following an unrelated Supreme Court
decision regarding political corruption.9
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