Familiar face mounts low-key Senate race
Schwegmann touts integrity, experience
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
By Meghan Gordon
St. Tammany bureau
This is the last in a series of profiles on
candidates in the 6th District Senate race.
There was a time when John F. Schwegmann had access
to one of the most widely seen political endorsements in town:
countless grocery bags streaming out of his stores and into voters'
homes.
Those days are over, unlike Schwegmann's attempts at
politics.
A decade since he held public office and almost as
long since he ran the supermarket chain that bore the family name,
Schwegmann is campaigning for the 6th District seat in the state
Senate, to succeed the late John Hainkel.
He's expected to spend a fraction of what his
opponents put up for their television commercials and glossy
mailers. Instead, he has relied on getting his message out at
candidate forums and by occasionally walking neighborhoods with his
wife, Melinda, a former politician.
Schwegmann grew up around the family grocery
business started by his great-grandfather and later revolutionized
by his father, John G. Schwegmann. In 1979, the younger Schwegmann
bought the Schwegmann Brothers Giant Super Markets Corp., and in
1988, named himself chief executive officer.
Also following his father into politics, Schwegmann
won election to the Public Service Commission in 1981 and spent 15
years representing the 1st District.
But in what would become his final term on the
commission, the grocery chain began losing ground to competitors.
Schwegmann fought back with an expansion in 1995, but his buyout of
the National Tea Co. didn't boost the company's financial standing
as he had expected. Two years later, he sold the Schwegmann name to
Kohlberg & Co. while holding on to the real estate until the new
chain declared bankruptcy in 1999.
Schwegmann's turmoil didn't end with the chain's
demise, however.
Courts ordered him to pay more than $11 million in
judgments: one to his half-sister, who sued him for mishandling her
trust, and another to supermarket retirees who sued when their
monthly grocery vouchers ended.
Schwegmann casts himself as a brother and employer
who had the utmost concern for those who eventually sued him.
"If there was ever a case to illustrate that no good
deed goes unpunished, with all modesty, then this is that case," he
said of the retirees' complaint.
Jefferson Parish Clerk of Court
Jon Gegenheimer, a longtime
friend who represented Schwegmann in the retirees' suit, said
Schwegmann extended a gratuity of $216 monthly food vouchers that
weren't designed as pensions. A federal judge saw it otherwise,
awarding the retirees $5.4 million.
Just as he characterizes the lawsuits as punishment
for years of hard work and goodwill, Schwegmann said he lost his
Public Service Commission seat to Jay Blossman in 1996 when his
record was overshadowed by unfounded claims by his opponent.
He ran unsuccessfully for the commission again in
1998 and 2002. And he's using many of the same issues in his bid for
the Senate, including a plank that he never knowingly accepted
campaign contributions from companies regulated by the commission.
A deliberate speaker, Schwegmann's nuanced answers
at forums are often cut short -- something that leaves his wife
squirming in her seat.
Melinda Schwegmann, lieutenant governor from 1992 to
1996 and state representative from 1997 to 2004, said that while
it's a shame audiences don't get to hear her husband's complete
thoughts on the topics, the answers are accurate illustrations of
how he approaches every decision.
"He's not there with all of these tight, prepared
answers that he's memorized and is ready to spit out," she said.
"Each and every issue, he's going to give a lot of thought to."
Another detail that takes Schwegmann a long preface
to spit out is that he donated his Public Service Commission salary
to charities each year. It's with the same modesty that he conceded
possible defeat well before Saturday's election.
"If I can't win, then I hope that someone with
integrity and a wide variety of experience does win," he said.
