John Clifford Ensminger, Sr. (born August 1934), is a State Farm Insurance agent in Monroe, Louisiana, who served for two decades in both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature. Ensminger was elected in 1972 as a conservative Democrat to the Louisiana House of Representatives from Ouachita Parish, now District 14. He succeeded James L. Dennis, who was elected as a judge of the Louisiana 4th Judicial District Court based in Monroe.
During the 1980-1984 term, Ensminger and the sergeant-at-arms, Richard L. Barrios, were compelled to grab a colleague, Shady R. Wall of West Monroe, when Wall pulled out a pistol from a boot holster during a fit of rage at Carl N. Gunter, Jr., of Rapides Parish, who had accidentally shut off Wall's conference ongoing telephone call with Wall's bank in Monroe.
In 1985, Ensminger switched to Republican affiliation, as did his colleague, the late Jock Scott of Alexandria. In 1987, in his first election as a Republican, he was forced into a general election with the Democrat Billy Daniel, whom he then defeated, 6,195 (57.4 percent) to 4,607 (42.6 percent). For a time, he was the chairman of the House Commerce Committee, with his friend Ron Gomez of Lafayette, serving as vice-chairman.
In 1991, Ensminger resigned his House seat after he won a special election to complete the remaining months in the term of State Senator Lawson Swearingen, a Democrat who left office to become the president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Ensminger won the special election with 10,799 votes (53.3 percent) over two Democrats, E. Frank Snellings (8,937 or 44.1 percent), and John H. Powell (524 or 2.7 percent). Snellings (born 1949) is the husband of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who was then the state treasurer. Thereafter, Ensminger did not seek a full term in the state Senate in the nonpartisan blanket primary held in October 1991. The seat, redistricted after the 1990 census, was then won by the Democrat Charles D. Jones.
Ensminger is the son of Rex William Ensminger (1901-1990) and Irma G. Ensminger (1904-1996) of Monroe. He has a son, John Ensminger, Jr. (born 1955), who is also in the insurance business.Two daughters, Susan Jenkins and husband Stephen and Paula Gandy and husband Thomas reside in Baton Rouge. Ensminger is a Presbyterian.
Ensminger graduated in 1952 from Neville High School in Monroe. Though he has left political office, he remains active in business. He is also a frequent donor to Republican candidates and party organizations. In 1998, however, he donated to Democratic U.S. Senator John Breaux, who won his final term by a wide margin over the Republican Jim Donelon, since the Louisiana insurance commissioner. In 2008, he donated to the campaign of his former House colleague, Woody Jenkins, the Baton Rouge Republican, who failed in a special election for the United States House of Representatives. Jenkins had been Mary Landrieu's Republican opponent in 1996.
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