Mary Loretta Landrieu ( LAN-drew; born November 23, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and politician who served as a United States senator from Louisiana from 1997 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, Landrieu served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 1988 to 1996, and in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1980 to 1988.
Landrieu came to national attention in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 after she publicly criticized the federal response to the natural disaster. Her opposition to the public option played a major role in the crafting of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, since she did not agree to support it until additional concessions were granted to support Louisiana's Medicaid system. In 2011, she became a cardinal (chair) of the Senate's Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. She chaired the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship from 2009 to 2014, and chaired the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 2014 to 2015.
Landrieu was defeated in her 2014 re-election campaign by Republican Bill Cassidy, with Cassidy triumphing in a runoff. As of 2026, Landrieu is the most recent Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate from Louisiana.
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Early life and education
Landrieu was born in Arlington County, Virginia, on November 23, 1955, and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the daughter of Moon Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans and U.S. secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the sister of Mitch Landrieu, who was a former mayor of New Orleans and Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. She was raised as Catholic.
She attended Ursuline Academy in New Orleans. While a student at Ursuline, Landrieu participated in the Close Up Washington civic education program.
In 1977, she graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, where she was a member of Delta Gamma sorority.
Career
After graduating from Louisiana State University, Landrieu worked as a real estate agent.
State legislature
Landrieu was first elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1979, serving from 1980 to 1988 and representing a New Orleans district. She was re-elected to the 90th district in October 1983 with 78% of the vote. In October 1987, she was succeeded in the 90th district by her brother Mitch.
On July 25, 1995, The Times-Picayune reported that, as a state representative, Landrieu awarded Tulane University tuition waivers to a former campaign manager.
State treasurer
On January 1, 1987, State Treasurer Mary Evelyn Parker, the longtime Democratic incumbent, resigned with nearly a year and a half left in her fifth term. Landrieu ran to succeed her in both the special and regularly scheduled elections, both held in October 1987. No Republican filed to run, so Landrieu faced only Democratic opponents. She came first on both ballots with 44%. She defeated two legislative colleagues, State Rep. Kevin Reilly Sr., chief executive officer of Lamar Advertising Company in Baton Rouge, who came second in the special and regular elections, with 33% and 32%, respectively, and State Rep. Buddy Leach, a former U.S. Representative, who came third in both elections with 15%. Tom Burbank, son of Thomas D. Burbank Sr., former head of the state police, came in last in both elections with 9% of the vote. Reilly decided not to contest a runoff election, known in Louisiana as a "general election", and Landrieu won the treasurer's position by default. In 1991, Landrieu was unopposed for re-election.
1995 gubernatorial election
Landrieu declined to run for a third term as Treasurer, giving up the office to run for governor in the 1995 election. The other major candidates in the race were Democratic U.S. Representative Cleo Fields; State Senator Murphy J. Foster, Jr., who switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican when he filed; Democratic attorney Phil Preis; Republican former Governor Buddy Roemer; and Democratic Lieutenant Governor Melinda Schwegmann. Landrieu finished third in the state's nonpartisan blanket primary with 18% of the vote, finishing 8,983 votes behind Fields, who came second with 19% of the vote. Roemer came fourth with 18%, Preis was fifth with 9% and Schwegmann came sixth with 5%. Foster came first with 26% and went on to defeat Fields in the runoff with 64% of the vote. Landrieu was succeeded as state treasurer by her fellow Democrat Ken Duncan, a Baton Rouge attorney and businessman.
U.S. Senate
Elections
Landrieu was elected in 1996 to the U.S. Senate seat previously held by John Bennett Johnston, Jr. of Shreveport after winning a close and controversial runoff election. (The runoff election is what other states would call "the general election" of a federal seat.) She defeated state Representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge. Landrieu narrowly won re-election in 2002. She defeated state Election Commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans. Some experts and pundits had considered Landrieu as a possible running mate for presidential candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election before he selected then-Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. In 2004 Landrieu became Louisiana's senior senator upon the retirement of John Breaux, who was succeeded by Republican David Vitter.
In 2008, she won a relatively comfortable 52% to 46% re-election to a third term in a race against her challenger, state Treasurer John Neely Kennedy. He was a former Democrat who switched to the Republican Party in 2007.
Landrieu sought re-election in 2014. Former President Bill Clinton campaigned on her behalf in Louisiana. While Landrieu garnered 42% of the vote she fell short of the 50.1% required for re-election. She was defeated in the December 6, 2014, runoff election by her Republican opponent, Congressman Bill Cassidy, by a 56% to 44% margin.
Tenure
In 2002, she voted for the Iraq Resolution, and in 2003 she issued a statement indicating that, "The time for diplomacy has ended." She voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
In 2005, Landrieu sponsored a resolution, which the Senate passed in an unprecedented action, to formally apologize for its repeated failure in the early twentieth century to pass anti-lynching legislation. The Senate Southern white Democrats had filibustered the Dyer bill in 1922 and two other bills that passed the House. She held high-profile hearings on the mistakes of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Subsequent to the 2006 mid-term elections, in which the Democratic Party gained control of both houses of Congress, Landrieu announced (along with Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine) the formation of the "Common Ground Coalition", a group of moderate senators of both parties, with the goal of finding bipartisan consensus on legislative matters.
Landrieu voted to raise the estate tax exemption to $5 million in 2008, but voted against repeal of the estate tax in 2006.
On December 15, 2008, it was announced that Landrieu would become chairwoman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee for the 111th Congress when former Chairman John Kerry left to lead the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, previously headed by Vice President-elect Joe Biden.
In September 2010, Landrieu announced she would hold up OMB director Jacob Lew’s confirmation until the administration lifted or eased a federal freeze on deepwater oil-and-gas drilling. Her delay of Lew's nomination came despite broad bipartisan support for appointing him to OMB. The Senate Budget Committee recommended that Lew be confirmed on a 22–1 vote.
According to The Washington Post, Landrieu "is one of the lawmakers leading for more natural gas exports".
On December 18, 2010, Landrieu voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In 2011, she became chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, giving her significant influence in the funding of federal agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. On April 17, 2013, Landrieu voted to expand background checks for gun purchases.
Committee assignments
Committee on Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government
Subcommittee on Homeland Security (Chair)
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs, and Related Agencies
Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (Chair)
Subcommittee on Energy
Subcommittee on National Parks
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery (Chair)
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Caucus memberships
Senate Oceans Caucus
Senate Natural Gas Caucus, co-chair
Congressional Coalition on Adoption, co-chair
Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, co-chair
Political positions
Landrieu was one of the more conservative Democrats in the U.S. Senate. The American Conservative Union rated Landrieu as 40% conservative in 2007, which was the highest score of any sitting Democrat and higher than the scores of two Republicans. In 2012, her lifetime rating is 21%, which is the-fourth highest rating among Democrats in the Senate. For 2012 votes, National Journal ranked Landrieu as the 47th-most conservative member of the Senate, while the Times-Picayune found that she voted in support of President Obama's positions 97% of the time.
Abortion
Landrieu supports abortion rights. She has a 100% rating from the pro-choice group NARAL and a 0% rating from the pro-life group Louisiana Right to Life Federation.
Energy
Landrieu voted to confirm Gina McCarthy as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Landrieu supports the Keystone Pipeline and called for President Barack Obama to approve its construction.
Guns
Landrieu had a "C" grade from the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) in 2013, and a "D" grade in 2014. The NRA-PVF endorsed her opponent, Bill Cassidy, in the 2014 Louisiana Senate race, running a specific attack campaign against Landrieu.
Internet sales tax
Landrieu voted for an Internet sales tax.
Affordable Care Act
Landrieu voted for the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). Critics claimed she withheld her vote until she had secured what is now referred to as the "Louisiana Purchase" originally for up to $300,000,000 in additional Medicaid funds to Louisiana, which, due to a typographical error in the healthcare bill, became an additional $4.3 billion for Louisiana's Medicaid program. Days later, Senator Landrieu took to the Senate floor to defend her vote by detailing the timeline of her Medicaid funding request. Landrieu noted her $300 million request was made before President Obama was sworn into office. When asked by reporters in 2013, Senator Landrieu said that she would vote for it again if she were given a chance.
Same-sex marriage
Landrieu personally supports same-sex marriage, but defended the state's constitutional ban on the grounds that a majority of Louisianans voted for it.
Personal life
Landrieu and her husband, attorney Frank Snellings, have two children, Connor and Mary Shannon, and one grandson, Maddox. In December 2014 Frank was the subject of an article in The Irish Times, having rediscovered his Irish family 44 years after he was adopted in Ireland by the Snellings family from Louisiana.
Honors and recognition
Landrieu was recognized by the Order Sons of Italy in America as the first woman of Italian-American heritage to become a US senator.
Electoral history
2014 Senate election
Bill Cassidy ran for the Senate in 2014 against three term incumbent Mary Landrieu. Cassidy was endorsed by Republican Senator David Vitter. Cassidy defeated Landrieu in the run-off election held on December 6, 2014, winning 56% of the vote while Landrieu received 44% of the vote. Cassidy thus became the first Republican to occupy the seat since William P. Kellogg left it in 1883.
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Post-Senate career
Landrieu is a Senior Policy Advisor for Van Ness Feldman, a DC Law Firm. She became a strategic adviser to the Walton Family Foundation in April 2015. Landrieu is also a member of the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In December 2018, Landrieu and a bipartisan group of former U.S. senators co-authored an opinion piece in The Washington Post urging the Senate to protect the Special Counsel Investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.