Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields announced Tuesday that he would run for Louisiana's revamped 6th Congressional District, a majority Black constituency that would have favored Joe Biden 59-39. But Fields, who previously served in the House from 1993 to 1997, is likely to face serious intra-party opposition, and his would-be foes already have a few avenues to attack him.
Fields' redistricting saga, which we detailed at length in a recent post, resulted in him winning a skinny Z-shaped constituency in 1992, a win that made him only the second African American to represent Louisiana since Reconstruction. Fields, who prevailed in a different seat in 1994, badly lost the following year's race for governor to Republican Mike Foster, and the Democrat retired in 1996 after the newest incarnation of his 4th District became unwinnable.
However, one of the most infamous moments of Fields' still unfolding career was still ahead of him. In 1997, the FBI recorded him meeting with former Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards and placing $20,000 in cash into his pockets. Edwards ultimately was convicted of extortion and money laundering in 2000, but Fields was never charged with anything.
Fields regained elected office later in 1997 by rejoining the state Senate, where he'd served before he was elected to Congress, and he represented Baton Rouge until he was termed out a decade later. He waged another bid to return to the chamber in 2019, but he faced renewed questions about his interaction with Edwards during his campaign against his fellow Democrat, state Rep. Patricia Smith. "If I had done something wrong or illegal, they would have indicted me," Fields said, to which his opponent responded, "It is up to the people on whether that is an answer they accept or do not accept."
Read More